Currently Obsessed: Fresh Rose Hydrating Gel Cream

Happy Monday, everyone! Time for another installment of "Currently Obsessed", product reviews that feature items that have won me over in a huge way. Sometimes I can't help but gush! Today's review spotlights a product that I purchased on a whim. While I did spend nearly an hour perusing Sephora's shelves, reading labels, and dabbing countless products on my hand, I picked up Fresh's Rose Hydrating Gel Cream without having read any reviews or hearing any bloggers sing its praises. In a way, I was taking a risk. But everything about it sounded perfect and I'm so glad I brought it home!

As you can see, it comes in a pink and white patterned box with Fresh's typical font. The bottle itself is white, cylindrical, and sleek.

The description on the back of the box describes Rose Hydrating Gel Cream as a "daily moisturizer for all skin types proven to provide 24 hours of significant moisture while protecting against damage caused by pollution". It touts a rosewater-rich formula that instantly cools, calms, and hydrate the skin, leaving it healthy and radiant.

While I'm not a huge lover of rose-scented products, I am tempted by anything with rose water or oil in the formula, as I know they do wonders at soothing the skin and reducing redness. Also, since turning 30 I've been motivated to find more rich, moisturizing products to protect my skin without breaking it out. The gel-cream texture sounded like the perfect source of non-greasy hydration!

Here's a peek at the ingredients:

As you can see, in addition to lovely ingredients like jojoba oil, rose flower water, cucumber extract, and hyaluronic acid, the formula is also pretty packed with silicones and glycerin. While the latter two tend to disagree with my skin (clogs and breakouts), this has not broken me out one bit!

The bottle has a hygienic pump that makes the product simple and clean to use:

The texture of the product itself is a peachy-yellow translucent gel-cream (as the name suggests) that is neither super thick nor runny.

To give you a better idea of the texture, this is what happens when left to run for about 30 seconds. As you can see, it's thin enough to slide slightly (more so than a thick cream would) but doesn't run quickly off my hand either.

Though the fact that this has been categorized as a "current obsession" already indicates that I've been loving it, here's a full break-down of my impressions:

Pros:

• Almost immediately reduces any redness in my skin, perhaps more so than any product I've ever tried
• Leaves my skin feeling plumped and hydrated, without feeling greasy
• Imparts a lovely glow on my skin
• Feels light and cooling, which is perfect for summertime
• Has not broken me out or irritated my skin at all
• Perfect as a light-weight nighttime moisturizer during the humid summer months

Cons:

• Can sometimes be a bit too moisturizing to wear under makeup on the hottest summer days
• At $48 CAD, this is definitely a bit of a splurge
• Fairly impossible to tell if this is providing the "environmental protection" that it promises

And that's it! As you can see, the cons of this product are fairly hard to come by. It reduces the redness in my skin so dramatically and has not broken me out at all. These results have been so rare for me (and trust me, I've tried a lot!), so I feel super lucky to have stumbled across this lovely product. I think it will be perfect underneath my makeup during the colder winter months, but for now it's ideal as a night (gel) cream!

Have you tried any goodies from Fresh lately? What are some of your favourite rose-scented products? Favourite skin care items for reducing redness?

Thanks for reading! xo