The claim: Nivea has a new cure for dry winter skin. Its In-Shower Body Lotion offers smoothing 24-hour moisturizing. It moisturizes instantly with no sticky feeling. The lotion is activated by water and immediately absorbs into the skin. Designed to be used after your shower product, it leaves skin feeling hydrated and silky soft — even after towel-drying. The Nivea In-Shower Body Lotion range has been formulated for normal, dry and very dry skin types.
Cost: $7.99 for a 13.5-ounce bottle
Where: Discount, drug and grocery stores
A lotion you slather on while still in the shower, cutting 5 minutes out of your daily beauty routine? I was so in. After all, that's more time to fool around on Twitter, try to get past that impossible round of Candy Crush Saga or watch reruns of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”
Nivea's In-Shower Smoothing Body Lotion had me at shea butter. I've had good luck in the past with beauty products containing it, and my skin is feeling downright reptilian with the brutal February we've been having. (Which one of you ticked off Mother Nature?) Things started well enough. The fragrance was inviting, yet subdued. The lotion wasn't sticky, as I feared. I remembered not to apply it to the bottom of my feet.
It didn't take long for the “huh” I had for the product to turn to “meh,” however.
Despite using the lotion during my daily shower for a week, my skin was neither discernably softer nor smoother. But because of having to rinse out the shower after every application, my bathtub is cleaner than it's been in years. That's the best thing I can say about the lotion.
Nivea In-Shower Body Lotion sounded perfect for my parched, winter-weary skin. Between arid heat from the furnace, drier heat from the portable heater under my desk and those frigid blasts of cold air, my skin seemed to have aged before my eyes.
Dermatologists recommend applying body lotion while the skin is still damp to hold in more moisture. This product takes the logic a step further. After you've washed, you apply the product like any other lotion. Rub it in and rinse off. You can see water bead from the protective barrier, which seemed to build after several days of use. My scratchy dry patches smoothed out, and crinkley looking skin — hello, Cryptkeeper! — appeared softer and moisturized.
The one drawback is the residue left in the tub, which required immediate attention after each treatment. A good spritz of soap-scum blasting shower cleaner, followed by a rinse, does the trick. But do I really want to be forced to clean the shower daily?
Nivea picked the right year to debut its new In-Shower Body Lotion. At the end of the coldest February on record there can't be many folks who aren't dealing with dry skin.
Don't get me wrong. Elsa and I could be sisters. I relish snow. And the clear star-studded winter nights that provide the a world-class light show are an added bonus for those of us brave enough to venture out. But day after day of clearing walkways and traipsing through the snow with the dog have certainly taken a toll on my skin.
So Nivea's new In-Shower Body Lotion was a treat whose time had come. Although I was skeptical about the value of a rinse-off product, Nivea's In-Shower Body Lotion left my poor dry skin feeling summer soft, silky and clean.
The only downside is it does indeed leave the shower floor slick if you forget to rinse it down thoroughly with hot water.
