Haus of Gloi Lavender Sugar Bubbling Scrub ($8.00 for 6 oz.) is described as “straight French lavender and a heapling spoonful of pure muscadovo sugar.” Haus of Gloi’s Bubbling Scrubs have a lightly foaming base with both fine and medium grain sugars, and then they add shea butter so you feel moisturized post-scrub, too. I love that you can buy a sample size (2 oz.) for $3.50; sample sizes are probably the best part (my opinion, of course) about shopping with smaller companies. I picked up the full-size myself, but if you like to hop around scents, unsure if you’d like one, and so on, smaller sizes are often available.
If there’s one scent that I really, truly love and tend to love and gravitate towards in body products, it’s lavender. I am the type of person who can’t relax; like I get stressed out just trying to relax. The only time I ever feel totally relaxed is about forty minutes into a massage–and that’s when I finally can let go of my five mile long to-do list and twice as long worry list. Lavender helps me get there, even if I so rarely achieve perfection in relaxation, the scent always reminds me to relax, to focus, and to breathe in long and deep and slowly.
Lavender Sugar is just right for someone who loves an herbal, earthy lavender with just a faint hint of sweetness. The sweetness of the overall scent kicks in a few hours later, making it less herbaceous. If you tend to prefer sweet, more vanilla-like scents with a hint of lavender, the lavender in this will be too potent. It’s definitely the note at the forefront. The scent isn’t very nuanced, but it’s beautiful in its purity. It does linger throughout the day–about six to eight hours for me–but it clings, so it’s not a scent that will waft, but you’ll be able to smell it on your skin.
I like scrubs that have a good grit that gets dead skin sloughed off but with a little lather so it glides and melts against the skin. A lot of sugar scrubs seem to use a larger grain, and while I wouldn’t describe my body’s skin as sensitive, it’s not always the most pleasant. This scrub has a nice mix of sugar granules that really do melt while you’re massaging the product against the skin, but it doesn’t melt instantaneously–about thirty to forty-five seconds of massaging and most of the granules have dissolved.
It has a milky lather that helps the scrub glide across the skin–I hate when a scrub is so thick that it sticks and doesn’t cover the entire area–and leaves skin with a light moisturizer. It’s not enough hydration to cure dragon scales from infrequent body moisturizer application, but if you regularly moisturize already, you could probably get away with skipping the moisturizer after using this scrub. You’ll never feel dry, tight, or oily post-scrub, though!
LUSH Shark Fin Soap ($5.95 for 3.5 oz.) just launched and is a limited edition soap that benefits Shark Savers, a non-profit organization that works for the protection and conservation of sharks. LUSH is donating 100% of the proceeds of the soap. It’s described as “packed full of softening seaweed, scrubby fine sea salt, and zest lime oil.”
It smells salty and zesty–very citrus-based with a definite tartness. You get a bit of the seaweed coming through when it’s actually be used (I used it as a body soap in the shower) but overall, the lime oil dominates. I like it, and it’s more of a unisex scent, too. There’s enough lather to enable it to glide over skin easily but don’t expect lots of soapy lather. Only the faintest hint of lime and salt (it has the crispness of the sea breeze–without the coconut and sunscreen) remained on my skin post-shower, which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your needs.
It seems similar to Sea Vegetable Soap, which also has lime, seaweed, and sea salt (and though Shark Fin isn’t described with lavender in it, it is in the ingredients’ list), which I haven’t smelled, so I can’t attest to how similar they may (or may not) be. The ingredient lists for the two aren’t exactly the same but the beginning of both are nearly identical. This was more to say – if you like that, you might like this, too.
Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Body Intensive Exfoliating Treatment ($65.00 for 5 oz.) is an enzyme-based scrub that utilizes both papaya and pumpkin enzymes as well as beads to exfoliate away dead skin. According to Kate Somerville, the enzymes “digest dead skin cells” while the beads “buff them away.” The visual I get of enzymes digesting dead skin is partially gross… and yet hilarious. Moving on!
I love me some ExfoliKate (for the face), and I like ExfoliKate Body, but I don’t think I’d repurchase it at full price. I picked up mine through Gilt, when they had a sale, so I think I paid around $40. What I like most about ExfoliKate Body is how it seemed to help moisturize my skin post-shower. By no means is this a replacement for a moisturizer (unless you have pretty hydrated skin already, then perhaps it might)–on my dragon-scale legs, it just helps. They also feel ridiculously soft and smooth and stay that way for a few hours, even without moisturizer.
The product is easy to apply but the process of application is not my cup of tea. Just like ExfoliKate for face, this is a product that is supposed to sit on skin for a couple of minutes. I don’t know about you, but this means I have to step to the back of the shower and just stand there, out of the spray, and well, it’s not as convenient. I also feel like I’m wasting a ton of water, since I’m not enjoying it and it’s going right down the drain.
It’s a good product, but I don’t know if it’s that much better than so many other body scrubs and exfoliators. Seeing how my body doesn’t seem all that particular or reactive to scrubs in general, shelling out for this one is probably not the way to go. I’m more apt to spend more for good facial care, which is an area of skin that seems more finicky.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 27/30
Value: 7/10
Ease of Use: 3/5
Packaging: 4/5
RECOMMENDATION: A lovely exfoliating scrub that relies more on enzymes and lactic acid to slough off dead skin, rather than scrubby particles, but it is an indulgence. Certainly worth trying if you don’t mind the price tag, but it’s not so above the rest that it’s necessarily worth saving up for.
Video Review: Philosophy Cookies ‘n Creme Shower Gel
Who doesn’t love Cookies ‘n Creme? What, you don’t? Are you serious? Can you make me not like Cookies ‘n Creme, ’cause my waistline would appreciate it? I will probably do a regular review write-up for this, though I’ve reviewed so many shower gels before, and this one smells as the name describes, so there’s really nothing to report… but anyway, video! I can’t believe I spent five minutes talking about shower gel, sigh!
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 27/30
Value: 8/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
RECOMMENDATION: If you like sweet scents, you might like Cookies ‘n Creme!
Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!). Lately, he’s been smelling a lot like generic man. Which is that “man” scent I’ve come to identify with men’s body washes these days.
Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.
So, this is going to be the most epic standoff in the history of epic standoffs. In one corner, we have the manly and slightly insecure Old Spice Swagger Body Wash ($4.49 for 12 oz.) And in the other corner, we have the pinkest of the pinks in Dial Cherry Seed Oil & Mint Body Wash ($5.49 for 16 oz.).
Names
Dial might have a history setting mark in this category. The total name of this product is as follows: Dial Nutriskin with Fruit Oil Ultra Hydrating Body Wash Cherry Seed Oil & Mint. About three of those words mean anything to me and one of them is “&.” Old Spice on the other hand is much more mundane: Old Spice Swagger Body Wash. Dial should cut down on the words, but maybe that appeals to the female crowd? Do you ladies like to read while you wash your body? I prefer to look forlornly at my stomach wondering why there isn’t a six pack of abs there.
Grade
Dial: A Bronze Star
Old Spice: A Silver Star
Packaging
Old Spice’s packaging once again employs the grips on the side where you’d never grip the bottle while in usage, and it also feature a gray dot in the middle of its otherwise mostly red packaging. I’ve been staring at this dot for an hour… WHY ARE YOU THERE DOT? WHAT’S THE POINT OF YOU?! YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST!!! On my bottle, the label is not smooth on the bottle. There’s a wrinkle on it, and it’s driving me nuts, so it gets -1 point already. Dial’s packaging shape is curvy and very feminine. I like the label with the liquid and the cherry. DON’T JUDGE ME! It has no grips on the bottle and gets very slippery when wet.
Grade
Dial: 4/5 Points
Old Spice: 3/5 Points
Lather and Smell
I’m tired of beating this dead horse about male body wash and general scents of male products, but it doesn’t smell like anything but generic man smell!@$ I wish I had a better way to describe it. Dial on the other hand smells pretty synthetic. Like someone in the lab doctored up what they think cherries smell like and threw it in a bottle. I got no mint scent from it. Both lather up nicely, but Old Spice’s bottle seems conducive to over usage due to its “manly” spout.
Grade
Dial: B-
Old Spice: B
Ingredients
These days you expect to find the declaration of independence on the back of every bottle of anything, but in this case Old Spice actually has a respectable amount of ingredients in its body wash. Dial, on the other hand, has an ingredient list that eclipses the length of the last Harry Potter book. What is also entertaining is that Dial has to use a very tiny font size to even fit the list on the bottle, while Old Spice actually uses one that is legible without a magnifying glass.
Grade
Dial: Two Thumbs Down
Old Spice: One Thumb Up, One Thumb Turned Sideways
Final Grade
Dial: 70%
Old Spice: 71%
Recommendation: I wouldn’t really recommend either of them, although, they are both serviceable, but I’m running back to my Celebrate Love Shower Gel.
I’m on Twitter (@shauntechguy), viewing of Shaun The Tech Guy’s Twitter can lead to nausea, heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, and diarrhea. YAY, PEPTO-BISMOL! Also check out our cool Dog Blog at: Paws and Kisses.
Bliss Lemon + Sage Body Scrub ($36.00 for 12 oz.) is touted as both a body scrub and skin polish, though the two terms mean different things to me. A body scrub is a coarser product designed to help slough off dead skin cells on the skin that covers your body (which essentially excludes your face, possibly your neck), while a skin polish is a grainier, finer product that buffs and just tends to be gentler overall. Do they mean the same thing to you? I’m more curious than anything. We all have our own expectations/ideas depending on products and how they’re marketed!
The body scrub has a fresh lemony scent that’s light and not synthetic, and it’s really not a scent that will last and last post-shower. It has rather fine, grainy particles that will get the job done, but if you’re looking for a coarser scrub like your typical salt/sugar scrub, I don’t think this will be vigorous enough for you. However, if you prefer something smoother, finer, and altogether gentler (particularly if you have sensitive skin), the consistency of this product is more up your alley. Bliss calls the exfoliating piece “circular scrubbing grains,” which is good, because their spherical nature will avoid tearing the skin.
I like that my legs feel rejuvenated and more moisturized after using this product. Not all scrubs impart moisture, and I can always appreciate one that multi-tasks (though if you suffer from drier, scalier legs like me, you don’t get to skip the body butter). Depending on your budget and what you like to splurge on, Bliss’ body scrub isn’t for everyone–it can seem pricey. Personally, it takes me ten years (exaggeration!) to get through a jar of body scrub, so if it does the job I like, smells good, etc., I’m not overly concerned whether it’s $10 or $40, since I know I’m going to get plenty of use out of it. If, on the other hand, I was going through a jar a month, I’d be more wary.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
Product: 27/30
Value: 7/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5
RECOMMENDATION: If you prefer gentler exfoliating products for your body, consider Bliss’ Lemon + Sage Body Scrub, which uses very fine, grain-like particles to get rid of dry skin.
