Welcome to Deep Reviews—your one-stop destination to discover the absolute best products and brands the beauty industry has to offer. The Who What Wear staffers you already know and trust will research, test, and review the market's most sought-after and buzzed-about products to see which formulas (of the hundreds up for consideration) are worth your hard-earned money and attention. You can expect honest, uncensored feedback and no-BS recommendations our hard-to-please testers endorse without reservations.
The majority of our Deep Reviews will feature our editors' honest, ultra-hot takes on entire product categories or multiple products from a particular beauty brand, but every so often, we'll sprinkle in a special single-product format called Honestly, I Love It. As the name suggests, these reviews will hone in on one standout beauty formula our editors can't shut up about. This time, I'm highlighting a few of my favorites from luxury bodycare line Tronque.
I'll be straight with you. I try a lot of bodycare items in my line of work. While some have impressed me over the years, most of the time, I find that I move on to the next pretty quickly without a second thought. Every once in a while, though, I'll find a line so worthy of my extra time and attention (hi to Nécessaire and Mutha!) that I can't help but add its items to my weekly rotation because they're just that damn good. One such line is Tronque. The first time I tried the brand's decadent Firming Body Butter ($130) and Vitamin C Body Oil ($120), I actually said out loud, "Oooh."
They both provide such rich hydration that they can be used individually or they're especially handy to combine in colder weather to really lock in that extra moisture. Another thing I really appreciate about Tronque is its nontoxic philosophy. While many consumers (myself included) are becoming more conscious when it comes to the beauty products they use on a daily basis, it still feels overwhelming knowing how many potential toxins are out there and how many things you should avoid. With Tronque, you can rest assured that you're using endocrine disruptor–free products. For a bit more about why I love these star formulas from the brand and why founder Tanné Snowden (very accurately) describes these items as "a cocoon of soft cashmere," keep reading below.
It's so hard to choose a favorite here. The Firming Body Butter makes your skin so incredibly soft and it has this amazing natural botanical scent that makes me feel like I'm at the spa. While provided hydration and softness are two important elements that I look for in a body butter, this one is also packed with ingredients that offer some serious youth-enhancing skincare benefits. For starters, classic ingredients like hyaluronic acid and squalane plump fine lines and give you that extra-hydrated feel when you use it out of the shower. Tronque is also a New Zealand brand, so each formula contains star local ingredients that really give each product something extra.
Atlantic Ocean kelp in this body butter is a master detoxifier and something I didn't know I needed in my bodycare until now. "This anti-aging active ingredient is a downregulator of progerin for mature skin," Snowden shares. "It assures a detoxifying action through proteasome stimulation. It is a skin protector that reverses [aging] effects and is made up of a web of elastic fibers, which preserves tissue integrity against compression, ensures cohesion, and firmness of all the cell architecture (similar role that proteic fibers and elastin play in the skin)." Snowden also explains that New Zealand Mamaku is a special part of the sauce. "Mamaku extract is revered for its ability to regenerate skin cells, encouraging cell renewal and repairing DNA strains. There is an immediate tightness felt when it is first applied to the skin, as the ingredient forms a structure of molecules that bind together to support the skin."
Lastly, another highlighted ingredient you'll want to note is the brand's use of a rare New Zealand–native red algae. "This patented ingredient features a viscoelastic matrix of bioactive, bioavailable, and biomimetic polymers from native New Zealand red seaweed. The hydrating and plumping effect of red seaweed on the skin is attributed to the various mix of versatile biomimetic sulfated gycosaminoglycans (sGAG). These natural biopolymers are known to form a fishnet-like matrix that can help hold water molecules, while also acting as a structural scaffold to tighten the skin. The sGAGs from red seaweeds have structural features that resemble the eight essential sugars of human cells, allowing specific binding to proteins, polysaccharides, and bioactives within cells to induce and elevate focused activities."
So not only will you have extra-hydrated skin and a nourished skin barrier, but your skin will also be majorly renewed and youthful thanks to these healing and firming ingredients. Honestly, as I get older, I realize how important it is to take care of the skin on both your face and body. As a beauty editor, it's so easy for me to get caught up in the latest facial-care devices and treatments that I forget about the rest of the skin on my body. Tronque might be expensive, but the nutrient-packed natural ingredients really do improve your skin long-term and help reduce the signs of aging. Now, let's talk about my other obsession from the brand, the Vitamin C Body Oil.
If you (like me) struggle with dark spots, then this vitamin C–rich body oil is for you. Featuring what the brand deems a biotech lipid complex, this patented ingredient is noncomedogenic (thankfully for us acne-prone folks) and comprised completely of botanically sourced lipids. Snowden shares, "It is composed of a variety of lipid types that are carefully combined in the same ratio as those found on healthy young skin. The diversity of lipid types [presented] on the skin include triglycerides, wax esters, squalene, sterols, and sterol esters."
This formula also contains oil-soluble vitamin C, which more easily absorbs into the skin and penetrates both the upper (epidermis) and deeper (dermis) layer of the skin. Vitamin C is a fantastic ingredient for promoting collagen synthesis in the skin and lightening hyperpigmentation. I had a few dark spots and scars on my legs from shaving, and they've all but disappeared since I started using this body oil.
The combination of luxurious oils, including avocado, rose hip, and jojoba, gives it this lush, hydrating texture that just melts into your skin. Most brands just stop at that, but Tronque took it further and loaded this body oil with a patented ceramide complex to further nourish the skin and protect the moisture barrier. "Our patented ceramide complex is derived from organic olive oil for particular use [on] the skin of the body. It is based on an environmentally friendly, biotechnology-based production process, improving epidermal moisturization. The powerful combination of ceramides and sphingolipids, delivers lasting hydration and plumps the skin for a smooth and healthy appearance, reducing the appearance of photodamaged skin and pore size."
Snowden shared a ton of great info on Tronque's star ingredients, but I also wanted to know what drove her to start the brand in the first place. "My initial motivation for creating Tronque bodycare arose after my second surgery for endometriosis where I was left with five scars on my pelvis," she shares. "While recovering, I started to research how I could minimize the chances of having another surgery. I learned about endocrine disruptors and how it affects endometriosis, other than genetic causes. Endocrine disruptors are compounds that can mimic hormones and are commonly found in beauty products, which I was generously using top to toe. After writing a list of the top 10 most questionable ingredients found in skincare, I had to throw away 53 products that I had been using and was left with just three products I felt safe using. Finding alternatives was very difficult, and there was nothing on the market at that time with the same efficacy as my original products, while being stringently 'clean.'
"At the same time, I was also using scar-reducing products full of endocrine disruptors without prior knowledge, which weren't working to reduce the scarring. I started to mix my own clean alternative to help erase my scars, which eventually did. This led to me re-creating my beauty routine and how I cared for my health. The positive results with my own scars were the original catalyst for the creation of Tronque, a clean, effective, treatment-focused bodycare [line] focused on treating the body like your face."
Coincidentally, Snowden's two favorite Tronque items happen to mirror my own. Of course, asking a founder to choose two of their favorite products is like picking your favorite children, but Snowden loves using the Vitamin C Body Oil and Firming Body Butter in the same way that I do. "These two products mixed together is what makes it hard to choose a favorite. A few drops of the Vitamin C Body Oil in the palm of your hand mixed with a scoop of the Firming Butter truly delivers tangible results. Not only is your skin noticeably softer to touch, but it also feels like it's wrapped in a cocoon of soft cashmere. Used over time, the combination of ingredients helps with everything from UV damage, pigmentation, dullness, firming, and structural improvement. Although, I do [also] have a soft spot for [the] Scar Concentrate, as it's helped to heal a number of scars, most recently two surgical scars on my elbow."
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