The Top Line:

Public Goods Facial Moisturizer is BUY if you are already on the Public Goods train. It absorbs nicely, leaving no residue. Also, it is unbelievably affordable for basic facial moisturizer (eg. no fancy ingredients like Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamin C, etc.). Note that this is not an SPF moisturizer.

Note: we did a Public Goods Roundup Review here!

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: $2.50 for a 3oz. bottle

  We tried the travel size before committing to a large amount of product.

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? Uh. The list of ingredients is quite long. Most are naturally derived or otherwise unalarming.

• Questionable Ingredients: TEA. Dimethicone.

• Packaging: Comes in plastic, but it’s made from sugarcane.

• Purchasing & Shipping: The website is cleanly designed and ordering is a straightforward. The free shipping threshold seems a little on the high side at a minimum of $45.

  However, we’ve realized that this limits the number of boxes being shipped and we like that.

• Good to Know: The Public Goods blog is pretty informative. They tell you some of the good and bad, like in this post where they talk about using sugarcane-based plastic.

  Additionally, the ‘full sized’ moisturizer is 4oz but comes with a spray nozzle.

• Coupons: $10 off your first order with ‘BLOG10’

• What’s Your Impact? Public goods pushes refillable. We like that. Even though it comes in a plastic bottle, (1) instead of petroleum based plastic, it is made from sugarcane and (2) there are refills for moisturizer, cutting down severely on the use of hard plastics.

The Efficacy

We have tried many a drugstore moisturizer/spf combo. Note, Public Goods does NOT contain sunscreen.

• Feels nice and moisturizing on the skin

• No residue, zero stickiness

• Absorbed quickly

• Scents are personal and while not this one is not offensive, it’s not our favorite

• Would describe the scent as a nice hotel scent

The Cost

If you moisturize daily, we assume that you use about 10oz of moisturizer per year, which is 4-5 of the typical moisturizer bottles. We mostly canvassed natural non-SPF drugstore brands like Weleda, Burt’s Bees, and Cetaphil.

Money Thoughts: Holy Crud. We cannot believe how much cheaper the Public Goods moisturizer is versus the competition. We really only compared to drugstore brands that were also marketed as natural.

The refill is even cheaper per year at $6, comparing to Cetaphil!

Note: we did not include the cost of membership yet.

The Bad:

✗ Still in plastic, just like every other lotion

✗ We weren’t in love with the complex, hotel-like scent

The Good:

✔ Mostly natural ingredients

✔ Absorbs really nicely and leaves a smooth finish

✔ Crazy inexpensive

✔ Refills are EVEN cheaper

✔ Paraben Free, Vegan Friendly, Cruelty Free, and Natural Fragrance

✔ Made in the US!

Our Recommendation:
We are going to stress that we did not find the smell offensive or bad in any way, but the complex scents were not up to our personal taste. That aside, the way it absorbed and left no trace, we loved. We also cannot stress how super affordable this lotion is for the quality. If participating in Public Goods, BUY the travel sized lotion.

We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!