Review: Weleda Skin Food

Elbows and knees are some of the trickiest spots to keep soft. Between winter weather and summer heat waves, they often get dry and flaky. Sometimes, they need a little TLC. That's where products like Weleda's Skin Food come in. It is specifically designed for dry and rough skin.

Pros:

• Lovely scent
• Recyclable packaging
• Very hydrating
• Great for elbows and knees
• Sold in retail stores

Cons:

• Can be a bit intense for daytime

Summary:
This moisturizer was very hydrating, so a little goes a long way. It definitely helped to soften rough spots on my skin. However, it is fairly intense, so I wouldn't recommend using it as a daytime hand lotion, but it's a good night treatment. I was disappointed to see that this rated a moderate 6 on EWG's Skin Deep scale. This was due to the use of fragrance (there is no fragrance-free version available) as well as other ingredients, such as limonene, linalool, and others (mainly occurring from essential oils). At around $18.50, this isn't the cheapest cream, but a 2.5 oz tube is fairly generous. I would love to see a vegan version and perhaps one made with even gentler ingredients in the future.

Also available on Amazon.com.

UPDATE: A rep from Weleda offered a great response, helping to clarify some of the issues with how fragrance is reported via the EWG database. Her response is below:

"To clarify the situation with our EWG rating, we support the EWG in their mission to help consumers find safe products, but their database, ironically, works much better for conventional products that use chemical ingredients, fragrances and preservatives than it does for products that are truly natural like ours. Their database lacks sufficient information on natural ingredients including essential oil components. The EWG database cannot differentiate between safe and natural essential oil components, like we use in our products, and synthetic copies produced in a lab.

There is no chemical fragrance in our products. Our fragrances are from pure, natural essential oils from plants. The limonene and linalool you mentioned are components of essential oils - we follow the European INCI labeling regulations, so we have to list the components of essential oils (limonene and linalool) on our labels.

If you’re interested, here is a blog I find helpful for reading the EWG database: http://feelgoodstyle.com/2010/03/16/terri-blys-guide-to-the-skin-deep-database/.
You can also read more about our ingredients on our website at usa.weleda.com."

Product Ratings (out of 5)

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Performance
Presentation
Purity
Value

Disclosure notice: This product was sent to me free of charge by the manufacturer for review. No additional compensation was accepted and the opinions are my own. Please verify any claims with the manufacturer, especially if you have any allergies or concerns.

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