I have this kind of Venn diagram with beauty-related purchases, where one circle is full of STUFF I LOVE BUYING and one circle is full of STUFF I ACTUALLY NEED AND USE UP, and unfortunately, the circles don't always overlap as much as I'd like.
For example, I don't need sparkly duochrome eyeshadow, and instead, I almost always end up wearing the same set of boring neutralish shades when it comes to eyeshadow, but I love looking at swatches and buying samples and imagining I'll be the kind of girl who puts together crazy eye looks every day with 6 different colors in magical rainbow gradients. In reality, I firmly believe that I will never, ever use up an eyeshadow, unless it's either a boring skin-toned base shade or the black Wet 'n' Wild eyeshadow I use as eyeliner.
Conversely, I use shampoo and conditioner on a regular basis, but I take no particular pleasure in shopping for it--I tend to just go to the drugstore and buy a big container of whatever is cheap and smells OK and should be OK for color-treated hair. Wash, rinse, repeat, run out, buy more--none of the obsessive review-reading and research I do with most of my other products.
For me, bath products like soaps and body scrubs fall into the happy overlap between the two categories. I enjoy shopping for them and I also use them up on a fairly regular basis. I manage to keep to more sane consumption patterns--buy a few bars of soap online, use them up, replace them with something that sounds nice. The current body scrub I have in rotation (aside from the St. Ives Apricot Scrub that I now use only for my feet) is Villainess's Smooch! scrub (7 oz for $11.00) in the limited edition Pipevine Swallowtail scent, currently available as Whipped! lotion but not as the scrub.
Villainess describes the product as follows: "The Smooch! is a Villainess original; a multi-tasking product cleverly disguised as the most indulgent thing to ever touch your skin.
We start with a carefully balanced blend of feather-light (yet vitamin-rich) grapeseed oil, and an exotic vegetable butter - mango, unrefined shea, or black cocoa, coconut oil to melt at skin temperature, and lashings of cherry kernel oil. And then we add the good stuff; raw sugars or sea salts to exfoliate without any rough edges to abrade your gorgeous skin, crushed botanicals or bright ticklish jojoba beads to gently slough off dead skin cells.
So, why Smooch! when, all said, they sound like your average oily scrub? Because when you get a Smooch! into the damp luxury of a warm bath or shower, they emulse into an impossibly light milky lotion that rinses away cleanly. Exfoliating and moisturising in one easy step, Smooch! leaves you smooth and supple - in other words, perfectly kissable!
The Smooch! is both water-activated and preservative free. To maintain their luscious textures, avoid pre-activating them, and to prevent microbial growth keep them as dry as possible during use. We recommend using a Smooch! completely within 30 days of your first use."
Despite that warning, I've had this scrub open for probably at least 6 months, maybe more, and I keep it in the shower and scoop out globs of it with wet hands. However, it doesn't seem to be moldy or melted, so I'll probably just continue using it the same way unless something horrible happens to it.
This Smooch! is a fairly crumbly, dense but scoopable sugar scrub containing mango butter and flecks of basil leaf. It's definitely both scrubby and moisturizing, without being so oily that it feels like I'm in danger of slipping in the shower on the oils and breaking my hip. I typically wash with soap first, and then use the scrub, focusing on areas with dry skin like my heels and ankles, or areas where dead skin builds up on me, like my neck and back. It rinses off relatively clean, but does leave behind enough oil to moisturize and leave some lingering scent.
My jar has some separated liquid in it, which is probably at least partially due to the careless way in which I portion out the scrub in the shower. You can see the texture and general appearance in the photo below.
The scent, Pipevine Swallowtail, is described as "Aromatic basil and bitter tomato leaf in an ephemeral haze of neroli and tangerine." It smells heavenly! It's a very fresh scent without being bitter or herbal; nor is it overly sweet. I love the smell of tomato leaves, and this melds that scent with the basil and citrus so that it comes across in combination as just vibrant, green, and fresh, without the tomato leaf note becoming overpowering. It's hard for me to pick out the individual notes in the scent, as they combine nicely into a greater whole.
I noticed while writing this review that it does contain tangerines, which I am not that happy about--citrus fruits can cause phytophotodermatitis, and I use this product all over my body--but I've never personally experienced any adverse reactions to this scrub.
However, the Whipped! in this scent that is currently available doesn't contain any citrus in the ingredients list, so it should be safer; the tangerine may just be there in the Smooch! for added visual interest or scrubbiness. The Smooch! formulas are different for each of the different scents (Pearl Diver is a salt scrub, Krakatoa contains dried coconut and orange peel, etc.)
While the product I'm reviewing isn't currently available, I still definitely recommend checking out either Smooch! in another scent or the Whipped! in the Pipevine Swallowtail scent, and keeping an eye out for this scrub next year, in case it comes back. It smells incredibly good and does its job.
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