After I wrote my review of i Profumi di Firenze Frangipane e Cocco last week, I started craving a fragrance that actually smelled like frangipani. I couldn’t find anything fitting that description in my sample drawer, and then I remembered the sample packets of Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse that I had tucked into the bathroom cupboard a month or two ago. Voilà! Just the kind of thing I’d had in mind, even if it came in the form of a body product.

Nuxe is celebrating Huile Prodigieuse’s twentieth anniversary this year with a limited edition bottle and a bit of fanfare over its “multi-usage dry oil.” This product can be used to moisturize the body, hair and face; it’s a blend of “six precious oils” (borage, St. John’s wort, sweet almond, camellia, hazelnut and macadamia) as well as other botanical extracts and synthetic ingredients. To my nose, and my imagination, Huile Prodigieuse has a “fancy French suntan oil” smell: a breath of neroli, a drizzle of coconut milk, a shimmer of musk. And, yes, it features a creamy note of frangipane (or tiare) flower petals…

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