Harajuku Lovers: Baby Perfume Product Review

In 2005 Gwen Stefani launched her clothing, stationary and perfume collection 'Harajuku Lovers' based on the style of cuteness (kawaii) common in Japan. The collection features 4 girls with distinctive personalities: Love, Angel, Music and Baby, in addition to Gwen herself.

Harajuku (hara joo koo) n.1. style and attitude of Japanese girls from Harajuku, Tokyo.
n. 2. anything goes, outrageous, layered, and eye-catching.

Harajuku Lovers Fragrance N.1. A Fatal Attraction to Cuteness.

snow bunny (snoh) (buh neh) N.1. An uber fashionable girly-girl who uses the snowy streets of Harajuku as her own personal catwalk.

For Christmas I received the Winter limited edition Snow Bunny 'Baby' perfume. I can see why my mum bought it for me: it is so kawaii! I love things in miniature and a miniature Japanese girl that is also a perfume appealed to me so much. And for anyone who is an aesthete with their fragrances, both the perfume itself and the box it comes in are very aesthetically pleasing. Baby is dressed in a snow bunny outfit for the Snow Bunnies winter edition collection. She is a great addition to my perfume collection and watches over my other perfumes for me. :P

To get to the perfume you pull Baby off the stand by her feet. The base is the actual perfume, so the bottle itself is very small (10ml). The box itself that it comes in features cute slogans like: "A fatal attraction to cuteness" and a definition of cuteness. Gwen Stefani's website details the ingredients of the fragrance as: "Vanilla floral- with white peach, red apple, pink freesia, pink plumeria, lush orchid, jasmine petals, glowing amber, sensual musk and creamy sandalwood." The scent itself is very musky- not dissimilar to The Body Shop's White Musk- but with more woody overtones (I guess the sandalwood). When I smell it I think of Japanese flower gardens with cherry blossom and women in white coats doing manicures.

For teens or Japanese-lovers I'd say this is a perfect product, as it's fun, funky and a little bit different.

I hope you liked my review and it helped you with your product choices. Do you have any of the Harajuku Lovers perfumes? Do you like the fragrances of the other characters (Love, Angel, Music, Gwen)?

The Body Shop White Musk - Product Review

I received this gift set for my birthday, and wow, what a blast from the past! Most of you who know The Body Shop know that its iconic scent is White Musk. It was very popular in the late 90s, and although I don't think it was discontinued, it seems to be having a revival. This set contains: White Musk Sumptuous Silk Shower Gel 250 ml, White Musk Smooth Satin Body Lotion 250 ml and White Musk Eau de Toilette 30 ml

First: the Shower Gel. The Body Shop website promises: "a sumptuously sensual soap-free body cleanser with a silky smooth gel texture that creates a creamy, foamy lather in the shower and leaves skin feeling cleansed, refreshed and subtly scented with...White Musk." The scent is lovely and prominent as soon as you open the bottle. It slides across your body well and works into a soapy lather. However the scent doesn't remain on your body as much as I would want it too; after a few minutes in the shower you can't smell it anymore, and I wanted it to last longer. The bottle itself is a good size and easy to keep clean. Positives: texture and ability to clean. Negatives: scent doesn't last.

Second: the Body Lotion. In contrast to the Shower Gel, this smell does last on your body for a long time. It also scents the room you're in when you put it on. I would recommend this body lotion as it glides on well, there's no complicated dispensing, and it rubs in smoothly, with no marks and doesn't colour the skin at all or leave it feeling sticky.

Thirdly: the Eau de Toilette. The scent of this also lasts a long time. White Musk, like it says on the tin, is a musky, strong scent. It is a very clean smell, and makes you think of washing your hair at the hairdressers or running a bubble bath. I like to use this perfume to stay fresh when I might be going somewhere with strong smells, like a food market.

Overall I enjoyed this gift set. At £3, I would definitely buy the shower gel again. The perfume and the body lotion are a little steeper at £9 each, and I don't think I would buy them on their own. The gift set is currently in the sale at £15, which I think it's worth (and it comes in a pretty box with a ribbon).

I hope this review helped some of you. Do you have any White Musk products? What do you think of them?

Neal's Yard Remedies Geranium and Orange Product Review

Like any female over 12 years old, I've been inundated with soaps and 'smellies' over the Christmas season. Smellies as gifts are often derided for being from the unimaginative gifter, but recently I've come to think that the best smellies come from the people in life who know you the most. My boyfriend's family (well let's face it, his mum) got me some gorgeous smellies this year. In previous years we haven't known each other too well, so we've tended to buy each other gifts that we like, hoping they will like it too! Do you guys ever find that? That's not to say it's a bad thing- we obviously like our own taste, and hope others will too. With that in mind, I'm going to do a product review of what she got me.

Neal's Yard Remedies: 'Vibrant'
Includes: Geranium & Orange Shower Gel 200ml, Body Scrub 200g and Body Butter 200g

First: the Shower Gel.

I think that the Geranium and Orange smell is an aquired smell. It smells much more like your flower garden than your bathroom cabinet. This makes it a bit different and sets it out from the rest as a mature, together, woman's body product. As for me, I like it. A lot. It's unusual, and my first introduction to Neal's Yard, it's a smell I will remember.

The shower gel itself is nicely packaged, the branding and design of the labels is very effective, original and aesthetically pleasing. It says on the label for this particular shower gel: 'can also be used as a shampoo'. I was intrieged by this as the notion of my hair smelling like geranium and orange appealed to me. I added a little in with my original shampoo and I have to say, it worked very well! It worked better, even as a shampoo than it did as a shower gel! The texture is more like a shampoo; liquidy with some weight and no soap suds (though it didn't weigh my hair down at all, it gave it a smooth silky texture). So I would recommend this as a shampoo, not a shower gel. For the record my hair, despite its terrible condition -which even my hairdresser commented on, despite it never being coloured- is fairly normal, on occasion dry.

Second: the body scrub

The body scrub I love. I just can't get enough of it. It's so addictive, I have it on my desk while working and when I need a pick-me-up, I scrub it on my arms and hands. You're supposed to wash it off afterwards, because it has dead sea salts in it that you can feel on your skin, but I usually brush them off (I am lazy).

Third: the body butter

I have to say I'm a bit biased with body butter because imo it is the most useless product in the world. Who uses it, and more importantly, why do you use it? What is it for? I don't think I will ever understand body butter, sorry world! I guess if you just want your body to be smooth and perfumed but not exfoliated, then choose the body butter over the body scrub.

Overall I would say it was a perfect gift set and well worth the price (particularly if you look at the cost of the items individually, it's a steal! I think I might buy a gift set for myself now!

A little bit about Neal's Yard...

Neal's Yard brands itself as an extremely ethical and environmentally responsible brand. This can lead people to be very critical of their medicinal claims. (When uncomfortable questions about the claims they make regarding alternative/holistic medicines and homopathy were put to them by Guardian readers, they failed to respond.) I don't support treatment without scientific evidence (especially if the scientific evidence actually supports that the product may harm!) so I won't discuss their treatments here.
Their makeup and skincare, personally, is another matter which can often and happily be discussed away from politics. By some of the product reviews on their website some people find their products help their skin so by all means, have it as an option, but if you have skin problems, see your GP/doctor first guys! Their products are high-end, with shower gels ranging from £9.30-£38.90. Think Bridget Jones' mum (and probably yours)- she'd love it.

Do you like Neal's Yard Remedies? What have been your favourite products? And (I would be particularly interested to know comments on this one) have you used any of their remedies, and what was the result?