Origins of the Species

Origins is a brand I often mean to write about, because I've read tons of great reports about all sorts of Origins products - the Modern Friction exfoliator, the Andrew Weil mushroom range and the White Tea stuff. It seems to me to be fairly similar in ethos to Aveda - lovely products made from natural goodies, and pretty pricey with it.

I'd actually never tried any of their stuff myself, so en route to London a few weeks ago I splurged and bought a few things in the Airport (oh sing hosannas for Dublin Airport Shopping), one of which was the A Perfect World antioxidant moisturiser with white tea. No SPF, but I bought it anyway.

The packaging - I'm not gone on it. It's slightly cheap, and I don't really get why a brand like Origins use frosted glass-effect plastic when they could actually use frosted glass - it's way nicer, in keeping with the brand, and more environmentally kind too, I'd have thought. Packaging aside, the cream smells divine. I mean, divine. Gorgeous. Sweet and delicately orange-y, it's also a lovely consistency and glides on to your skin.

But this is when it all started to go wrong - it does that gross thing, the thing I cannot abide of all things - it peels back off your face in dirty chunks. Yuck. And as a moisturiser - well, it just doesn't. I'm not usually prone to dry or tight skin, but this stuff just does not do it for me - during the couple of weeks I used it, I was constantly concious that my skin was dry and not hydrated enough. And that's just no good - especially not if you're over 30, and any sort of dehydration shows on your face.

I'm disappointed that I'm disappointed in it - I wanted so much to love it, but I just don't. The other Origins things I bought are still under test and my verdicts will be unleashed in due course!