Review: Badger Damascus Rose Antioxidant Face Oil

Badger is a brand that is probably best known for its very popular Badger Balm. A few months ago, I was sent an assortment of Badger products for review and today I'd like to show you a product that's stolen my heart:

 Badger Damascus Rose Antioxidant Face Oil

(retail: $11.99, 1.0 oz)

All ingredients in this product are USDA certified organic and Badger is cruelty-free as well. The Badger website contains lots of great info about the company and its philosophy. If you're interested in knowing more, please take a minute to read this excerpt from the website (it's quite informative and interesting):

Badger is a small, family-owned & family-friendly company nestled on the banks of the Ashuelot River in rural Gilsum, New Hampshire. We blend organic plant extracts, exotic oils and butters and beeswax, and make healing balms, lip balms, safe mineral sunscreens and other personal care products that work and feel remarkably good. Badger products are uniquely formulated blends of the finest organic ingredients available anywhere in the world. Our Philosophy of Formulation is simple: make products for people we love, and then share them with the world. We combine years of tradition, research, and lots of love to create products that work as well as you expect them to.

We hold every single ingredient to the "Badger Natural Standard", a rigorous look at the growth, sustainability, and supply chain of each ingredient we use. That means that when you use Badger products, you can be sure that you are using the purest, most natural products available. And because the USDA Organic Certification is a food-grade standard, our ingredients are even pure enough to eat! Badger's USDA Certified Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil comes from a single estate in Southern Spain, and that very same Olive Oil is used by Michelin Star-winning chefs in France and Spain! In fact, all of the Badgers eat the very same Olive Oil in Badger's organic lunches, and many of us purchase it to use in our home kitchens. And of course, we use only the finest, Organic EVOO purest essential oils from the far corners of the globe. One example is the Organic Rose Oil (Rosa Damascena) that comes from Bulgaria - the blossoms are hand picked before dawn and steam-distilled the very same day. It takes about 5 tons of fresh rose blossoms to make one liter of oil, and Badger pays over $4,000 per liter for that precious stuff!

Reading the info above makes me really appreciate the fact that Badger sells this product for just $11.99 per bottle. Moving on...

There are four products in the Badger Rose Damascus Beauty Line and you can see the entire line here. This line was created for "dry, mature or combination skin" and it's described as "Antioxidant and Nutrient-Rich Care to Moisturize & Restore".

 

The bottle:

I appreciate that the "best by" date is clearly marked on the bottle of the bottle:

Yay for pump applicators:

So let's get to how this product has been working for me. First off, as you can see, this is an oil. It's got a rich, golden amber color and the fragrance is absolutely beautiful (it's a wonderful blend of rose, lavender and chamomile):

If you have never applied pure oil to your face, it does take some getting used to. I have very oily skin, and it feels counter-intuitive to rub MORE oil directly onto my skin. But trust me when I say that you do not feel like a giant greaseball after this product absorbs into the skin. Yes, it's extremely moisturizing, but my face does not feel like an oil slick when I use this product. In fact, when I apply it before bed, in the morning when I wake up my skin feels LESS oily than it usually does. I'm sure that probably has something to do with the fact that my skin doesn't feel like it needs to overproduce oil since I'm keeping it so hydrated, but more on that in a bit.

Given that this product contains nothing but pure oils, it's not something I can put on in the morning and wear under makeup. I tried it once, and my makeup slid around on my face during application. So if you have oily skin, I would suggest using this product only at nighttime, before bed. However, if you have dry or combo skin, you might very well be able to wear this under makeup. 

I've been applying this product every night before bed for the past several weeks, and it has not caused me any additional breakouts (I always break out in a few places during that time of the month, but this product hasn't made things any different or worse). What I HAVE noticed is that my skin feels more hydrated, but less oily. Like I mentioned a few paragraphs above, it's as if my skin has stopped overproducing oil (which it tends to do when I'm trying to strip it of all excess oils). Now that I'm adding oil to my face, I feel like my skin is literally saying, "THANK YOU, woman! I can take a break now!" 

I also feel like my skin looks/feels a tiny bit more "plump" and also a bit more even. Nothing terribly dramatic, but I did want to note that I feel a slight improvement in those two areas. Hey, any improvement is nice when you're in your early 40s!

FINAL VERDICT:  I know this product was designed to moisturize dry, mature and combo skin, and I do think it would work beautifully for those skin types. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it works beautifully to hydrate my oily skin when worn exclusively at night. During the day, this product is a bit too much for my skin type, but at night it's become a lovely ritual for me, and I think it's well worth the price tag. It smells divine to boot, and it's chock full of lovely, organic ingredients. I think it's truly a win-win.

You can find Badger products at Ulta, Whole Foods, Cracker Barrel and lots of other retail locations. Click here for a store locator or to order online. In the coming weeks, I'll be reviewing several other Badger products, so please check back soon if you're interested.

In the meantime, do you own any products from Badger? Do you think this face oil might be a good fit for you?

A sample of this product was given to Nouveau Cheap for editorial purposes, either directly from the manufacturer or from the agency that works on behalf of the manufacturer. All reviews on NouveauCheap.blogspot.com are the honest opinion of its author and editorial samples do not, in any way, affect the outcome of product reviews.