With winter in full swing, I've been delving into my collection of hand creams more and more often to help my hands survive the constant assault of the cold, dry, windy weather. An almost daily staple this season has been Santa Maria Novella's Crema Per Le Mani, an amazing hand cream that protects my hands practically all day and manages to smell delicious while doing so…
Fresh Sugar Lip Balm
For many years, my lip care collection consisted solely of drugstore Carmex, Chapsticks and the occasional Bonne Bell Lip Smacker; I could never have imagined paying over $20 for a lip balm. But I’ve learned that sometimes when a really fabulous product comes along, a splurge is completely justified, and Fresh Sugar Lip Balm is one such product.
The quality is absolutely superb. It has a fabulous soft, waxy texture…
The Watkins Bath & Body line
Watkins is a company best known to me for their baking products, so imagine my surprise when I ran across their gourmand bath and body line while browsing the drugstore aisles one day. I figured that it was well worth testing however, since who better to create such products than the makers of my favorite vanilla extract, and sure enough, the line did not disappoint.
I adored the Vanilla Dry Oil Spray ($11.99 for 4 oz), a great moisturizer with a rich, deep bourbon-y vanilla scent…
Dragonfly Blue Shea Butter
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…
Susanne Lang Cashmere dry oil
Susanne Lang's Cashmere is a light oriental fragrance, a scent of milky-caramel sweetness accented by a slight perfume accord which does indeed evoke the enveloping and cozy experience of being wrapped up in a cashmere sweater. Many have compared it to Calvin Klein's Sheer Obsession, and I myself find it very similar to Yosh's Temperare #3, but either way, it is a lovely fragrance that I wear frequently during the fall and winter months. As with all the Susanne Lang scents in the Ready To Wear line, it comes in Eau de Parfum spray, roll on, body lotion, shower gel and dry oil spray.
The jojoba-based dry oil is a superb product which is wonderful for layering …