Dragonfly Blue is one of my favorite small e-tailers: the quality of their products, packaging, and in particular their customer service is simply incredible, especially in light of the super-affordable prices. Although I love some of their scents, I never wore them often in the oil form; I found it annoying to apply and the base had a funny reaction with my skin chemistry. Even their Vanilla Almond, a perfect pure, airy and sweet meld of vanilla and almond that I maintain is one of the best almond scents out there, I rarely wore, because although it smelled great in the bottle, it invariably ended up smelling rather cardboard-y on my skin.

Then I discovered the company’s shea butters: tiny pots of creamy African Karite butter that are not only great moisturizers, but amazing fragrance carriers. Even when applied to the skin, they have the exact same scent as the oils, but with no annoying cardboard side effect.

As with most shea butters, these have a nearly unparalleled moisturizing power and will treat and heal dry and weather-beaten skin. They are not meant for a complete body application — they are sold in small quantities and the texture is very dense and hard to scoop out. Rather, use them for spot treatments and apply to small areas and extra rough patches like knees or elbows. Personally, I love the way that the scents come through so much that I also apply a bit at my pulse points as a sort of solid perfume — the scent ends up lingering wonderfully all day.

The shea butters used to come in adorable soapstone pots, but now I believe are only sold in plainer cobalt blue plastic containers, which, although not as cute, are still attractive and functional. They are offered in a wide variety of fragrances that range from florals to warm woods to fruity and dessert scents: my personal favorites are the aforementioned Vanilla Almond, the plain Vanilla (an incredible sweet vanilla), the indulgent Golden Oak (a must for gourmand lovers), Violet, Enchantress (a great woody scent) and their famous Chocolate Truffle scents.

The shea butters are $4.50 for ½ ounce pot, $12.00 for a 2 oz and $18.50 for a 4 oz at dragonflyblue.com.