Temulawak - One of the original BB cream

I was curious with my sister's new obsession of BB cream. BB cream stands for blemish balm or beautifying balm. It was said that it could replace your sunblock, moisturizer, concealer and makeup!. It sounds too good to be true so I decided to check upon in on the Internet.

When I looked at the ingredient and the name BB cream, it reminded me of a cream that girls and boys use when I was doing my diploma 10 years ago. Girls would wear it during the day as makeup while guys usually wear it at night before bed. They swear it makes them whiter and makes their skin better.

I check the ingredient of these new BB cream and wanted to compared them with the ones in the past. Temulawak was one of the popular beauty cream of the past and it still sold today in Mydin and various traditional cosmetic counters everywhere. I bought one from RM3, this one contains Goat Milk. I opened it and smelled it. It still looks and smells like it did 10 years ago. I still remember my friends layering it on before bedtime or my female friends looking strangely fair or my friends who used "Babyface" and had their skin on their face peeling off.

I looked up the ingredients online and found its mostly an emollient and a very good physical sunblock. The main emollient is petrolatum, which is basically petroleum jelly or Vaseline. On its own its quite greasy but its one of the best emollient out there and it does help with skin healing. There is other emollients added in such as bees wax, carnuba wax and milk protein which does the same thing. The physical sunblock that is used in most BB creams are titanium dioxide, its not only a physical sunblock that reflects both UVA and UVB rays, its also acts as thickener for the product. This is true because its the texture of this cream in the jar is like cold butter.

So basically just based on the ingredients, those who uses this everyday in the daytime will have youthful skin  that is protected by the sun, while those used it at night will have smoother and flawless skin that has healed it self.

Why many people stopped using it? The texture and smell has something to do with it, it does not feel as luxurious and smooth like creams of today. Today's cream smells either better or are fragrance free. Another reason it that this is a balm, which is thicker and more richer that a cream. Which is thicker than lotion and even more thicker that gels.  

In the end, according to its ingredients, this RM 3 balm, works as well or even better that creams that cost 2,3,4, or 10 times as much. You might want to check out this old but never forgotten cream and see if it works better than the cream you are using now.