The Body Shop Vitamin C Skin Boost

Lately I have had more and more interest in skin care products.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’m starting to get a little older and slightly starting to worry a little bit about future things like wrinkles and sagging.  Lol.  Not that I’m there yet.  I randomly get kind of a lot of compliments on my skin, so I thought I’d share some things that work for me.  Vitamin C Skin Boost by the Body Shop is one of my favorite facial care products.

Vitamin C Skin Boost is great because it leaves your skin silky smooth and radiant.  Sometimes when people come over my house I take the bottle, put a little squirt on the soft fleshy part of their hand between thumb and pointer finger, rub it in and then invite them to feel their skin after a minute.  Everyone always wants to go out and buy this product afterwards.  Or at least steal it from me.  Lol.  It’s one of those products that works well for many skin types.  No matter what skin issues may be present, everyone can always benefit from a little having skin that’s a little smoother and a little more radiant. 

Skin Boost is a serum and usually serums go underneath your regular moisturizer, because they can penetrate deeper than your (presumably) thicker moisturizer to hydrate lower lying skin cells.  But Skin Boost goes over any regular moisturizer, and takes care of top layer cells, evening out and brightening the skin, making it look and feel better.  This smoothing, mattifying quality makes it great to use in place of a make-up primer.  When applying make up over it, it goes on silky smooth, much smoother than when just going over lotion and a million times smoother than over dry skin.  

Skin Boost has antioxidant vitamin C which is supposed to fight free radicals and help brighten skin.  It is also scented with a lovely light citrus that makes using it that much more soothing.   I used to think that a serum might be a little too much for skin that’s not overly dry, but with skin boost I never feel like I have too many products on my skin.  I simply moisturize, add this then smooth on make up and my skin feels and looks great.  Overall, Skin Boost leaves you with silky soft luminous skin, which is what everyone who’s ever thought about that kind of stuff wishes for, right?  It’s definitely worth a try.

Scent: 4 (Very nice light citrus. Not unpleasant at all, but not super dreamy or anything.)
Health: 4.25 (There are a lot of words I don’t know.  But it does not appear to contain parabens.)
Ethics: 4.75 (The Body Shop does a lot with Fair Trade, Eco-Friendly Products and Charity.)
Price/Value: 4.5 (Okay, so it’s $26. But you’ll love it, and the bottle lasts a long time because you don’t need a lot.)
Does what it says: 5 (Absolutely. Silky smoothness with a lovely glow!)

Overall: 4.75 (Overall makes skin look and feel great!  Get ready for some compliments!) 

LUSH Hottie Massage Bar

 

Here’s to my third LUSH product in my review of five in a row.  This time I’m going for the Hottie Massage Bar.  In general, LUSH’s massage bars are fabulous. Obviously, a massage bar can used essentially as you would use oil for massage.  There’s just a different application technique.  Instead of pouring it out of a bottle, you rub the bar in your hands or over skin to melt the oils.  So really the massage bars are more like a regular moisturizer in solid form.  LUSH likes to do that with a lot of things.  Like if it’s normally liquid, wouldn’t it be fun to make it solid?  Lol.  So using their massage bars is like using a fabulous lotion. 

If I were a masseuse, I would want to use all LUSH massage bars instead of oils, because they’re so luscious.  But the Hottie Massage Bar is the only one that I actually use mostly for actual massage (i.e. begging my boyfriend to give me a massage when I’m feeling sore from the gym or whatever, he’s usually a good sport about it J). That’s why Hottie is special. 

So the reason why Hottie is so great for a massage is because it contains black pepper and ginger oils to create warmth and help improve circulation and ease sore muscles.  (I would just be careful to make sure no Hottie massage turns “frisky”, as pepper oil doesn’t sound like it’d be too pleasant to have in um, certain sensitive areas.)  The bar is shaped with nubs I suppose to help in the massage aspect but essentially they are pointless.  The bar melts too fast for them to really be used to knead sore muscles. 

You only need to rub the bar over the massage area for 15-30 seconds to melt enough oils for a great lubricated massage.  Then I recommend putting Hottie down so it can cool down to room temperature and re-solidify, keeping it mostly intact for your next use, and continuing on with your massage using the oils that you just melted. If you just kept rubbing the bar over skin, you’d get gobs and gobs of oil as it kept melting, making the whole mess super slippery and probably majorly greasing up any bedclothes nearby.  You only need a little bit.  So rub on a small amount, then keep it close (I keep mine in a little tin on the side of my bed), so you can grab it again if you feel you need more lubrication.  And besides being a great lube for massage, Hottie also leaves your skin smooth, soft, moisturized, and dreamily scented.

It smells heavenly and is therefore soothing in that way too, adding to the massage experience.  It contains vanilla absolute, which is probably why I like the smell so much.  I remember the first time we used it I was like OH MY GOD this smells AWESOME.  But it doesn’t really smell strictly of vanilla.  I think I can detect hints of vanilla & ginger, but overall I’m not sure what to call the scent.  Besides amazing.  Overall, LOVE IT!

Scent: 5 (Delicious.  Very soothing.)
Health: 4.75 (No parabens!  Ingredients mostly recognizable!  But not all organic.)
Ethics: 4.75 (LUSH is fabulous, but not perfect.)
Price/Value: 4.5 ($8.95 at LUSH, not too bad.  It’s high quality, and lasts as long as you use it & store it properly.)
Does what it says: 4.75 (Definitely.  Leaves you soothed and moisturized, no matter what the skill level of your masseuse!)

Overall: 4.75 (Overall makes everyone feel great!  Grab a friend or lover and have some fun!) 

JASON Pure, Natural & Organic Hand & Body Therapy Lotion

If you’re looking for a decently priced paraben, mineral oil and petroleum free vegan lotion, one of my favorites is JASON Pure, Natural and Organic Vanilla Hand and Body Therapy Lotion. 

 I like to change it up with lotion.  I have at least twenty different kinds on my dresser. I’m not exaggerating.   Yes I know that’s ridiculous.  But I just get bored using the same thing every day.  And I wear at least three different lotions on a daily basis.  So I have lots.  And I’ve tried lots.  And I think I can pretty confidently say I know my lotion.

Anyway, I tend to think of organic or natural lotions as too expensive and not good enough to be worth it.  By not good enough, I mean that I’ve found some of them to be runny instead of thick and/or creamy and they don’t often smell as yummy as I want them to.  But I keep going back to JASON whenever I run out, because the quality is so high it’s like any chock-full of chemicals lotion.  And you can feel way better about what you’re putting on your body.

The vanilla scent is delicious.  It’s a good blend of “I would love to eat that” with just a right amount of floral thrown in so that you won’t actually try to.  I haven’t tried any of the other scents, but I feel confident recommending them if vanilla is not your thing.   

 The lotion texture is not super thick, but relatively creamy and feels luxurious.   It leaves your skin soft and quenched.  Some lotions make you feel like you immediately need to reapply, but not this one.  I love it. 

-Scent: 4.5 (Very nice.  Sweet but not too sweet. Somehow it’s not my favorite vanilla but it’s in the top 10.)
-Health: 4.75 (Natural products, but not completely organic.)
-Ethics: 4 (No animal cruelty in making their products, but they didn’t say anything about if they hold their suppliers to that on their website.  Also, there was no mention about giving back on their website.)
-Price/Value: 4.25 (It’s not cheap, but it’s not too expensive either. It’s worth the price for the value!)
-Does what it says: 4.75 (Definitely.  Very lovely.)

Overall: 4.5 (Great quality you can feel pretty good about using!) 

Hempz Pure Herbal Extracts Original Herbal Moisturizer

Hempz Pure Herbal Extracts Original Herbal Moisturizer isn't going to make you high, but it is a lovely experience, non-the-less.  People see the hemp leaf on hemp products and think automatically, "There's pot in this lotion!"  That is not really the case.  While hemp is in the same family of plants as marijuana, it is not the same plant.  It says right on the back of the bottle in bold letters: THC-Drug Free.    

This lotion was definitely a surprise.  I've tried hemp moisturizers in the past and while they usually give great moisture, they tend to have a distinctly non-pleasant smell.  Well, unless you're into really earthy, herbal scents.  Which I definitely am not, as a general rule. 

However, the scent of Hempz Pure Herbal Extracts Original Herbal Moisturizer is amazing!  I can't really describe it that well.  It’s sweet, but not overly so, and a little fruity in a non-specific way.  I just looked up a little about the product and was shocked to find out that the original scent is actually floral and banana.  Who knew?  It definitely does not make me think of flowers or bananas from the start, but now that I know what it's supposed to be, I guess I can see what they mean.  Whatever it is, it's yummy! 

It is also a really great moisturizer.  It's perfect for any dry spots or just all over moisturization.  The scent lingers nicely.   They make several other scents, but I prefer the original.  It does its job, and it smells lovely.  You can find it online for a decent price.   

This lotion smells really great, it moisturizes well, and it does it all without parabens for a decent price.  Overall, a fabulous find.  I can't wait to explore more of their products. 

Scent: 4.5 (Pretty delicious!)
Health: 4 (The ingredients seem reasonable; no parabens, but not organic.)
Ethics: 3 (I couldn't find essentially anything good or bad about the company.)
Price/Value: 4 (I found pricing online for between $15 and $20.  Totally worth it.)
Does what it says: 4.75 (Excellent moisturizer.)

Overall: 4 (Definitely a great daily use product!)

LAVANILA Laboratories - The Healthy Body Butter - Vanilla Coconut

LAVANILA Laboratories has created a body butter that it deems "The Healthy Body Butter".  Sounded great to me!  I am a total vanilla person and always looking to be healthier, so I was obviously immediately interested in this product. 

The funny thing is that I completely hated the Pure Vanilla scented products that they make.  That scent is very very strong and floral.  I am not into floral vanillas at all.  I want like sweet, yummy, edible-smelling vanilla.  I find that funny too because I find vanilla as a flavor to be really boring, but as a scent extremely pleasant.  Makes no sense really, but there it is.

So anyway, after I was disappointed with the Pure Vanilla scent, I almost gave up on LAVANILA altogether.  But then I noticed that there was a Vanilla Coconut scent!   I clearly had to try it and when I smelled the deliciousness I clearly had to buy it.  If you don't like sweet scents, they also make a Lavender Vanilla and a Grapefruit Vanilla and a few others as well.

The body butter is not nearly as thick as (what I think of as) a normal thickness for lotions deemed "butters", but it is still very pleasant.  It is very rich, yet absorbs easily and is a great moisturizer.  The scent is pretty light and not overwhelming.   It's a great light butter for supple summer skin with a light beachy scent.  Fabulous and yummy!

Ratings:

 

Scent: 4.5 (Delicious but not too sweet or overwhelming.)
Texture: 4.5 (Smooth and creamy and easily absorbed.)
Health: 4.5 (The company seems dedicated to Healthy products!)
Ethics: 4 (Haven't heard anything about good works, but they do healthy well.)
Does what it says: 4.75 (A great light moisturizer with a great light scent.)

Overall: 4.5 (Dreamy!)