Nivea Baby Smoothy Cream

The Drugstore-Beauty Addict strikes again! This time, it's for cheapo moisturizer that makes me positively giddy on the savings. If you haven't heard of this yet, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Nivea Baby Smoothy Cream.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Cutie-patootie packaging[/caption]

A few weeks ago, I was in the mall shopping with a friend for decent moisturizers at rock bottom prices. (We've mellowed in our old age...) I remember a cousin recommending *Nivea Q10 night cream, but I just couldn't find it in any of the health and beauty sections. Instead, I reached for Nivea Soft (PHP 160+ for 100mL) as the closest alternative. I read the ingredients and thought, "Yeah, okay. This will do for a no-frills, non-greasy moisturizer."

I was on my way to line up at the till when I passed by the baby products section and saw the Smoothy Cream. At that point, I suddenly remembered something Mela Jimenez—a makeup artist I worked with on one of the numerous shoots for Inspirations—told me, "If it's good enough for a baby's skin, then it's also good enough for an adult's." Now I just had to stop and check out the baby cream.

Intended as a body and face cream for infants, Nivea Smoothy Cream is a hypoallergenic and clinically-tested product. It comes in a 200mL jar for only PHP169. Basically, for almost the same price, Smoothy Cream has twice as much the amount as Nivea Soft does. The tie-breaker was the ingredients list, so I flipped it over and checked.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Ingredients[/caption]

Both had a lot of similar the basic ingredients. The absence of parabens was also quite a relief. The only thing I wasn't 100% on-board with was the Paraffinum Liquidum indicated on both jars, but I ended up "throwing caution to the wind" and going with the Smoothy Cream. Payment-wise, I saved a good PHP100 by using up my SM Advantage points and only shelling out PHP 68 in cash.

When I got home, I hurriedly looked up the reviews for this cream and was delighted to find that beauty bloggers raved about this.  Made me super excited to try it out.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Love that this thing is sealed![/caption]

The container is hygienically sealed, which I just love. At least I know for sure that nobody's gotten their grubby paws on my moisturizer. Inside, the snow white cream has the shine of The Body Shop's Body Butter, the lightness of body silk, and a baby-appropriate scent that's very comforting. All this without the greasiness of the usual moisturizer.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Smoothy accurately describes it[/caption]

I've been using it for about two weeks now, but only at night because I cannot live without SPF day cream. It's not whitening, firming, anti-aging, SPF or any other common beauty demand, but I can tell you that it leaves the skin supple. It's so mild that it doesn't sting like Nivea Expert Lift does. In short, it's an excellent BASIC moisturizer. I'd recommend it as a night cream for: A) teens who are just learning to use moisturizers; B) those who have sensitive skin but aren't picky about anti-aging ingredients; and C) those in dial-down-the-beauty-products mode who hate having too many ingredient combinations from the products they slap on.

This 100% value-for-money product is totally worth trying. If you don't end up using it for your face, you can also use it on dry patches of skin around the elbows and ankles—a problem area I also have. Then there's always using it as a hand cream, but I fully intend to moisturize face and neck with this until the jar runs out. It's that nice.

*Turns out, the Nivea Q10 moisturizer line has been discontinued in the Philippines. All they have is the Q10 body lotion.