Guardian Pharmacy House Brand (Hand Cream, Body Butter And Hand Soap)

Normally I wouldn't buy house brand skin care products, I would go for the more "established" brands, expensive or not, it must be in the market for some time. Anyway, I was looking for a hand cream after I finished my Nivea Soft. Initially I wanted to buy the Body Shop Hand Cream, it's around RM20 for a 30ml tube, however, at the same time, I saw the Guardian Pharmacy ads on the newspaper (yes, I still read the hard copy newspaper), Guardian was having sales and one of the items was the Guardian Hand Cream, the offer was buy 1 free 1.

Well, the Guardian Hand Cream was around RM9 a tube (not quite remember the price) and it came in a 40ml tube, and the best thing was the buy 1 free 1 offer. I could get two 40ml hand creams for less than RM10. So, I decided to buy the Guardian Hand Cream, it's so much cheaper. Since there were two types of the hand cream, I got one each, the "Cottony Flower" and "Velvety Rose".

Guardian Hand Cream (Cottony Flower & Velvety Rose)

Guardian Hand Cream (Cottony Flower & Velvety Rose)

Below table shows the ingredients of the Cottony Flower and Velvety Rose (information from the Guardian Pharmacy E-store). Both the hand creams have similar ingredients, but Cottony Flower has two more ingredients than the Velvety Rose. The Cottony Flower have Cotton extract, Olive fruit oil and Shea Butter, while Velvety Rose have Rose extract. So, in terms of number of ingredients, Cottony Flower won!

No	Guardian Ultra-Hydrating Hand Cream (Cottony Flower) 40ml	Guardian Ultra-Hydrating Hand Cream (Velvety Rose) 40ml
1	Aqua	Aqua
2	Glycerin	Glycerin
3	Helianthus Anuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil	Helianthus Anuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil
4	Cetyl Alcohol	Cetyl Alcohol
5	Polysorbate 60	Polysorbate 60
6	Gossypium Herbaceum (Cotton) Extract	Rose Extract
7	Sorbitan Stearate	Sorbitan Stearate
8	Glyceryl Stearate	Glyceryl Stearate
9	Glyceryl Stearate SE	Glyceryl Stearate SE
10	Phenoxyethanol	Phenoxyethanol
11	PEG-100 Stearate	PEG-100 Stearate
12	Dimethicone	Dimethicone
13	Carbomer	Carbomer
14	Triethanolamine	Triethanolamine
15	Disodium EDTA	Disodium EDTA
16	Parfum	Parfum
17	Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil	Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract
18	Butyrospermum Parki (Shea) Butter	Arctium Lappa Root Extract
19	Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract	Hamamelis Virginiana (With Hazel) Leaf Extract
20	Arctium Lappa Root Extract
21	Hamamelis Virginiana (With Hazel) Leaf Extract.

In terms of the smell, I like the Cottony Flower. I don't know how to describe the smell, but I didn't fancy the smell of Velvety Rose. It reminds me of the Daiso rose body wash, I am not sure what is the smell of roses, but since this is the second time I got a rose scent product and I do not like it, I will not try rose scented product next time. Luckily, the smell didn't linger long. 

the hand cream is sealed with Aluminium foil

I keep one in office and one at home. I am not the type that apply hand cream diligently. I would only apply when my arm was itchy. I have very dry skin on my hands and legs, few years ago, my legs were very itchy and I scratched until bleeding, I was going to see a doctor before a friend told me to apply lotion, she thought that it is due to the dry skin. It works! Anyway, keeping a tube of hand cream at office helps to remind me to apply it to moisturises the hands. It was useful when I felt itchiness on my legs too, I could grab it and apply in the toilet. 

Both the Cottony Flower and Velvety Rose have the same texture, it's quite runny, not too thick and easy to spread out. After rubbing a few times, the skin could absorb it. Since I applied this sporadically, I don't know whether this really works or not. The skin on my hands although not that baby smooth, it's not very rough too. I just use hand cream to prevent skin crack.

trying on the Velvety Rose

Since the hand cream was ok (especially with the price range), I bought the Guardian Acai Berry Olive Body Butter when it was on sales for 50%. It was near expiry date. Four more months and it would be expired. I don't mind because I go through body lotion like it's water. And I was interested in body butter, sounds so moisturising. I finished it in two months time, well ahead of the expiry date. 

I had never try body butter before, so I am not sure this Guardian Body Butter is a good body butter or not, but it's a decent product to moisturise the skin. I applied this right after night time bath. It's like margarine, hahaha, quite easy to spread and not sticky. Since I didn't feel the itchiness on my skin when I was using this, I would say that is's a good moisturiser. 

Guardian Acai Berry Olive Body Butter

From these 2 Guardian products (hand cream and body butter), I noticed that both mentioned "Paraben" free. Since the body butter came in a bottle, I was worried that it might cause mold to grow inside it, especially I was keeping it in the bathroom. It did not turn bad though, until the last bit, it's still free of mold. Good!

Guardian Acai Berry Olive Body Butter

Although I am ok with this product, I would still stick to the normal body lotion, unless it's on sales because I couldn't differentiate the benefits of using body butter versus body lotion. I will go for the cheaper product. 

ingredients of Guardian Acai Berry Olive Body Butter

Lastly, the Guardian Gel Hand Soap, I bought this while it's on discount too. Three bottles for RM12 (I think). So, one bottle was around RM4. It came in orange, green and purple colour in 500ml bottle. I personally like the smell of the purple colour bottle (orchard bliss), but my mom likes the green colour one (magical garden). We are into the third bottle right now, the orange one (forever sunshine). It's a hand soap, the function is to clean off the dirts, so for me, it did the job right. Will definitely repurchase if it's on sales again. 

Guardian Gel Hand Soap: Forever sunshine

For house brand products, so far, other than food items, the skin care products were not bad too. To save money, maybe will try more of the house brand products, not on my face though, hahaha!