A letter from Shankar - Founder, Plum
Hello, lovely Plumsters! Unless you've been living in exile from social media, you would know that a new Plum was born a few days ago. It's a face oil. Grape Seed & Sea Buckthorn Glow-Restore Face Oils Blend, to be precise. But something strange happened before we launched.
We had a "Stop Press" Moment!
Even as we were putting down the "how to" instructions on the pack, some eager Googlers in our team challenged our product guys. The product folks' use recommendation was to apply the oil on just-cleansed skin, BEFORE using day cream or night cream. The eager Googlers' counter-view: "Use the oil AFTER applying your day cream or night cream, to seal in the moisture. That's what we read up on the internet."
Turns out, the product team was indeed right in our case, but the eager Googlers were right, too, in a way. So what's the deal?
The answer is, it depends (I love it when I get to say this, btw. Gives me a sense of importance).
You broadly have 2 types of oil - let's just call them the "oil" oils, and the "easy-breezy" oils. The "oil" oils are heavier, more saturated, and primarily hydrate by the principle of "occlusion" - that is, prevent moisture from leaving your skin by forming a protective seal over your skin.
The "easy-breezy" oils on the other hand, do just the opposite. They are lighter, more unsaturated (rich in the likes of linoleic acid) and work mainly from within - helping rebuild the lipid layers and getting the skin's chemistry back on its feet. They also have an occlusion angle, but not as strong as the "oil" oils.
If your face oil is an "oil" oil (heavier, that is), you would do well to apply it AFTER your cream.
Reason 1: it will help seal in the moisturizer (and moisture) in your skin.
Reason 2: If you apply this oil first, your moisturizer is going to have a tough time finding its way into your skin and do anything useful :)
If your face oil is of the lighter "easy-breezy" variety, you should use the oil first. If you start with your cream, you are not leaving "space" for the lighter oils to work their magic. So it's recommended to use these oils just after cleansing - so your skin drinks it all up nicely. And prepped and primed for the moisturizer to follow!
Eureka!
That seems to make a lot of sense now. Agree? If you are already using this "Blend of 10", how are you using it? Hit reply and let me know.And if you want more answers to other vexing questions, let me know, too. I'd love to work on answering them.
PS: Examples of "oil" oils: coconut oil, mineral oil, shea butter. Examples of "easy-breezy" oils include argan oil, grape seed oil, jojoba oil and almond oil. It's not a case of one being better than the other. They just work differently, that's all. That's how nature made it, and science interprets it.
PPS: ICYMI, you can get all the dope on Grape Seed & Sea Buckthorn Glow-Restore Face Oils Blend here. And btw, this one goes on AFTER cleansing, BEFORE your moisturizer.
And here's a lovely BTS shot from the launch event of this oil - moments before this beauty was unveiled to the world!
And this is me... trying to remember the name of the 10th oil in this blend :)
Wanna have a look at the oil and customer reviews coming in? Click here!
