I’ve known about the brand Vaseline since the golden era of YouTube beauty gurus (remember those good old times) but the products were not available in Romania at the time. Now, since this year, as far as I can tell, the products are also available here so of course I wanted to see what all the fuss was about so I started with a body lotion.

All the way back to 1859, a 22-year old chemist named Robert Augustus Chesebrough traveled to Titus, Pennsylvania and learned about a waxy ingredient rich in mineral that had skin-repairing properties. He brought the substance back to his lab in Brooklyn and began experimenting and formulating in the hope of creating a product good for skin healing. In 1865, he patented his purification method.

In 1870, the Vaseline brand was born and a factory was opened in Brooklyn. In just a few years, the Vaseline Jelly was sold all throughout the United States of America. It was used for everything, from treating diaper rashes to relieving dry, chapped skin. It became so popular, that even soldiers in the First World War would have some handy tubes of Vaseline Jelly with them.

The Vaseline Intensive Care body lotion was launched in 1968, for dry skin and as an after-sun moisturizer. In the 1980’s the brand extended its product range with a hand cream and a lip balm. After that, the product range has increased, but they’re still mostly known for the classic all-purpose Vaseline jars, for body lotions and lip products.

I tried the body lotion first and I must say I now know what all the hype is about.

Packaging:

The body lotion comes in a plastic bottle that contains 300 ml. There bottles have different colors because there are several body lotions available, depending on the complementary ingredient used together with the petroleum jelly.

Texture:

This body lotion has a thick consistency and a very light brown color. It smells delicious, like a cocoa pudding.

As you can seem, the skin does look ”radiant”, hence it has a little bit of glow, but it doesn’t feel oily at all and the lotion absorbs fast into the skin.

Ingredients:

Aqua, Petrolatum, Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycol Stearate, Dimethicone, Triethanolamine, Glyceryl Stearate, Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter, Cetyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Parfum, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Carbomer, Propylparaben, Stearamide AMP, Disodium EDTA, Caramel, Maltodextrin, Coumarin, Geraniol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hydroxycitronellal, Linalool.

The key ingredients in this formula are petrolatum (petroleum jelly), shea butter and cocoa seed butter. Petroleum jelly helps with skin recovery and it’s great for locking in moisture, so that’s why it’s great for dry skin (but I don’t think it’s limited to dry skin only). Cocoa butter is nourishing and give the skin a natural glow. Shea butter has soothing and anti-aging properties.

Price and accessibility:

Vaseline products are available in several online shops, in DM stores and sometimes in supermarkets (there have been limited quantities available at Lidl stores, for example). I got this body lotion from DM for about 4 euros, which is an excellent price for a good body lotion.

My overall opinion:

I always say ”If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. The same goes for staple beauty products that have proven themselves worthy through decades on the market. I understand that beauty companies try to come up with all kinds of new ingredients and biotech is a thing now, but sometimes you just have to go back to what it works. Plus, old fashioned products are usually affordable. I’m even thinking of tracking down some vintage beauty products that are still available today and put them to the test.

I love this body lotion because it does moisturize the skin, it doesn’t feel oily and it smells nice. I for one am very happy with it and I will certainly try the classic Vaseline and the lip balms because they may have be on to something with the way they’re putting good old petroleum jelly to use.