I have been a big fan of the Malin + Goetz Grapefruit Cleanser for a while now.  I have also tried their fragrances and fell in love with the fig scent.  I am also oddly partial to their scented candles. Especially the dark rum.  There is something warm and comforting about the scent. Which comforting isn’t usually how i describe rum, but it works with the candle.

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Either way I like it and this post is not about the candles, its about the recovery treatment oil. Although I should have reordered a candle when I put in my order for the grapefruit cleanser, which luckily I did before the whole bank catastrophe of Tuesday.

But again, on to the recovery oil.

This was a new to me product, mostly because I just tend to forget oils when thinking of my skin care. I do find that in general oils, for me, fall into a good or bad category.  At least where my skin is concerned (a really good product can be great on someone else and bad on me and visa versa). I very rarely am ambivalent to an oil.  I almost never say, it’s okay.  It really is either a solid good or a solid bad.

So let’s look at this recovery treatment oil shall we and find out which category it belongs to.

Our botanical oil treatment absorbs quickly to nourish skin and help improve appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Evening primrose, argan and jojoba oils help boost hydration. Grapeseed and rosehip oils deliver vitamins C and E to help improve skin tone. Geranium and borage oils help balance skin. Suitable for all skin types, including sensitive. Natural fragrance and color.

Ingredients: Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Isononyl Isononanoate, Squalane, Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil, Borago Officinalis Seed Oil, Camellia Oleifera Seed Oil, Oenothera Biennies (Evening Primrose) Oil, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Rose Canina Fruit Oil, Simmondsia Chinesis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopherol, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Geranium Maculatom Oil, Lavandula Augustifola (Lavender) Oil, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Peel Extract, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Pelargonium Graveolens Extract, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Peel Extract, Cymbopogon Martini Oil, Geranium Maculatum Extract, Lavandula Augustifolia (Lavender) Flower/Leaf/Stem Extract, Mentha Viridis (Spearmint) Extract, Citrus Grandis (Grapefruit) Fruit Extract, Rose Extract, Citral, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene, Linalool.

malin+goetz website

Okay, I’m not going to keep you in suspense.  I loved this oil. It really shouldn’t be a surprise.  While I mostly use argan oil on my hair, my hair adores it so I don’t see why my skin wouldn’t like it’s own does.  Jojoba always does well with me and if you look into the ingredients list you will see Squalane is pretty high up on the ingredients list.  I’m a big fan of squalene.

And yes, when I first came across it, I looked it up.  The modern squalene is plant derived and not taken from shark’s livers as it once was long ago. In fact I couldn’t find a single product currently on the market where shark’s livers are the source of squalane. In case you are wondering, it is like the anti-eco friendly product search and messed up my automatic ads for weeks afterwards.

And yet even knowing this as soon as I see squalane on an ingredients list the theme from Jaws plays in my head. Just so you know the theme song for this post.

Still we press on, theme song and all.

The oil is clear although on the website it does say that it can darken with age and the darkening doesn’t affect if efficacy. Which is nice. You also need to keep it away from heat and sunlight, hence the very nice blue glass bottle it comes in. 

When opening it, the oil has a light herbal scent to it.  I can’t pick out any one herbal note, but it smells more like I’ve just walked into a room where multiple varieties of fresh herbs have just been brought in and hung up to dry in a place that has been used to dry herbs for decades. One of my grandmothers had a room like that off of the back porch where she dried herbs for both cooking and herbal teas, although hers leaned heavily towards mint, which this doesn’t.

I really liked the scent.

Three drops are all that is needed and all that you really need to use. More is just going to take longer to absorb and make you feel like you are wasting product.  Unless your skin is significantly drier than mine.

I have been using this oil for about a month now and because I only use three drops per application it still looks almost full.  I think it will take a while to get through.  Which is fine with me.  Although it does mean there may be a second review posted of this product after the seasons change.

Because I have noticed my use is contingent on my activity and the weather.  Here’s the thing.  The first week I started to use it, I applied the oil am and pm with my other skin care as directed. It felt georgous on the skin and absorbed quickly.  There were no additional break outs and no issues.  My skin looked and felt great. However I like to give the different elements of my skin care time to absorb before layering the next item on.

I’m a big believer in multi-product skin care.

At the moment we have a really high humidity where I am.  In the mornings there were some days where the oil took a little longer to absorb than others.  On these days I could almost guarantee that the humidity would be over 80%. There have been a lot of those days in the past month. So in the interest of my morning routine not taking forever to get through, I stopped using the oil in the morning and only used it at night.

It was fantastic at night.  My skin soaked in every drop of the three I applied and it really felt as though it was helping my skin recover from the day.  It really helped lock in the moisture from my pother products and I found that using it at night meant I could use my regular moisturizer rather than use a separate night cream.

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I actually did a little test for a week mid month.  When I did the exact same out door activities for three days running (the fourth day it poured buckets of rain so I had to be content with three).  During those three days I didn’t use the oil and I needed my night cream every night.  After the rain stopped I repeated the experiment only using the oil.  On those nights, I didn’t need the night cream, just my regular moisturizer.

I know it isn’t massively scientific, but it did prove to me that it was helping to lock moisture into my skin.  And yes, I can see an improvement in my skin tone and texture.

So to the final question, is this oil worth the $82 price tag? Yes.

It is a steep price, but as you only need three drops per application, it will last a really long time. While it is something I will repurchase, I know that it is a product I won’t need to repurchase for a while.  If kept out of sunlight and tightly capped, it will last a really long time without going bad as well.  Oils tend to be like that.  Keep them away from air, heat and light and you are good.

And to be honest I am really looking forward to using this oil through the winter.  I really liked it as a post sun treatment for my skin.  I can’t wait to see what it does when my skin becomes winter dry.  My prediction is that I will go from using it once a day to slowly starting to use it both am and pm. That is what I think will happen.  I’m sure I’ll find out. And while I do have a lot of seasonal skin care, I really like the thought of having one steady product that I can use throughout the year without swapping out. I personally don’t have a lot of those in my routine.  It is nice to have something that I know I am going to be able to use throughout the year, even if how I use it changes with the seasons.

This is the fourth product I’ve used from Malin+Goetz and so far they are four and oh with the Recovery oil being the fourth product i’ve tried and the fourth product I’ve re ordered. I have to say I am curious as to how the dark rum scented candle I like so much works as a perfume. I think it would be really nice in the colder months. Kind of warm and cuddly. The leather scented eau d parfum interests me as well. I may have to see if those are in the samples they give free with purchase when I order my dark rum candles for the fall because I think I’d want to try those out before committing to a full sized purchase. Of course I also want to try more of their skin care products (I just get distracted by the thought of new fragrances to try, it is one of my weaknesses).

Skin care or perfume, decisions decisions. Either way, I suspect there will be more Malin+Goetz reviews in the near future.