A few weeks ago I recieved a few sampler products from www.willowstore.ca for review. They included a handful of sample packets each of their Donkey Milk Body Lotion and Face Cream, a Donkey Milk & Olive Oil soap and an olive oil lip balm. The shop itself is based in Toronto, Ontario and is a newly budding Canadian business that I was very excited to hear about and was so happy to get to try out these products! They carry both the Donkey Milk and Olive Oil products online in their shop.
*I apologize in advance for the photos this time around, I didn't think to take them right away and it was late night when I finally did. Poor planning on my part. :( *
The Donkey Milk is provided by a traditional family farm in Belgium where the donkeys are hand milked three times per day! The products themselves are made up of 95% or higher organic ingredients and have some amazing qualities. The Donkey Milk provides several benefits to your skin including the potential to reduce sun damage and wrinkles (thanks to antioxidants, vitamins and minerals), as well as offering amazing moisture and continuing protection from dry skin. Donkey Milk is superior in nutrients for our skin to cows milk, but because the process is very labor intensive and the donkeys can only produce a fraction of what a cow can, it's very difficult to get our hands on these products.
The first product I tested out was the Handmade Olive Oil soap in which I chose the Donkey Milk & Silk variety. I found it was what I would consider to be unscented. It lathered well and left me feeling clean, however I found it left my skin feeling a bit tight in the body. I have this issue commonly with soaps, however, so please don't let this discourage you from trying it. Even extremely moisturizing soap varieties often leave my skin feeling tight. I did however find that for my combination skin on my face, this was a perfect choice and I have been using it to wash my face since then.
The bars retail on the website starting at $3 and vary by size.
The Donkey Milk Body Lotion was quite possibly my favorite product of the bunch. I used one packet after a shower for several days on my legs, arms, and some of my body and found it left my skin feeling soft and silky and relieved some of the dry itchiness of winter. It's definitely a scented product, it has a clean soapy perfumey sort of smell that I associate with higher end facial and body creams.
A 400ml bottle of Body Lotion retails for
$34 on the website.
The Donkey Milk Care Cream (face cream) was a close second favorite for me. I used it as a night cream after reading some of my friends thoughts on the product as I expected it might be greasy and need some time to sink in. I put about half of a packet on before brushing my teeth and by the time my teeth were brushed, all of the cream had absorbed into my skin. I put on another layer on for good measure but it wasn't necessary as I learned through the next few days using it just once. My skin was super soft and my dry spots seriously reduced for the days that I've been using this cream. As soon as it's in my budget, I'll be buying this in a second. A jar will last a long time. I got 2-3 uses out of each of my 3ml sample packets, so I expect one jar would last 35-50 applications depending on how you use it.
A 50ml jar of Care Cream
retails for $36.
And finally I recieved the Vanilla Olive Oil Lip Balm which was a soft scent of vanilla and had no real flavor. It was moisturizing and melted nicely in a similar fashion to the handmade lipbalms I usually use. It is not waxy like a traditional lipbalm and can take some getting used to, but I love them.
It retails for $4.75
on the website in Vanilla, Natural and Rose.
Willow is the only store in Ontario at the moment carrying these products and they are amazing! Some of the gift sets available on the website right now are amazing deals, if you're interested, I would run over and check it out! What better time than the holidays to treat yourself or a friend to some great gifts to de-stress and remember to love ourselves with!
I hope you enjoyed my review! Let me know if you plan on trying out these products!
