Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream - Review

before

I don't spend all day outside in the frigid cold, but I do wait for the bus and walk to work in the cold, and my skin is generally susceptible to extreme weather conditions. In the winter, my skin, especially my hands, gets dry, itchy, and cracked. Because my hands spend a lot of time in camera close-ups, this just can't be. So I was hopeful about trying Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream as part of being a BzzAgent.

For 40 years, Neutrogena has helped heal and protect skin with its Norwegian Formula Hand Cream. Its story started off the coast of Norway, where fishermen were suffering the effects of wind, cold, and water. Those fishermen developed a glycerin-rich cream that, when applied to their skin, relieved years' worth of chapping, cracking, and drying. Neutrogena adopted that formula, and in 2012, it earned the Good Housekeeping Seal. The Norwegian Formula line also includes body and foot moisturizers. You can also use the hand cream on your lips.

I received a 2-ounce sample of the hand cream as well as several travel-sized hand creams to share. While Neutrogena touted the cream's ability to protect and heal chapped and cracked skin, apparently this cream is also good for manicures. It's supposed to heal dry cuticles and splitting nails. I wasn't really interested in the nail care benefits. Sure, I do my nails once a week, but what I was more concerned about was the dry, itchy, cracked winter skin on my hands. So, how did the hand cream do on that?

above: Still a bit of redness
below: areas on my fingers that are cracked

It was fine. The packaging says, "Just a dab heals dry skin", but in order for me to really get a good lather all over both of my hands, I needed more than a dab. More like a dime-sized amount. And it did bring much-needed moisture to my hands. But some days I needed to reapply the lotion throughout the day, so I always kept one of the travel sizes at my desk. I don't know if it's the incredibly cold water that comes out of the faucets in my building's bathroom, but there were days when my skin started to feel dry again during the day.

I also did not notice any difference in my cuticles and nails. My nails still split and cracked like they normally do all year long, so I don't think this stuff is made to work on your non-average, weak nails.

I used the hand cream on average twice a day (morning and night) for about 36 days. So that's about 72 uses. I've still got hand cream left in my tube. The 2-ounce product is supposed to be good for 200 uses.

The hand cream is available in original or fragrance-free. My 2-ounce sample was fragrance-free, which I prefer. The travel samples were the original, and the added fragrance wasn't so bad. It wasn't some fake floral scent or anything. It just smelled sort of medicated, but it wasn't strong enough to bother other people around me.

All in all, the Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream is a good moisturizer, and I like that its size makes it easy to take with me in my purse, so that I always have it wherever I go. But in terms of healing my skin, I can't give it too high marks. I'd be interested to try the original stuff that those fishermen created. I wonder what happened to the formula between that version and the Neutrogena version.