I was only 18 years old when I came to Canada, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and I was quite naive of what to expect here, even though my older sister had been living here for a year before me.
She told me things like “Canadians pronounce the word margarine funny”, “They say Torono instead of Toronto, “Out and About”, “Wader”, it’s so dry and “my nose bleeds and I have to shove Vaseline up my nose” among others. I laughed on the phone with her at how strange this alien country was. I didn’t believe half of what she said until I experienced it myself.
The nose bleed one was the first one that I realized was true, and then I noticed how dry the air is up here. In Trinidad, the air is ridiculously humid – but not muggy humid like Toronto in summer, rather humid so that you can breathe and that you can miss one day of lotion-ing and your skin survives without so much as a small peep or protest.
Admittedly, I’m very bad with putting on lotion everyday/twice a day and I’m pretty bad with consuming liquids, but MAN, nothing works on my skin.
This was why I was sort of excited when I heard that George’s made creams and lotions especially for dry skin. I had to try it.
I was sent two small trial samples of the George’s Special Dry Skin Cream and the George’s Light Special Moisturizing Lotion. My husband isn’t here, so instead of shipping them to him to try for his eczema on his hands, I decided to try them on the most dry and damaged parts of my skin – my heels…
Never fear, I did not take a photo of my “yam foot” feet for you to view.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that, when I am disciplined enough to apply the lotion and the cream, they both work spectacularly in making my feet soft and touchable. I’ve never felt my heels this soft….since moving to Canada that is.
The only difference that I saw in the creams were the colours of the caps (as you can see) and the density/texture of the cream/lotion itself
Now, when I first came to Canada, everyone told me to swear by an extremely thick lotion – so I found a few popular brands and I used those, but I hated that it made me feel like I was slathering margarine (haha) on myself every day instead of cool, liquidy lotion that I had known whilst growing up in Trinidad.
I have to admit that the thick consistency of the special dry skin cream did remind me of those creams that I had used as a newbie to Canada. I felt like I was buttering a turkey when I was putting this type of cream on. As you can see in the photograph, the cream is quite thick, and does seem to have a fair bit of oil in it. In fact, my foot was shiny looking and sticky five minutes after I put this cream on. I have to admit, though, that I may be a little biased against these thick creams because of what I’m used to in my life.
The lotion was actually a much better consistency for me. It was light, liquid-ey and disappeared quickly into your skin. Score. It was so different from the cream. It absorbed and visually disappeared into my skin about twice as fast as the cream did. And, the results stayed almost as long as that of the cream. I liked this one a lot better and may actually pick up a couple of full sized tubes.
All in all, these are some valuable products to have on hand during a cold, dry, Canadian winter. The only other complaint I have is that when I squeezed the cream bottle, the cream started coming out the top rather than the bottom – the bottom of the tube had split!!!
Let’s just chalk it up to me being a “fall-downsey” child that the famous Murphy (from Murphy’s law) loves to hate. If something like this is going to happen to anyone, it’s going to happen to me. I did also notice later on that there is a little silver foil disc that would have released the pressure caused on the bottom seam…but I’m the one who burst it|!!
In the end, I’ve found George’s to be a very good option for winter lotioning practices – it keeps you moist and warm, it smells good and it works! For me, and for those of you who prefer a thinner lotion, go with the lotion. Those who like the thick lotions will love the Special Dry Skin Cream.
Hope this was helpful! Cheers!
