La Mer is a name familiar to most girls who use more than Oil of Ulay for their skin.
It’s that hyper-expensive (at M$800 for a small pot) cream that’s supposed to perform ‘miracles’ on your skin. Invented by scientists after last century’s world wars, it’s supposed to be able to heal burn patient wounds.
How it is made is supposed to be some wildly crazy way that involves g-force gravity and ingredients from deep below the sea. I don’t even want to think about the difficulty and natural resources that went into making this cream.
Needless to say, I never even considered buying such an expensive cream. Until Amex gave my mother a small jar for free.
My skin tends to be on the dry side and I can be prone to break outs, I’m in terrible air conditioning for the majority of the day. I was anxious to see whether this La Mer would live up to the myth.
The cream is very thick and pungeant (in a perfume-y kind of way) – you only need to use a very little. The jar comes with a little scoop which you’re supposed to use to scoop out the cream from the jar, level it off and use whatever is left in the scoop. It’s really not much, so one small jar could theoretically last at least 6 months if you use it twice a day.
Then you’re supposed to heat up the cream in your hands by rubbing your hands together vigourously before patting it onto your face.
I have really dry hands (somewhat akin to washerwoman’s I’ve been told, despite my moisturizing like crazy they still insist on their dryness), so this seems really wasteful to me – you’re moisturizing your hands more than your face surely – but the heat is supposed to ‘activate’ the ingredients.
Initially I got pretty good results. Then, while travelling I dropped the jar when unpacking and the lid partially broke on one side. It still closed though and the pad between the lid and the jar seemed airtight so I thought it was ok.
It was not ok. Soon the cream separated and it looked like a jar of oily water and lumps the texture of lipo-sucked cellulite. Not pleasant.
I happened to be in New York at the time, so went to buy some more – since I was having such good results. My skin did seem to be glowing more. Incidentally, the guy at the counter said that this separation of La Mer did happen from time to time, and after it happens, you shouldn’t use the cream and there’s no way to get the ingredients to bind again.
Seems like when you’re spending so much money on pretty much the most expensive face cream on the market, you really wouldn’t have to deal with that kind of product inconsistency. At the very least surely La Mer should offer some sort of replacement when it does happen. We’re not talking about $10 cream from Watson’s here.
I bought a large jar on the assumption that it was cheaper in NY than in KL.
After diligent use, about a week later I started to notice that I was breaking out a lot. Also my face had become red and blotchy and it looked like it was hardening. Note tht La Mer had never been particularly moisturizing – you didn’t get that refreshing feel after applying it.
Final Verdict – Blech, don’t buy it
I had to stop using the cream after that because it just seemed to make my skin worse with every application. It’s expensive, fussy to use and does not give good long term results.
Later, I was speaking to a cousin who also had the same problems with La Mer.
Does anyone want half a large jar of La Mer?
