Five (ish) products I’m loving from the The Body Shop

Entering your teens in the nineties basically meant you were obsessed with three things: Glitter hair mascara, Adidas poppers, and The Body Shop White Musk perfume. Honestly, if you added a Fruit of the loom t-shirt, an elastic swirly arm band tattoo, a bhindi - no one knew the meaning of the phrase 'cultural appropriation' back then but I was very in to spiritualism and the third eye - and a dozen teeny tiny multicoloured butterfly clips you would have an actual picture of me.

Sitting here, days before we enter 2019 where I will turn THIRTY FOUR, all of these trends are vengefully back with the exception of the t-shirts - poor Fruit of the Loom - but theres only one that I will be partaking of and that is rediscovering my love for The Body Shop. Although if you handed me some glittery butterfly clips I would absolutely wear those.

With my rediscovered love of TBS I have thrown myself in to building up a collection. I love that I can buy, guilt free, knowing that they are cruelty free and a good half of the time they're vegan too. But honestly the most important thing to me is knowing being able to find products that just work as they are intended. Now we all know that skin type plays a very important important role in this "products that just work". I know that not everything is for everyone and I've had my fair share of "Hell No" moments whilst I've been rediscovering the range. But every time I find a product that doesn't work for me I've never come away with the feeling that it was a crap product, which I rarer than you would think for a beauty blogger who tries so many products and only the best of the best - to me - make it to these pages.

So what are my absolute favourite bits from The Body Shop? I'm glad you asked!

I've talked about it before so I will quickly recap my love for the Japanese Matcha Tea face mask*. It still feels as fresh as the first time I put it on and I'm now well in to my second tub. I know a few people who have reacted to this mask however if you're like me - Dry/Dehydrated Sensitive - you might just love it. If you're worried you can always do a patch test in store to see how you get on.

In my last post I talked about a night cream I'm loving. Well, what I saved til now to mention is that I alternate it with TBS Oils Of Life Sleeping Cream and I could not be happier with the two. Oils of Life is a botanicals range with a lot of their ingredients coming from cold pressed oils but unfortunately the website doesn't list ingredients and with the move towards being "excess packaging free" I don't even have a box to refer to. This is something that I hope will resolved as they try and test new eco friendly ways to reduce packaging. For now though all I can tell you is that it contains Lavender and some form of dymethicone which could lead to clogged pores if you're prone to them. Not one for oily skins.

I have tried a lot of cleansing balms and I can honestly say that the Camomile Cleansing Butter - its so incredibly not a butter - is the "glidey-est", slippiest, balm I've tried. It just melts beautifully, like butter which is where I'm assuming it gets its name, but this is truly a balm for the skin. And obviously with Camomile being the star it is super soothing. I use the "hot cloth" method with a second cleanse for removing the oily residue which feels weird to say because I would have assumed that it is obvious that a warm face cloth is the best way to remove product from your face but the internet if full of different people with differing experiences and this is apparently not the only way, so I'll spell it out: you need to go old school to get this stuff, and the dirt that it has gripped on to, off your face.

SPF. Oh I have a tortured relationship with SPFs. I'm so incredibly fussy about texture of products, I hate stickiness on my skin so 99.999999% of SPFs leave me feeling this way. Even sun creams that I love and know are amazing can give me the willies when I'm putting them on because of the horrible draggy sensation I get while applying them. Couple that with the fact that most of them leave a white cast - thank you zinc oxide but I'm pale enough as it is - and you can see the issue I have. An issue which I will confidently admit to being my own weird mix of peculiarity. However, with Skin Defence Multi Protection essence from The Body Shop I have no stickiness, at all, and minimal whiteness. I can, and do, use it every day under my foundation and I can almost always get away without using an additional moisturiser AND it lasts all day. For someone who's skin acts like a sponge that literally sucks every bit of moisture from the products I put on it this is beyond a miracle.

I know... a hand cream... not the most exciting product in the world but at this time of year hand creams are a must for me and I have a decent stash split between my handbags, desk drawers, and anywhere I could conceivably need one at arms length. The Body Shop hand creams are great but what sets this* one apart, for me, is this particular scent. Berry Bon Bon is part of the 2018 Christmas range and it is one of my favourite smells at the moment. I'm very in to scents recently and the berry-ness of this just wins me over. I also purchased the shimmer perfume because I am obsessed and was very lucky enough to be gifted the shower gel* at a recent sale event for Friends and Family of the Belfast store which is when I tend to stock up and take advantage of the discounts - PS have you ever tried to take a picture of a swirling shimmer perfume? It's really hard lol.

My best attempt at capturing the shimmer

Sticking with the Christmas range I also picked up the Vanilla Marshmallow body scrub this year and have fallen in love. I love a sugar scrub in the shower. There's a satisfying smoothness that I just don't from other exfoliators plus you know that you're not doing any damage to the world with teeny plastic microbeads AAAAND you can pretend you're sweet like candy afterwards. Oh did I mention that theres a gigantic post Christmas sale on where these are reduced massively?? Tick. Tick. Tick.

Could you possibly talk about The Body Shop without mentioning their body butters? Talk about iconic. I'm currently obsessing over the Banana scent because I love all things banana scented and would campaign for more products to become banana scented. Theres just not enough. This product however is great example of why I prefer to shop in store. I was in the Belfast branch and I had actually lifted the Banana Body Yogurt, my rationale being that I have a tonne of the butters at home, it might be nice to try a water based product. I then got talking with the Sales Assistant and we got on to skin types and they were able to say immediately that the yogurt would not be right for my sensitive skin and that I needed to stick to the butters to save myself from having a reaction. So I switched back and I haven't regretted it. I have my favourite smell and the confidence to know that I'm not ruining my skin. You don't get that kind of caring from a website blurb.

And just like that we're coming full circle back to my childhood in the nineties. The Body Shop Strawberry Shower Gel. It's like a smack in the face with memories, getting strawberry TBS gift sets for every birthday and Christmas, just opening this is like an olfactive hug - because smelly hug felt like a weird phrase to put out in to the world. Other shower gels will come and go but I don't think I will ever be without this one and think that goes for The Body Shop as a whole; Other shops and brands will come and go but I will always know that they are there for me.
It helps that they're having a 50% sale right now too.

*Product was gifted but all opinions are my own.