Not my favourite Olay product (Oil of Olay Eye Contour Gel)

Member Name: dancingfish

Product:	Oil of Olay Eye Contour Gel
Date:	27/11/02 (807 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: refreshes your eyes, fragrance free

Disadvantages: don't like the way it is packaged in a jar, price

Yes, I'm writing another Olay review - anyone would think I had shares in the company, but no, I just use a lot of their products. Now that I'm in my 30s I find myself trying more and more products in an attempt to preserve the youthful qualities of my skin. I guess it's just a sign of my age and it goes hand in hand with the way I've started to listen to Radio 2 with increasing frequency.

Up to now I've always been very satisfied with any Olay product that I've tried. Pardon the plug, but if you were to read my glowing reviews of their moisturiser and night cream you'd see what I meant. However, this eye contour gel just doesn't live up to many of the other Olay products.

Before I go on to tell you what I don't like about it, lets start with the facts. If you buy
Olay's Eye Contour Gel from the usual high street retailers it will cost you £7.99 for 15 ml. I actually bought mine from a discount toiletries store for £3.50 but few people will have access to it at this price. At the recommended price of £7.99 it seems rather expensive. However, as it is only meant to be applied around the eyes a little goes a long way and a pot should last a good few months. The product is a colourless, grease-free and fragrance-free gel contained in a small glass pot. While it looks quite attractive on a bathroom shelf, I'm not overly enthralled with this method of packaging an eye gel for reasons that I will describe later.

The product contains extracts of witch hazel and cucumber and Olay claims "helps revitalise the skin around the delicate eye area diminishing dark circles and puffiness". To be fair, I find its revitalising properties quite good. If applied first thing in the morning it really helps my eyes to wake up. I imagine that it would also feel quite soothing if you suffered from sore eyes and puffiness, which I don't. However it has not had the slightest detectable impact on the shad
ows under my eyes even thought mine are not really a problem. Olay also claims that the gel "reduces fine lines". Again, I've not noticed any impact on the fine lines around my eyes after using this product for about a month.

But now back to why I don't like the way that the gel is packaged in a jar. Well, the area around the eye is very prone to infection. Being a biological scientist, I know that we all carry bacteria on our fingertips. By putting your finger into a jar of gel there is always the risk that the contents of the jar could become contaminated by such bugs. It seems to me that this does carry a considerable risk of introducing infection to the eyes. I guess that there may be ingredients in the gel that would stop bugs growing but all the same I would be happier if the gel came in a tube or some other form of dispenser that didn't involve dipping your fingers into the pot. With a face cream that is applied to the surface of the skin, infection would not be a problem but around the eyes I'm not 100% comfortable.

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