In general, I feel ambivalent about Kiehl’s and its products. The company has managed to sustain an impressive degree of its old-New-York, neighborhood-apothecary image (“Since 1851”) despite having been acquired by L’Oreal in 2000. Since then, however, its ever-expanding product range has started to seem diffuse and inconsistent, and the products themselves are often over-priced and not nearly as nature-based as they sometimes claim to be. Still, I keep going back for Kiehl’s Coriander-scented body products; I’ve been hooked on this fragrance for over five years, and I haven’t found anything to replace it.

Kiehl’s Gently Exfoliating Body Scrub is a relatively recent addition to the line, but it’s one of the newer products that I enjoy; it’s conveniently packaged in a flip-top tube, and it has a lightly-foaming formula with small exfoliating particles that feel pleasantly scrubby, but not scratchy. The Deluxe Hand & Body Lotion with Aloe Vera & Oatmeal is actually fairly lightweight, so if you have seriously dry skin, you’ll need something more concentrated. Both products are packed with the sorts of ingredients that I normally try to avoid when possible: sulfates and plastics in the scrub, silicones and parabens in the lotion, many mysterious multi-syllabic chemicals in both…

Read the rest of this article »