Browsing by category: scented body products

Lush Prince Charming Shower Gel ~ body product review

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Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty

Every winter Lush releases a small collection of limited edition products for Valentine’s Day. These items tend towards the pink and sparkly and sweet, but sometimes one of them catches my interest and makes me wish it were a year-round item. Two years ago, I felt that way about The Kiss lip gloss (really a whipped balm, and now back as a re-release!); last year, I was enthusiastic about the Tender is the Night massage bar. This year, my pick is Prince Charming Shower Gel.

Prince Charming’s ingredients include pomegranate juice, grapefruit oil, sandalwood oil and geranium oil, as well as natural “decoctions” of marshmallow (the plant, not the dessert item) and vanilla pod. Sniffed directly from the bottle, it’s a tart, juicy blend of pomegranate and citrus. Used in a steamy shower, Prince Charming smells deeper and more complex…

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Aftelier Chocolate Saffron Body Oil ~ body product review

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Aftelier Chocolate Saffron Body Oil

Call it a Christmas Miracle, but last week at a reading by Mandy Aftel at Cacao in Portland (Portlandia fans snicker here),1 I won a bottle of Aftelier Chocolate Saffron Body Oil and Hair Elixir in a raffle. A Cacao employee proffered a deep ceramic cylinder for Aftel to dig in for names. She grasped one card, but it slipped away. I held my breath. She grasped another and lifted it from the cylinder. It was me! Friends, this never happens. I had the choice of a chocolate parfum or the body oil. Fragrance is wonderful, and although the parfum would have made a delightful choice, let’s face it: daily body products are often more important than the occasional dab of perfume. Especially in winter, when skin can be so dry.

The Aftelier Chocolate Saffron Body Oil comes in a tall, rectangular glass 100 ml pump bottle with a cap. Its notes are chocolate, saffron and ylang ylang. Aftel says that it’s one of the oldest things she makes and continues to make…

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Holiday fragrance gifts 2014, part 1

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It’s Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day — but either way, window shopping never hurts. We’re kicking off our annual string of holiday gift posts with scented bath & body products. More to come over the next few weeks!

Dries Van Noten Par Frédéric Malle Body Butter

From Frédéric Malle, Dries Van Noten Par Frédéric Malle Body Butter: “This unique perfume of natural sandalwood, saffron, vanilla, Peruvian balm, and patchouli heart lends itself well to the form of an extra rich body cream, rich in shea butter and beeswax. This extraordinary comfort and silk like richness encapsulates the vision of Dries Van Noten’s world.” At Barneys, $185…

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Aftelier Organic Honeysuckle Face Elixir ~ scented body product review

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Lonicera caprifolium

Mandy Aftel of Aftelier has been creating fragranced facial oils for the past twenty years or so, rotating various blends in and out of production. I’ve been an admirer of Aftelier’s “elixirs” for the past year, since I first tried them, and I still haven’t decided which blend I prefer, the Organic Ylang or the Organic Rose; both are gorgeous (and effective). Now there’s a third blend, and it’s making my decision even more difficult. It’s the new Organic Honeysuckle Face Elixir, scented with “rare honeysuckle absolute from Italy.”

This facial elixir is richly fragranced: if you apply it to your face at bedtime, not only will you drift off to sleep on a wave of lush floral notes, you might even smell the scent again when you wash your face the next morning…

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Lush So White Shower Gel & Yog Nog Soap ~ scented body product reviews

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Lush So White Shower Gel & Yog Nog Soap

Yes, I’m one of those people: I’m truly dismayed when Christmas decorations and holiday items start showing up in stores in mid-October. What’s the rush? One of the very few exceptions, in my book, is the annual holiday-season collection from Lush. I always look forward to buying a few bars of Snowcake soap, and this year I was desperate to grab a new bottle of Rose Jam Shower Gel. I also picked up two new items: So White Shower Gel and Yog Nog Soap. (I am weak.)

So White is the liquid counterpart to a bath bomb of the same name, which I never tried. It’s a pearly white shower gel “with fresh apple infusion and cheerful neroli oil to leave skin bright and beautifully perfumed.” I’m not normally a fan of apple perfumes or apple-scented products, but So White’s apple fragrance is so crisp and tart and weirdly realistic…

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