Fresh from the Elemis herd of gold plated cows...or maybe not. (Elemis Skin Nourishing Milk Bath)

Member Name: k4ssie

Product:	Elemis Skin Nourishing Milk Bath
Date:	09/06/09 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Doesn't actually dry skin; that's about it

Disadvantages: Doesn't do anything else either

Elemis Skin Nourishing Milk Bath is one of those products where i seem to be on a different planet to the rest of the world.

I've had two bottles of this now, about 3 years apart. Both of them were basically freebies: the first (large) bottle was a free gift with a magazine subscription, then i received a smaller bottle as part of a gift set last christmas. This is relevant because even having not paid a penny for the product, i was still underwhelmed by it. If i'd paid full RRP (not much short of £40 for the 400ml bottle), i think i'd have been hopping mad.

Elemis say that this bath includes Milk proteins with vitamins, amino acids and minerals, making it especially suitable for sensitive or very dry skin. (As an aside, and going back to the cost factor - there's not much else in this by way of active ingredients. What are they using - gold plated cows? Milk isn't exactly expensive, so how does this end up costing as much as it does??!)

Anyway, the first time i tried this, my expectations were high - i have moderately dry skin which means i have to moisturise thoroughly when i get out of the bath, so i was hoping that this product would allow me to collapse ready-moisturised straight into bed.

The first surprise was the amount you need to use per bath. If i'm using any old bog standard bath cream, i tend to chuck in a very generous amount, but usually with "salon" type brands a little goes a lot further - one of the ways we justify the high costs to ourselves. Not with this one - the instructions say to use 5 capfuls, which means not all that many baths to the pot.

Second was that this product doesn't really smell of anything - maybe just faintly like a moisturiser, like the original oil of olay or astral or something. I guess that's because of the sensitive skin thing, but it does make the bath less enjoyable. It also doesn't foam, just turns the water milky, so you're basically lying in a pool of unscented milky water.

I'd have forgiven all of this if my skin was glowing, plump and hydrated when i got out, but i'm afraid it really wasn't. I couldn't tell any difference between bathing in this and the supermarket brands i normally use (things like the Palmolive milk & honey sensitive skin bath, which is about 99p for a lot more!). I still felt as if i needed to moisturise, and of course my skin wasn't nicely scented or anything, so all in all i struggle to find any point to this product at all. On subsequent occasions i tried increasing the amount of soak i used, because we do have quite hard water in our area and i thought this might be affecting the results, but it made no difference.

I still have half of the small bottle on my bathroom shelf six months later - that's how indifferent i am to it, i'm using my supermarket honey & almond bath in preference to this. I know lots of people love this product, so i just don't know what i'm missing - all i can say is, at forty quid a pop, try and get a sample before committing, to see if it works for you!

Summary: Try to sample before you buy