Get Squishy Skin; Get Guerisson 9-Complex Horse Oil

If you’re into Asian skincare like I am, products with strange ingredients wouldn’t seem so strange to you. We’ve had snail slime, bee venom, donkey milk (donkey milk?) and even horse oil. Or at least we’ve had one product which contained horse oil: the Guerisson 9-Complex Horse Oil from Germany, as the packaging boasts. After all, don’t we all know that German horses are known for being much more moisturising than all other horses?

Anyway, it’s like every review on this product warrants a mini-intro about Korean skincare and weird ingredients. To me, if it works then it works. Doesn’t mean I’ll be rushing out to purchase every horse-based product the world has to offer, just that I might consider repurchasing this one when I run out. Because it works. And I actually like it.

Not that I ever will run out of this stuff, though. The jar is huge, 70 grammes to be specific. Nothing all that different in stature from your regular jar of moisturiser, but you only need to use so little of this stuff that I simply cannot imagine the day when I finally scrape the last bit of it and move on to the next jar.

When you first get this product, it’s housed in a rather bulky orange box that’s pretty cute. Said box has since been repurposed as a bit of room decoration next to my vanilla-scented Ikea candles. It also reminds me of the packaging for another Asian beauty product, Palgantong Theatrical Powder, which used to be sold in Sasa and was lauded in the magazines as “the powder that all the Korean celebs use!!!” despite the fact that the brand was Japanese. I bought the extra large jar, and it lasted me for about six decades.

But back to this horse cream! Besides the orange box, this stuff also comes with a little spatula to dig the product out… useful for all you germaphobes. The spatula is a minute little thing, but you’re still going to want to use only the very tip of the spatula to dig the product out. Do not get a whole spoonful like I did or you’re going to end up with a very greasy face. So a little goes a long way.

The cream hardens when you keep it in an air-conditioned room, like refrigerated butter. Warming it up with your hands melts it easily. I have to say, as someone who is not afraid of super-heavy moisturisers and has tried many, I was actually surprised by how light this product actually is. Some of my heavier moisturisers have been so thick that it actually makes my face feel hot (only for nighttime, though! And I haven’t broken out, so don’t worry) but the horse cream doesn’t. I mean, it’s not thin or gel-like in any way whatsoever… it is definitely a cream, but I’d say it’s light enough that you can wear it out in the daytime underneath your makeup without much of a problem. It’s something I’ve done, actually!

I don’t know if there has been any legit scientific research on the skincare benefits of horse oil. I imagine if there is, it’s got to be pretty vague. Still, my standards for a ‘good’ moisturiser is that it actually moisturises and is capable of keeping flaky skin at bay. I don’t expect my products to be greasy, but I don’t want my moisturisers to absorb so quickly that it leaves my face feeling like there’s nothing on it. The worst moisturiser I’ve ever tried was a ZA gel moisturiser which was so thin and absorbed so quickly that it might as well not have existed. I don’t want dry, matte skin. If I wanted dry, matte skin I’d just wash my face and never apply moisturiser.

But I’m happy to say that Guerisson Horse Cream isn’t anything like that! As I’ve said, it isn’t stupidly heavy and greasy but still manages to be nourishing. I keep my fingers crossed in hopes that my face doesn’t burst into boils and pustules as a result of the savagery of putting horse cream on my face, but so far everything has been okay! For the first few days of trying out this cream, I skipped out on some of my usual hydrating steps just to see how well this stuff works and I can say there hasn’t been any bad cases of flaking or peeling of dried out bits of skin. I go to bed with this on and wake up with bright, glowy, squishy skin. I’m not saying the cream has brightening powers or anything, but well-moisturised skin is happy skin and when your skin is happy it glows!

Thus my conclusion is that this isn’t a bad product! Am I going to make it my go-to moisturiser, the one I stick with for the rest of my life? I don’t really see a reason why not, but the answer is looking more like nah for now. The whole premise of it just seems a bit too gimmicky to me. I mean, horse cream. I’m not so much grossed out as I am incapable of shaking the feeling that this feels more like a ‘try it out just to say I have’ kind of thing, like the bungee-jumping of skincare (I’ve done that, too, by the way). You might actually enjoy bungee jumping when you do it, but you’re still not going to make it your weekend hobby.

I’m still going to finish it up, though. So if you’d like to take a ride, you can get it at Hermo.my for RM48 (as of now… usually they have it around the RM60+ mark) or at Althea where it is always RM46. It’s also sold in Boots stores in Thailand for around 6000+ Baht, if you happen to be going there.