rinnah’s consumer views|what a consumer really wants and thinks about products and services

I received a nice email from the good folks at Indochine Natural earlier this year, inviting me to review their handmade natural soaps. I said yes but due to a number of factors in my personal life (changing jobs and moving house), I didn’t get around to using the product and conducting my review as quickly as I would’ve liked to.

I was sent a number of their best-selling soaps to try, all nicely packaged up in a cardboard box. I like that the packaging is reasonably eco-friendly with a minimum of plastic wrapping, unlike commercial soaps. The side of the box tells me that the soap is handcrafted from all natural ingredients in a cold process.

Inside the box, there were 3 different types of soap – No Fragrance, Lemongrass and Rose Geranium. I found the Lemongrass soap to have a stronger fragrance, so I passed it on to my guest reviewer to test out (to be reviewed in a separate blogpost). I personally tried the Rose Geranium soap, which had a sweet floral fragrance to it.

With my sensitive skin and skin problems (eczema), I was keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t have any adverse reactions to the soap and thankfully, nothing happened. The first time I used the soap, I felt my skin was a little bit tighter (not dry though) than when I used my normal emulsion bodywashes but that feeling disappeared with subsequent use. The soap itself does a decent job of letting me feel that my skin is getting clean even though the soap doesn’t really lather up – those who like lots and lots of lather would be disappointed.

The rose geranium fragrance is pleasantly sweet but not overpowering. In fact, this left me just a little disappointed as I had expected the fragrance to linger just a little longer. However, the moment I finished my shower, that was it. No lingering scent in my bathroom and none on my skin too. Sigh!

I had no adverse reactions to the soap but it did not exceptionally help with my long-standing eczema problems either. I’d say this would be a nice to have soap that I reach for when I need a fragrance pick me up in the shower, but it’s not my everyday staple either.

A full-sized bar of Indochine Natural soap costs USD 6.00 and you can order Indochine Natural soaps online or check out a list of their local Malaysian retailers here.

Yes factors : Does not cause sensitive skin to over-react, nice soothing scent
No factors : Scent does not linger, not easily located

Read other blogger reviews here :
Paris B (bodywash from the same range)

Disclaimer : I was sent this product to try and review. Beyond the product itself, I have received no monetary incentive to review and the above blogpost represents my honest opinion of the product.