Beauty Dish

Review: Avon Banishing Cream Skin Discoloration Lightener

Subtitle: Ohio sinks into oblivion....

I usually spent my money and time reviewing the hot new Avon products. Every two weeks Avon has at least a hundred new "in" colors and compacts and lipglosses and sparkling (real and fake) jewels. I'm like a scrappy nesting raven - I gravitate toward the shiny, the foreign, the things I think others will want to steal from me. The sad thing in all of this is that Avon has an amazing and huge standard catalog of products that have been around for many years and that some customers love and cherish, and I ignore most of it. The Avon Banishing Cream is one of those goodies. I wasn't planning on reviewing this product. I do have couple of - well let's face it - age spots, but they don't bother me. However, in the interest of Science and Avon Lady Sisterhood, I decided to give it a try when once of my regular customers moved on the sly, leaving me with two jars of the stuff!

The Avon Banishing Cream is featured in every single Avon campaign brochure. I sell it to my older customers who complain of "liver spots" and freckles. The literature doesn't glam the descriptive language like it does with the new Avon Anew products. It simply states that the lotion will fade away flaws on your face and body next to a stoic photograph of the 2.5 ounce container and the standard price, a cool eight bucks and fifty cents. You can find the cream next to the other standard Avon face and body potions in the back section of any Avon book.

I chose the biggest ugliest age spot I have - a quarter-sized spread in the shape of Ohio on the back of my left hand, and decided to give the cream a good month-long trial. It comes in a short cylindrical beige container with the Avon logo and the product name in a simple font. Like I said, it's one of Avon's regular no-nonsense products. It smells vaguely like bleach and lemon and a little like Christmas Cookies, not an unpleasant scent.

I rubbed the lotion into my old lady badge every morning and evening for thirty-one days. It seeps into your skin easily and leaves no greasy finish. It doesn't tingle or sting, but the smell stays on your skin all day. I started noticing a slight change after just a few days on the product. My Ohio started fading, as if it's cellular occupants fell asleep, forgot to work and play and regenerate.

One month later, Ohio has virtually disappeared, and I've barely made a dent in the first jar. (And I can think of a few political activists who wouldn't mind rubbing this stuff on the actual state!) I don't know if one needs to continue applying the product to keep the spots at bay, but the cream goes a long way, it's not an expensive option to continue applying it until the liver spots creep and crawl from one side of your body to another.

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