Origins Skin Care Review

9.36/10

Origins Skin Care Review

9.36/10

Quick Overview
  • Difficulty
    Moderate
  • Cost
    Average
  • Trial Period
    30 Days

Origins is a premium skin and beauty product manufacturer that was founded in 1990. The company's product line is a result of research performed by a team of plant scientists and beauty chemists, all of whom were interested in how the traditional medicinal uses of plants and their essential oils could be applied to modern skin and beauty products.

Led by Dr. Lieve DeClercq, this team of researchers developed a robust and varied skincare product line that includes cosmetics, cleansers, creams, conditioners, moisturizers, exfoliators, facial treatments, masks, lotions, serums and more.

Since their founding over two decades ago, Origins has worked hard to deliver products with all-natural ingredients, grown organically and harvested under fair trade principles whenever possible. The company has an unyielding commitment to the natural environment, and refuses to engage in any practices associated with animal cruelty. Origins is involved in a number of green initiatives, including planting trees, purchasing carbon offsets and utilizing recycled materials for packaging.

Origins has partnered with Beauty.com, a major online skin and beauty product distributor, to serve as one of their primary retailers. You'll receive several benefits when purchasing Origins products from Beauty.com, including free shipping on orders over $25, 5% in-store credit rewards on all purchases and an automatic delivery program that allows you to receive the same products on an ongoing periodic basis. Beauty.com offers exceptional customer support through live chat, email and phone free of charge, in addition to a 30-day return policy. Numerous testimonials, most of which are very positive, are available for most products. The base prices listed on Beauty.com are identical to those listed on the main Origins website, making the choice between the two obvious.

Pros

    • All-natural and organic ingredients.
    • Large product line.
    • Focus on scientific research and clinical trials.
    • Free shipping on orders over $25.
    • 20+ year company history.
    • Numerous positive testimonials.
    • Environmentally friendly.

Cons

    • Relatively brief return policy.

Quality

Origins demonstrates its commitment to quality by offering a product line that's heavily based on all-natural essential oils instead of synthetic chemicals. Every single product sold by Origins contains at least two essential oils, which are formulated in various ratios and combinations in order to maximize their effects. As a result, the essential oils help your skin realize its natural self-correcting and rejuvenating abilities. Lesser skincare products work on a more temporary basis, hiding imperfections and blemishes superficially without actually correcting them.

Origins is very selective in choosing and combining these essential oils. For example, there are over 400 different species of eucalyptus, each of which provide their own unique essential oil. Origins uses exactly six of these eucalyptus varieties, each chosen for their specific beneficial properties. The oils are meticulously extracted and balanced in order to preserve their efficacy and potency.

The Origins area of the Beauty.com website is expertly organized and makes an enormous product line significantly more manageable. You can shop according to category (such as Body Cleansers, Anti-Aging, Gels and Serums, Eye Treatments and Creams) or keyword, and narrow your search by sorting the results according to the newest products and the most highly rated products. You can also shop according to price range, and save items to a wish list for future purchase.

Ingredients

Origins skin and beauty products consist of 100% all-natural ingredients, including organic and wildcrafted components as well as natural essential oils. All of the ingredients sourced by Origins are harvested using environmentally friendly techniques in order to minimize the impact on our natural ecosystem. This same principle is applied to the materials used in the company's packaging materials, which consist mostly of recycled materials.

Origins is very selective when it comes to the ingredients they don't include in their skincare products, as they understand that harsh chemicals, preservatives and other unwanted additives can compromise your short- and long-term health. As such, they refuse to include paraffin, petrolatum, PABA, DEA, mineral oil, propylene glycol, phthalates and parabens in all of their products, despite the fact that many large-scale skin and beauty companies use these ingredients to preserve their products and keep costs down. All of the products sold by Origins are also free of animal ingredients, with the exception of cruelty-free beeswax and honey.

Each product page on the Origins website includes a list of key ingredients, along with a detailed explanation of the nature and benefits of each.. While this is a great service to those who may be unfamiliar with common all-natural skin and beauty product components, a full ingredients list would be preferable. Fortunately, this is exactly what the Origins product pages at Beauty.com provide. By clicking the Ingredients tab on a Beauty.com product page, you'll see a full ingredients list. Many of the listed ingredients are links that you can click through for additional information.

Clinical Studies and Research

In creating their skin and beauty products, Origins relies on the research and guidance of Dr. Lieve DeClercq. DeClercq, who holds a PhD in plant physiology, has been the leader of the Origins plant science team for nearly two decades. Her research has helped the company discover many of its most prominent active ingredients, including sliver-needle white tea from China, Rhodiola rosea from Siberia and The Rose of Jericho from North Africa. To date, Dr. DeClercq's research has been published in 21 scientific journals.

In order to bring the safest and most effective skincare products to the health and beauty market, Origins rigorously tests and evaluates all of their finished products. This includes studying peer-reviewed scientific journals and conducting clinical trials with the help of volunteer panels. While the results of these trials are not immediately available on the Origins website, the company stresses that these studies are performed in order to perfect the Origins product line, and that no product is offered for sale before it satisfactorily passes the company's rigid standards.

Effectiveness/Testimonials

Each individual Origins product page found on the Beauty.com website comes complete with a section devoted to user testimonials, found under the Reviews tab. Each testimonial includes a star rating between 1 and 5, in addition to a list of pros and cons (such as "goes on smoothly," "long lasting," "smells great" and "absorbs quickly"), the customer's suggested uses and a brief review summary. Some of the reviews include a Verified Buyer tag, indicating that the reviewer has actually purchased the product for which they're offering a testimonial. Each testimonial ends with a "bottom line" indicating whether the reviewer would ultimately recommend the product. The star ratings are averaged and placed at the top of the review section for convenience.

Overall, the customer testimonials posted at Beauty.com indicate that Origins skincare products are highly effective. Of course, the company's product line is relatively large, ensuring that some products will be more effective than others based on your exact skin and beauty needs. For this reason, it's important to read the reviews carefully to determine what each individual liked or didn't like about each product, and whether the pros outweigh the cons for your given situation.

If you're seeking additional testimonials, they can be found away from Beauty.com at the Origins website. These reviews follow a similar format, with star ratings, review summaries and a "yes" or "no" recommendation. Each testimonial also includes the reviewer's skin type, location and length of time using the product. All of the testimonials at both Beauty.com and the Origins website are unedited, allowing you to see even the most negative product reviews in addition to those from satisfied customers.

Customer Support

Beauty.com is known for offering exceptional customer support for Origins products. The company provides direct customer service via phone and email 24/7. You can contact the company free of charge by dialing 1-800-278-4786, or by sending email through an embedded web form. Beauty.com also offers live chat customer support through a team of skin and beauty experts Monday through Friday, from 7:00am until 4:00pm PST. This is the best customer support avenue for those seeking product recommendations and skincare advice.

Beauty.com also offers an extensive FAQ section that answers the most common questions regarding topics such as Billing, Shipping, Returns, Order Status, Product Information, Accounts and Promotional Offers. The company recommends that you peruse this FAQ section before making a direct support inquiry regarding Origins products.One of the more noteworthy customer support features offered by Beauty.com for Origins skincare products is the company's Auto Delivery program. This allows you to select a product or a group of products that you'd like to have shipped to your home on a regular basis. You can choose between 30, 45, 60, 90 and 180 day shipping periods. Although most orders from Beauty.com ship free of charge, the Auto Delivery program allows you to save $4 off of each shipment that does not qualify for free shipping.

Product Return Policy

Beauty.com offers a 30-day return policy in which you can receive a full refund of your purchase price, minus shipping and handling, by sending an Origins product back to the company. Unfortunately, Beauty.com does not accept opened or used items unless they're deemed damaged or defective. Beauty.com does not state what defines a defective item, and they advise that those seeking a return contact customer service to determine whether a used or opened item qualifies for the return policy. If the item is deemed damaged or defective, you'll receive a full refund including shipping and handling. All return orders in excess of $200 in value are subject to a 10% restocking fee.

Beauty.com recommends that Origins products be boxed securely in order to prevent damage during the return shipment. Padded envelopes are not acceptable. Contact Beauty.com's customer service department to obtain the appropriate return shipping label for your order.

Cost

Beauty.com sells Origins skincare products for affordable prices that are at or below what you'd expect from the competition. The products are subject to several discounts from Beauty.com that make Origins products an even better value. This begins with the company's Dollars Program, which awards 5% in-store credit each time you make a purchase. The in-store credit accrues each calendar quarter, and is available for spending the following month. You'll need to create an account with Drugstore.com, Beauty.com's partner organization, in order to enroll in the Dollars Program.

Beauty.com also offers free samples of products from Origins and other premium skincare brands. This allows you to experiment with new products, with absolutely no obligation to buy, each time you place an order with Beauty.com. You can request up to three free samples per order. The company also offers free gift offers that you may choose when you place an order of a certain minimum value, such as $25 or $40.

One of the best reasons to purchase Origins products from Beauty.com is the free shipping service offered by the company. Known as Everyday Free Shipping, this service waives all shipping charges for orders that cost $25 or greater and weigh 20 pounds or less. This is one of the most lenient free shipping policies of any company in the skin and beauty industry.

Summary

Origins is an ideal resource for high quality, all-natural skin and beauty products at affordable prices. The company's partnership with Beauty.com allows for even greater value for the customer, with myriad benefits including free shipping, automatic cash rewards, auto-delivery and comprehensive customer support through live chat, email and toll-free phone. Origins is one of a select few skincare companies that delivers on its promise to protect the environment, evinced by their pursuance of carbon-neutral status and insistence on using recycled material in product packaging.

The products sold by Origins are well-received among the skin and beauty consumer community, receiving positive testimonials across the entire product line. Rather than simply stagnating, the company's product line evolves and improves over time thanks to the scientific research performed by Dr. Lieve DeClercq and her team of chemists and plant scientists. The company's motto, "Powered by Nature - Proved by Science," is a fitting description of how Origins takes pure, natural ingredients provided by the Earth and formulates them into consistent, effective and extremely safe skin and beauty products.