Review: Human Heart Nature Sunflower Beauty Oil (or any other sunflower oil)

Today, I will be reviewing a product which is quite intriguing for me, thanks to my office mate's very energetic raving and it's purported  "23 miracles in a single bottle". One miracle is enough to rouse the skeptic in me, but 23? Oh boy! This review for Human Heart Nature's Sunflower Beauty Oil is probably the  most exciting one I've done.

Price and Availability: A 100 mL bottle costs 275 php. It seems cheap, but this is almost comparable to Skinfood's Grapefruit Body Lotion at 1200 php for a 400 mL bottle, and is expensive. Human Heart Nature products are available in supermarkets, malls, and through their website, making this an easy purchase.

Packaging: The pump is hard to control and leaky so bottle always leaves a circular oil mark on my table. Not good.

Texture and Scent: Imagine mineral (or baby) oil, but a bit more runny. This product is supposed to be unscented - and it was - until about two months after opening. Now it has a nutty and musty scent. I could be wrong, but I do get an impression that because the oil is extracted from organic material and it has no preservatives, some unnecessary organic components might have been left and is now attacked by bacteria. I hope I'm wrong, but still, the smell is unsettling.

Ingredients: Yay, my favorite part! According to their website, HHN's Sunflower Beauty Oil is made of "purest, premium-grade Helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil". Their website also lists the "23 miracles" brought to you by sunflower oil. Discussing them all one by one would take up too much time, so I took it upon myself to categorize the claims as follows:

Cleansing: removes stubborn makeup (Yes, makeup can be dissolved by oils like sunflower or mineral oil.)

Moisturizing: under eye moisturizer, prevents and diminishes the appearance of stretch marks, softens feet soles, knees and elbows, overall body moisturizer, softens the cuticles, hydrates dry patches (like many oils, sunflower oil can be used as a moisturizer - softer and tighter skin may be attributed to proper moisturizing)

Look at all those miracles.

Whitening: softens and lightens underarms, lightens dark under eye circles, lightens dark spots and pimple marks, lightens dark lips, helps lighten lesions and scars (sunflower oil contains 60-73% linoleic acid, which is known to have whitening effect)  

Hair care: moisturizes dry hair ends, de-frizzes hair, adds shine to dull hair (according to this study, there is no evidence that sunflower oil can  penetrate the hair fiber and therefore affect the hair, but anecdotes all over the net say sunflower oil made their hair soft and shiny)

Relief/healing: Relieves itching and inflammation caused by insect bites, soothes skin after shaving, relieves itchy scalp, soothes skin damaged by sunburn, smoothen skin from shaving, helps soothe rashes, helps heal skin infections (there is insufficient evidence on sunflower oil's effect on skin conditions and wound healing)

Others: nourishes and conditions eyelashes (I did not find any study saying sunflower oil, mineral oil or any oil for skin care can do something to the eyelashes)

Effect/Finish: Now to check the plausible "miracles". I only used this on my body and while it does moisturize, it does not fare better than an average, cheaper lotion in that aspect. The runny fluid, while hard to apply without drips elsewhere but the body, also lingers too long on the skin, so by the end of the week, my sheets had the musty odor.

I had a bad hyperpigmentation on my foot (from an insect bite) and I did not notice any lightening, even with daily use. Maybe this product just wasn't miraculous enough for me. 

Rating: Unfortunately for this product, only 13 "miracles" stand, which are mostly about moisturizing and whitening. Sunflower oil is a safe product when compared to other whitening ingredients, which is why even if it did not work for my hyperpigmentation, I am okay with it. The price may seem steep, but since it can be used for both the body and face (patch test first!), this bump can be justified. If you can tolerate the smell, this product does offer help, but nothing too miraculous.

Ingredients: 4/5
Value for money: 3/5
Performance: 3/5

Overall: 3.3/5