L’Oréal MEN EXPERT Face & Beard Oil
Generally, Style4men tends to feature brands that come from nothing more than love, passion and hard work. Folks like Barbers who developed a product for their shop or Artisans who operated out of their home kitchen. The Style4men project started out of a similar drive, a passion for hair pomade. When I initially got introduced to hair pomade, the only jars out there where being hand poured by the folks described above. So by the time the Style4men project took flight there was already a natural relationship with this segment of the hair and grooming industry.
That said, the big players are also in the game and some of them have products you might have seen and are considering trying. Last year, I featured a series of reviews covering beard oils produced by some of the bigger players out there: L’Oréal Men Expert, PRORASO and Bulldog.
Today’s post continues on this spirit and features L’Oréal Men Expert’s latest beard oil offering in the BARBER CLUB range, their Face & Beard Oil.
I bought this bottle from AMAZON with a Movember $3 discount that L’Oréal was having. The bottle came up to $11 with free shipping as part of my Amazon prime membership. OK so what do you get with an $11 beard oil? Something pretty decent!
I know that not all of you agree. As I often do on my Instagram page, I posted a teaser story of this upcoming review. The story posts are the ones that run for a 24 hour cycle and then disappear. These stories reach allot of you, but I rarely get any comments on them. Well, I got some rather clear comments suggesting that this was not a worthy oil to consider. OK, I was even more interested in trying it out! 🙂
I have to let you know that I have been using various L’Oréal Men Expert products over the years and have found them to work well for me. This is a brand that it is easy to find in Canada (pharmacy, Walmart, etc.) and affordable (under $20 and at times under $15). Availability and price are huge criteria’s no matter how you look at it. Maybe you can’t find your favorite small batch oil or maybe you just can’t drop $30 + shipping…? I know that I can’t justify forking out $30 + for a beard oil all the time and finding a suitable product at the $11 mark is quite interesting.
So here we go! The oil comes in a nicely presented protective box with the orange hue that is the standard brand look. The bottle itself is somewhat different to what we normally see in artisanal beard oils. The bottle is rectangular with a twist lock pump. It does actually look like a women cosmetic packaging with more manly colours. OK but how is it?
It is actually quite nice! The one I purchased is the cedarwood scent and the fragrance is done rather well with a good element of sweetness. The fragrance actually comes out nicer and smoother than in their beard wash where it is perhaps too strong for my liking. It is also a very clean product to work with. No oily residue. It is quite light and feels like it is absorbed right away. This is a feature I appreciate allot as I don’t like the oil remnant on my mug.
I like beard oil for two mains reasons, to moisturize my mug and to get a little kick of fragrance. As I always say, beard oil is the bearded man’s aftershave. Full points on the fragrance and a good score on the moisturizing. I say good but not perfect and here is why.
The oil is absorbed rapidly which is something I appreciate and for anywhere between 4-7 hours I felt entirely comfortable. After this time I found myself playing with my beard gradually more and more. This was indicative of a slight tug. I thus reapplied more oil and things were perfect again. What this means is that we are looking at possibly two daily applications. I want to gauge my comment further by saying that it is now November-December in Canada and that the air is consequently much dryer and colder. So this might just be weather induced.
Moving on to the ingredient list. This is where this oil loses a few points for me. Yes there are some rocking participants but they are not the top players and are later in the list meaning there are in lower concentration.
The top 4 ingredient are:
- Isopropyl Palmitate
- Caprylic/capric trygliceride (coconut oil + glycerin)
- Polybutene
- Alcohol Denat (Denatured Alcohol)
With the world resources disappearing, working with chemical substitutes is something that is inevitable. Getting to that affordable price-point and getting behaviors not necessarily possible with natural ingredient like that quick absorption, it is also understood that some comprises must be made.
Here is the score card (on a scale of 5) for this oil:
- Ingredient Composition: 3.5
- Aroma: 5
- Performance: 4
Summing things up
With the Barber Club series and the Face & Beard Oil, L’Oréal Men Expert has created a very interesting and affordable option. Cedarwood is a very common fragrance element in men’s colognes to the point of being overdone. But in this beard oil with that touch of sweetness it takes on a new and very pleasant twist. Lastly, the very clean and easy application seals the deal. You can apply and move on.
