I got this little guy in one of my Lookfantastic beauty boxes, but I used some of it just now, because I tend to save my travel-sized cosmetics so I can take them with me on vacation.

Gatineau is a French cosmetics brand that is known mostly in salons. Jeanne Gatineau was a beautician in Paris and she opened her first beauty salon in 1932. Then, in 1950 she opened her first beauty school, and after that, with the help of dermatologists and biochemists, she created a line of beauty products that her clients could also use at home. Most of the products are anti-aging products, since this is the main concern of most of Gatineau’s clients. So yeah, I’m a sucker for fancy French skin care, so I was excited to try this out.

Packaging:

This face cream is available in 3 different sizes: 75 ml, 30 ml and 15 ml tubes. They are all blue, which seems to be the preferred color for hydrating beauty products, as far as I can tell. I have the middle size, the 30 ml one, which for me is what I would consider a “travel size”.

Texture:

The face cream does feel almost like a gel, so it’s light weight, but it is potent, so you don’t need much to have plump and soft skin.

Ingredients:

Aqua/​Water/​Eau, Glycerin, Caprylic/​Capric Triglyceride, Isononyl Isononanoate, Hydroxyethyl Acrylate/​Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer, 1,2-Hexanediol, Butylene Glycol, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Caprylyl Glycol, Cetearyl Alcohol, Citric Acid, Codium Tomentosum Extract, Disodium EDTA, Ethylhexylglycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, Hydrolyzed Opuntia Ficus-Indica Flower Extract, Maris Sal/​Sea Salt/​Sel Marin, Phenethyl Alcohol, Polysorbate 60, Sodium Carrageenan, Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate, Sorbitan Isostearate, Tocopherol, Xanthan Gum, Parfum (Fragrance), Citronellol, Limonene, Linalool, Chlorphenesin, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Benzoate, Red 33 (Ci 17200)

The key ingredients are vitamin E, shea butter, barbary fig extract, velvet seaweed extract and red seaweed extract complex. For me, anything with seaweed, algae or other marine ingredients is good in my book, because I had good experiences on my skin with these types of ingredients.

Price and accessibility:

Gatineau products are not widely available in Romania, so far I’ve seen them only on the Lookfantastic website. The 30 ml tube is sold for 18 UK pounds on the brand’s online shop. It’s not an affordable face cream, but it’s also not one of the most expensive I have used.

My overall opinion:

This is a basic hydrating face cream that has the great quality of being suitable for all skin types. I think it could work well on dry skin as well, but I had no problems using this on my combination skin. It does the job, the skin feel so smooth and plump after using it and, like all face creams that are good at hydrating the skin, it helps with the fine lines. I personally wouldn’t pay the price for just a 30 ml tube because I know there are just as good face creams out there that are less expensive. But other than that, I do think it’s a very nice hydrating face cream.