L’Occitane Review

The story behind L’Occitane

Pronounced “lox-ee-tahn” for those who have been wondering, L’Occitane is an international retailer of fragrances, body, face, and home products. In 1976, the company was founded in Provence, France by 23-year-old Olivier Baussan after he learned to use steam distillation to produce essential oil from wild rosemary and lavender. As L’Occitane experienced steady and consistent growth over the next 40 years, the brand began to achieve international recognition. While the very first official L’Occitane boutique was established in Volx, Provence, today more than 2,000 locations exist around the world. In this review, we’ll discuss some of the brand’s best selling products and key ingredients. 

What are the best selling L’Occitane skincare products?

L’Occitane has a pretty impressive variety of skincare products to choose from. For example, the brand has facial skin care products such as makeup removers, cleansers, mists, eye care, exfoliators, serums, and more. L’Occitane is also well known for their bath and body care products, like French traditional soaps, shower oils, body scrubs, deodorants, foot care, and more. And let’s not forget about the L’Occitane hand care products, baby care products, and fragrances! In this review, we’re going to focus on three of the best selling L’Occitane skincare products. 

L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream
The best selling L’Occitane skincare product is the Shea Butter Hand Cream. In fact, L’Occitane hand creams are sold every two seconds around the world! The Shea Butter Hand Cream is a creamy balm that includes 20% organic shea butter. It penetrates the skin quickly to protect, nourish, and moisturize hands.

L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil
When in contact with water, L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil transforms into a sheer, milky lotion that gently cleanses the body while simultaneously moisturizing skin. This L’Occitane shower oil is suitable for normal to dry skin. 

L’Occitane Immortelle Overnight Reset Oil-in-Serum
L’Occitane Immortelle Overnight Reset Oil-in-Serum is formulated for all ages and skin types, and is said to help smooth fine lines and promote youthful radiance. In fact, Immortelle Overnight Reset Oil-in-Serum is claimed to “reset your skin in just one night”. 

What are the key L’Occitane skincare ingredients?

In order to know if the brand’s product claims hold true, we must evaluate the key ingredients used in L’Occitane skincare products. Let’s start with the L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream. 

As the name implies, L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream features shea butter as the key ingredient. Shea butter is a fat extracted from the nuts of the shea tree, which is native to Africa. The rich supply of triglycerides and fatty acids in shea butter help to replenish the skin’s natural barrier function.

Since shea butter melts at body temperature, it is able to coat the skin and form an occlusive film.

This film helps to prevent evaporation of the skin’s natural moisture and increases skin hydration by causing buildup of water in the stratum corneum (the uppermost layer of skin).

Other beneficial ingredients in L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream include linseed extract, honey, sweet almond fruit extract, and coconut oil. 

The key ingredients in L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil include sweet almond oil and grape seed oil. The healthy fats in sweet almond almond oil help to maintain skin hydration by keeping the skin barrier intact. Sweet almond oil is also rich in vitamin E, which provides antioxidant protection and helps to reduce transepidermal water loss. Grape seed oil is lightweight, stable, and moisturizing.

It has a high affinity with the structure of skin cells, and therefore is absorbed easily without leaving a greasy feeling behind. 

L’Occitane Immortelle Overnight Reset Oil-in-Serum includes the brand’s patented organic Immortelle essential oil, also known as Helichrysum italicum flower oil, which has antioxidant and anti-aging properties. Immortelle essential oil targets the loss of firmness and elasticity of the skin, and also provides protection against environmental aggressors.

Other beneficial ingredients in the L’Occitane Immortelle Overnight Reset Oil-in-Serum include meadowfoam seed oil, acmella oleracea extract, and marjoram extract.

One thing to note about L’Occitane skincare products is that they all contain fragrance, some more heavily fragranced than others.

For example, the L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil contains more fragrance than almond oil! We understand that consumers appreciate when products smell pleasant, but we’d like to point out that fragrance is not skin care. Fragrance ingredients (both natural and synthetic) are well known to cause skin sensitization, irritation, and damage.

Even if you don’t have a full blown reaction to the fragrance ingredients, the damage may still be occurring every day.

Ultimately, this can cause mild problems for your skin in the short term and worse problems in the long term. 

L’Occitane products are formulated without parabens and phthalates, and many products are free from sulfate. Unfortunately, L’Occitane products are not clean. The main culprit in synthetic fragrance. Fragrance conceals thousands of toxins, so there is no way of knowing what is inside.

Where is L’Occitane sold?

L’Occitane skincare products are sold on the brand’s website and its brick-and-mortar stores around the world. You can use the store locator on the brand’s website to find a L’Occitane boutique near you. L’Occitane skincare products are also sold through numerous third party online retailers, such as Sephora, Walmart, QVC, and more. 

Is L’Occitane cruelty free?

L’Occitane is not cruelty free. While L’Occitane does not conduct animal testing on their products or ingredients, they do test on animals when required to do so by law (such as in China).