Friday, May 08, 2009

Product Reviews: This Shit? Right Here? Is The Bomb. Edition.

This product review is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA. It's a good, solid, tasty IPA without too much bitterness. 

Product Review: This Shit? Right Here? Is The Bomb.

I read a review on Beauty Wonkette of diptyque's Huiles Precieuses (that's Precious Oils for you non-Francophones) that was positively pornographic and decided I had to try the stuff for myself. After all, I reasoned, I'd just broken up with my boyfriend; what better time to try a body oil that inspired one-handed typing on the part of the reviewer?

People, take note: I bought both the body wash (more on that in a second) and the body oil, and I have to say: Even Though It Cost Me As Much As Two Weeks' Worth Of Groceries, Both Are Worth Every Penny.

The body oil comes in a small glass bottle with its own eyedropper. That, I think, is so that you don't immediately compare the size of the bottle with the price that you paid for it and foam at the mouth. The benefit of the eyedropper becomes apparent once you start using the stuff--two drops of this oil will not only moisturize both of your arms (it absorbs insanely quickly) but will send you into herbal-scented reveries and make you forget where you are.

I'm not kidding. I got out of the shower after using the body wash and put the body oil on and was shocked to find myself still in my small bathroom with the vaguely grotty bathmat and cat hair everywhere.

It smells like...well, it's hard to describe. It's sweet, like irises. It's also spicy with sandalwood and vaguely musky, and there's a sharp note that I think might come from rosemary or rue. Once it's been on your skin for a few minutes, it smells powdery and flowery, but there's still that deep bass note of wood and musk that warns passers-by that this is some Serious Shit Goin' On. A little goes a long, long way.

Plus, you know, it absorbs fast and moisturizes. I even put some on my hair.

Now, as to the shower gel: you know those little shops in Paris or Montreal or Chicago that are full of herbs and fresh fruit? The ones where a little wizened granny presides over glass jars full of God-knows-what, and the smell of the place stays on your skin, but in a good way, for hours? Mix that with the smell of yarrow and dried cattails and my paternal grandmother's house and you have the body wash. It's complex, but it's not overbearing. 

And, again, a little goes a long way. I used, no shit, about a quarter teaspoon of the stuff on a maguey-leaf washcloth and had plenty of suds left over. The whole time I was washing the citronella and grass clippings and sweat off my skin, I was laughing. It smelled that good, and it left me that clean, but without being dried-out and itchy.

The body oil is $78 for 4.25 ounces. The body wash is $46 for just short of 7 ounces. Believe me when I say that these, given how little you have to use to get what you want, are actually a really good value. I can see the body wash lasting longer than my super-duper-sized bottles of store-brand Dove. I mean, seriously: the body wash has a top on it that allows you to dispense four microns of the stuff at a time, and that's about all you need. I used less than nine drops of the body oil *all over*, including my hair.

Still, I plan to save these both for very special occasions. Men of Texas, be warned: my shower routine is no longer taking prisoners.

1 comment:

Beauty Wonkette said...

LOL...I know, I know - I guess it did border on porn (as long as we agree it was literate, though). I was in one of those moods (blushing).