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Browsing by tag: cheap thrills

The Body Shop Honeymania ~ fragrance review

Posted by Robin on 3 October 2013 62 Comments

The Body Shop Honeymania product line

As I mentioned when I reviewed White Musk Libertine back in 2011, The Body Shop is one of my favorite hunting-grounds for cheap thrill fragrances at the mall. L’Occitane has pretty much priced themselves out of the cheap thrills category altogether, and it’s been a long time since I liked anything at Bath & Body Works. Lush is always worth a stop assuming you can handle the olfactory overload, but my local store rarely has more than a fraction of their fragrance line.

The Body Shop is iffy, mind you. I don’t like everything they make. You don’t run to the Body Shop because of the high quality ingredients, much less the daring compositions — you won’t find anything like Lush’s The Voice of Reason at The Body Shop. But hey, if you do like something at The Body Shop, and you get there on one of their frequent sales days, you might just walk out with 30 ml of something for less than $10…

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Parfums de Nicolai Eau sOleil, Yves Rocher Neroli ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Robin on 10 September 2013 22 Comments

Summer is winding down, but it’s never too late to find your perfect neroli, right? Here are two reasonably priced options, both released earlier this year, or as always, name your own favorite in the comments.

Parfums de Nicolaï Eau sOleil

Parfums de Nicolai Eau sOleil

My high hopes for Eau sOleil stemmed not just from the fact that I love the Parfums de Nicolaï brand, but also from the amazing number of my summer favorites they’ve made, from Balle de Match to Eau d’Été to Eau Exotique to L’Eau à la Folie to Vie de Chateau. This is a brand that knows how to do light and refreshing without dumbing down. Add to that Eau sOleil’s focus on neroli — it was said to be “almost pure neroli” — and I’m on board…

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Rosie Jane Tilly ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 16 August 2013 15 Comments

Rosie Jane Tilly mood board

Tilly is the second fragrance from Rosie Jane; I still haven’t tried the first fragrance, Leila Lou, but I recently came across a sample vial of Tilly and decided that this was a good time to try it, since Tilly is a perfume oil that “effortlessly captures the essence of summer” with notes of grapefruit, pineapple and tropical gardenia.

My experience of Tilly reminded me of my usual experience with the season of summer itself. On my skin, Tilly starts off like a freshly mixed fruit-juice punch — grapefruit and pineapple, yes, plus something like mango. It’s fun, the way a summer cocktail should be. (Remember L’Artisan Parfumeur Ananas Fizz? That was a wonderful example of the fruity-cocktail-as-perfume genre.) Unfortunately, after I’ve enjoyed the sensation of that seasonal refreshment, with its promise of long days, festive evenings, cute floral dresses, you get the picture — things go awry for a while…

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Vitabath Moisturizing Body Wash and Hydrating Lotion ~ scented body product reviews

Posted by Jessica on 2 August 2013 5 Comments

Vitabath Moisturizing Body Wash and Hydrating Lotion

The original Vitabath Bath & Shower Geleé is such a familiar item, standing there in its clover-green label on the drugstore shelf, that we might not even really see it anymore. It’s a classic that’s worth keeping in mind, however, and now Vitabath offers a new range of fragranced bath and body products in four scent families: Fruit Fanatic, Spa Day, In Bloom and Cupcake Couture. I’ll probably pass on that last one, just because I’m not really a fan of dessert-y body products, but some of the fruit scents sound fun (especially Wild Red Cherry and Pomegranate & Blood Orange), and I’ve enjoyed sampling a few items from the In Bloom and Spa Day lines.

Since this has been a sticky, hot month or so, I’ve been reaching for cool, greenish scents, and Vitabath’s Spa Day collection offers several. I like Citron Leaves, a bright-and-light blend of verbena and lemongrass that gives an instant sense of refreshment. Green Tea & Sage is clean and herbal, with just a faint hint of something musky-woodsy beneath its smooth tea notes…

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Elizabeth Taylor Forever Elizabeth ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 26 July 2013 65 Comments

Elizabeth Taylor Forever Elizabeth advert

Until Elizabeth Taylor Forever Elizabeth, my experience with the House of Taylor was limited to White Diamonds’s grande dame aldehydic floral and Black Pearls’s delightfully trashy peach and black patent leather. Given these extremes, what could Forever Elizabeth smell like? A delicate composition of violets, jasmine and musk, that’s what.

If White Diamonds, Black Pearls and Forever Elizabeth were at a party, White Diamonds would be sitting on the couch while suitors brought her snacks, unaware that the ingénue would morph into a diva before the night was over. Black Pearls would be adjusting her corset and practicing a bump-and-grind in front of the mirror in preparation for a show later that night. Forever Elizabeth, though, would be in the corner, writing poetry, lost in her own world…

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