Oriflame Skin Care Review

What is Oriflame?

Oriflame is a Swedish beauty brand that believes when you look and feel good you have the opportunity to reach your full potential. The brand was founded in 1967 by two brothers, Jonas and Robert af Jochnick, and their friend, Bengt Hellsten, who wanted to give people the opportunity to benefit from high quality beauty products inspired by Swedish nature. The first product range initially consisted of skin creams, lipstick, and mascara. The business model was set up to be direct selling, but instead of at-home parties, Oriflame focused more on catalogue and one-to-one selling.

Today, Oriflame is present in over 60 markets with over 3 million independent Brand Partners who share, promote, and sell their beauty products. With a robust selection of over 1,000 beauty products, Oriflame has every area and aspect of beauty covered from skincare to bath and body to hair care to fragrance, with each division carrying a substantial amount of options between them. In this review, we’ll focus on the brand’s best selling skin care products, key ingredients, Oriflame reviews from real customers, and more.

What Are The Top 5 Best Selling Oriflame Skin Care Products?

The Oriflame skin care collection consists of a wide variety of products for every step of your skin care routine, including cleansers, toners, moisturizers, eye care, lip care, masks, serums, treatments, sun care, and more. Let’s take a closer look at the top 5 best selling Oriflame skin care products.

Tender Care Protecting Balm
One of the most popular Oriflame skin care products is the Tender Care Protecting Balm. In fact, this is not just a skin care product, but also a lip and body care product, too. It is a nourishing balm that protects the skin while helping it to feel soft and smooth. Oriflame Tender Care Protecting Balm can be used all over the face, body, and lips.

Pure Skin Spot SOS Gel Deep Action
Oriflame Pure Skin Spot SOS Gel Deep Action is formulated to target blemishes and prevent them from worsening. The main ingredient in this spot treatment is denatured alcohol, a very drying alcohol. While denatured alcohol will help to dry out a blemish, it can lead to excessive dryness, irritation, and even skin damage.

Pure Skin Blackhead Clearing Mask
Oriflame Pure Skin Blackhead Clearing Mask is a basic clay mask formulated with kaolin and bentonite clay. These clays are highly absorbent and can help to clear blackheads by drawing out oil and dirt.

Optimals Even Out Day Cream
Oriflame Optimals Even Out Day Cream is a hydrating day cream that contains chemical sunscreen ingredients to provide SPF 20 protection. The brand claims that ingredients like meadowsweet, gooseberry, and cranberry seed oil are key ingredients. However, as you’ll learn in the next section, these “key” ingredients are used in very low concentrations.

Optimal Even Out Replenishing Night Cream
Oriflame Optimal Even Out Night Cream is a rich night cream that is claimed to reduce the appearance of dark spots, help prevent future dark spots, and promote a more radiant and even complexion. However, 99% of this night cream is composed of silicones and synthetic emollients. The “key” ingredients are used in very low concentrations, so they most likely aren’t going to provide benefits to your skin.

What Are The Key Ingredients in Oriflame Skin Care?

Before we get into the key ingredients that you’ll find in Oriflame skin care products, we’d first like to point out that the brand claims certain “key” ingredients are used in their products when these ingredients are actually used in very low concentrations. One example is the Oriflame Optimals Even Out Replenishing Night Cream. The key ingredients meadowsweet, gooseberry, and rosehip seed oil are used in concentrations of less than 1%. We know this by looking at the ingredient list (which is in order of descending concentrations). All of these ingredients are listed after the preservative phenoxyethanol, which cannot be used in concentrations more than 1%.

So if the brand uses low concentrations of the beneficial ingredients, what can you expect to find in Oriflame skin care products? Well, we noticed that most of the Oriflame skin care products contain high concentrations of silicones. There’s nothing wrong with using silicones in skin care. In fact, they can provide several benefits. What we don’t like is that the brand tries to make it seem as though botanical extracts are the key ingredients in the Oriflame skin care products, when in reality most of the formula is composed of silicones. We think this is pretty misleading!

The main function of silicones in skin care is to improve a product’s spreadability while imparting a silky, smooth skin feel. After topical application, silicones form a protective covering on the skin that provides both water-binding and water-resistant properties. The water-binding portion of the molecule is the highly flexible and mobile siloxane backbone, which binds to moisture in the air and holds it to the skin. This backbone also allows the water-repelling methyl groups to orient themselves toward the surface, creating a waterproof “umbrella” that prevents trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL). Furthermore, the smooth, even base that is formed helps other beneficial ingredients traverse through it to the skin more easily as well as prevent contact with potentially irritating ingredients.

If you have acne-prone skin, you may want to avoid products with high concentrations of silicones. According to Healthline silicones can act as a ‘barrier’ and trap oil, dirt, and dead skin cells, making acne worse. Therefore, the Oriflame skin care products with high concentrations of silicones may not be the best choice for those with acne-prone skin.

Another problem with Oriflame skin care products is their use of synthetic fragrance blends (parfum) is nearly all of their products. So why is fragrance a problem in skincare? Well, we understand that consumers typically want their products to smell pleasant. However, fragrance isn’t doing the skin any good. All fragrance ingredients (whether natural or synthetic) impart scent through a volatile reaction, and this natural reaction almost always causes a sensitizing reaction on skin. Even if you don’t have a full blown reaction to the ingredient, the damage may still be occurring every day. Ultimately, this can cause mild problems for your skin in the short term and worse problems in the long term.

Where is Oriflame Skin Care Sold?

Oriflame is sold on the brand’s website in many countries around the world, however, Oriflame does not have a website for the United States. If you live in the United States, you can still purchase Oriflame skin care products through third party online retailers, such as Amazon and Ebay.

What is The Oriflame Return Policy?

The Oriflame return policy states, “We are proud to offer a 30-day money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with one of our products, you can always return it to us. If you have purchased a product from an independent Brand Partner, you should contact them and they will handle your return.”

Is Oriflame Cruelty Free?

Oriflame is not cruelty free because Oriflame skin care products are sold in mainland China where animal testing is required by law. The brand’s animal testing policy states, “Oriflame does not conduct or request animal testing to substantiate the safety or efficacy of any of its products or ingredients at any stage of the product development process. Oriflame must abide by the laws and regulations of the countries in which it operates and some countries require test data gained through animal testing in order to legally register the products in that market. Where we cannot do so, we must reluctantly submit the products for additional testing, which may include animal testing.”

Oriflame Reviews

Oriflame reviews are mostly positive, with the products receiving mostly 4 and 5 star ratings. The product with the most reviews is the Oriflame Tender Care Protecting Balm. There are many Oriflame reviews for this product claiming that it helps with all types of ailments, from chapped lips to dry skin and more. For example, one review says, “I’ve been using this for many years, it’s the first thing I reach for when I have a cold because it protects my nose from becoming chapped with all the blowing. It is also the only moisturising product I have ever used which doesn’t make my eyes water or sting. The agent I first bought it from showed me how to just dab it around the eye area and let the warmth of my skin allow it to spread, yet it never seems to get into my eyes. Great if you don’t need to moisturise your whole face, I just do eyes and lips.”

However, there are several negative Oriflame reviews for the Tender Care Protecting Balm from customers who weren’t very impressed with this product, especially for the price. For example, one review says, “It is good but costly and moreover like petroleum jelly.” This review is pretty accurate since the main ingredient in Oriflame Tender Care Protecting Balm is petrolatum (the same ingredient used in Vaseline petroleum jelly).

References:
Healthline “6 Reasons Why People Avoid Silicones in Skin Care”