By now anybody familiar with asian beauty products has become familiar with strange or unusual ingredients, like snail mucus, donkey milk or horse oil. If you are crazy about trying products like this (or simply curious) I have another one for you here: the Kicho Sheep Oil Cream! But before the animal lovers will scream and run I can assure you that no animal have been harmed for the production of this cream. I must admit that I was eyeing the products from this brand for a long time and I was really thrilled to receive it by BNTnews this month, so let’s get right into the review:

Kicho cosmetics is a Korean brand and has the saying “We provide pure nature greatness to your skin”. I read so many reviews on their products, especially the sheep oil ones, and I hope I will be able to try more from this brand in future to get a better inside into this brand. First of all, I love the design of the packaging of the Kicho Sheep Oil Cream. It looks elegant and feminine on the same time with a beautiful flower printing. The cardboard box is not only pretty from the outside, but even inside the box the beauty continues: The flower pattern continues inside and reveals a beautiful, square glass jar with a metal lid with a vintage imprint on it.

There is also a holographic authentication sticker on the cardboard box, to make sure that you have bought an original cream from Kicho.

The bottom part of the cardboard box contains descriptions about the product in English and in Korean. Some sheep illustrations add a bit of cuteness to the packaging here. The ingredients are listed on the bottom of the box and they are also included in COSDNA if you want to take a closer look. The key ingredient is Lanolin made from pure Lanolin from New Zealand lamb wools purified with German Technology. So what is Lanolin exactly?

Lanolin

Lanolin is also called wool wax and is produced by the sebaceous glands of sheep to protect their wool from getting wet and protects the sheep from climate and weather. Actually, it is obtained by cleaning the obtained freshly shorn wool from sheep, so you do not need to fear that animals are harmed for obtaining lanolin and the name sheep oil is a bit misleading here because one thinks of horse oil directly. Also, as you might have thought first, Lanolin is not a new fancy ingredient but has been used for more than hundred years and cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. Also, thinking of Lanolin as fat is also not correct, because it lacks glycerides, but contains of sterol esters instead. By hydrolizing lanolin you will obtain lanolin alcohols, which are rich in cholesterol, and lanolin acids. 40 % of the lanolin acids are AHA’s (alpha hydroxy acids)! Also, studies have shown that Lanolin has chemical and physical similarities to human stratum corneum (the skin layer you actually see when looking at your skin) lipids. These lipids regulate the hydration state of your skin. So lanolin is great to protect your skin from water-loss and it also is a great skin softener. Also, since it has semiocclusive properties your skin can still breath. And on top of that the healing properties of lanolin are great and it helps to recover rough and dry, itching and cracking skin better than glycerin or petroleum. Nevertheless, it still might be that you react allergic to lanolin, so be sure to patch test products before using them.

They combined the Lanolin with multivitamins from 8 types of berries from all over the world: Cranberry, Blueberry, Strawberry, Goji Berry, Blackberry, Raspberry, Sea Buckthorn, and Acai Berry. Berries are rich in anti-oxidants, which are great for the skin, and add to moisturize and brighten up the skin. The cream is free from fragnance, paraben, mineral oil, steroids, formaldehyd or chemical preservatives. Instead it contains the natural preservative totarol. Totarol was isolated for the first time from heartwood of Podocarpus totara, a yew tree found in New Zealand. Totarol has antimicrobial properties.

Unfortunately, the cream doesn’t come with a spatula, but you can simply use a small spoon or similar. I think it is especially important to work with clean fingers or spoons here, since it does not contain chemical preservatives. The light-yellow cream has a rich and balmy texture, which melts off into the skin easily and absorbs without leaving the skin greasy. It has a nice citrus scent, too. It feels really hydrating for the skin and I applied some on my dry elbows and felt how instantly softening the cream was. It makes the skin feel considerably smoother and more supple and the effect lasts for hours, too. Also, a little of this cream goes a long way so it will last you some time, too.

My final verdict is that I’m in love! This cream makes my skin supple and soft and most important my skin feels like this for hours. I think that the effects of the Lanolin show off pretty nicely in this cream and all in all the whole combination of ingredients works great. Since the ingredients list is not free of minor irritants it is import to check for yourself whether these ingredients suit your skin or not, but I can give dry skin types having troubles with itchy or cracky skin some thumbs up and encourage you to consider a moisturizer containing lanolin for your skin. For some people the balmy texture might appear to rich, although it really is not leaving a greasy residue, but still for those this cream might work great as semiocclusive cream in the night-time routine. You can get this cream from the official Kicho Store for 58 US$ or from Amazon US for 59.99 US$, or from Cupidrop for 58 US$. As you can see the main downside is the price, but this tends to be usual for products containing Lanolin…

This product was provided to me by BNTnews for reviewing. Don’t forget to visit the other BNTGirls Kim, Bella, Mary, Celine,Alene,Joanne,Chermaine,Mitha, Blair and many more…check out their reviews for the March BNT Beauty Box. You can find my previous reviews for BNTnews >>here<<. And visit BNTnews for the latest Korean news and trends:

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Just as a short reminder: All products mentioned and reviewed on this blog are of my personal opinions. This product here was sent to me for reviewing purpose by http://www.bntnews.co.uk/ which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.