Just when you think you’ve heard the latest in unusual skin care concoctions, the experts come up with more. Try one of these — at least one is sure to find its way into your daily regime.
Firm offertm Toning & Firming Body Lotion from Grassroots blends natural nurturers palmarosa, ginger, and mint with anti-oxidant rich french seaweed to offer a lotion that will tone, smooth and soothe. The lotion is one in a lovely line of body care featuring organic ingredients and essential oils. ($12.50, grassrootslife.com, Kohls or kohls.com)
Aesop’s Geranium Leaf Body Cleanser offers an aromatic lilt to boost you awake on winter mornings. This low-lathering blend mixes gentle cleanser with Wild Geranium in a refreshing take on the morning shower. ($25, abeautifullife.com, 866-862-8838)
U.K.’s homegrown and well-loved line of skin care from Boots drugstores has jumped the pond and is available stateside. The line has offered Brits a range of aromatherapy-based blends for years at affordable prices.
Go nuts over Boots Body Butter — available singly or in a fabulous 3 pc. Mediterranean Mini Body Butter set featuring organic moisturizing combos of Apricot/Olive/Honey, Olive/Bergamot/ Orange and Milk/Almond/Pistachio. ($14.99/set, target.com)
Boots Botanics Moisturizing Eye Cream offers grape extract in a lightweight formula to help reduce appearance of puffiness, dark circles, and fine lines around the delicate eye area. ($13.99, target.com)
Boots also offers a wealth of body care products with an unusual mix of the aromatic and exotic. Boots’ Sanctuary Mande Bath Set offers a scrub, soak and soufflé set inspired by Balinese pre-wedding beauty rituals. The scent is exotic; the formulas include nutrient-rich tumeric, ground rice, honey, and coconut milk. ($19.99/set, Target, target.com)
Another great import is this workstm Skin Deep Dry Leg Oil. Great anytime, it’s a really rich oil perfect for woefully winter-dry skins. this works uses no less than nine exotic essential oils blended with a deeply nourishing fusion of seven pure cold-pressed plant oils high in vitamins. Among them are rose, sandalwood, patchouli, tuberose, and other exotic essential oils, as well as evening primrose, macadamia and pure coconut oils. This, well, works! ($60, blissworld.com)
To combat the blahs of winter skin and kick natural hydration into high gear, try Astara Blue Flame Mask. The herbal and plant substances offer natural exfoliation and purification in a formula chock full of essential oils and unusual Coneflower and Red Clover extracts. ($39, skinstore.com)
Wild blueberries feature in Indian Meadows Herbal’s Certified Organic Facial Creams, available in a handy set, which includes facial cleanser, eye cream and either Wild Blueberry Sensitive Lotion or Mature Skin Cream. Anthocyanins, biochemical constituents that make wild blueberries blue, contain powerful anti-aging properties perfect for skin care. USDA researchers have identified wild blueberries as having the highest content of antioxidant activity when compared with other fruits and vegetables. ($106, naturallygood.net)
For another berry-based skin treat, try Sundari Omega 3 and Raspberry Tonic Water for Dry Skin, an alcohol-free toner or natural facial freshener scented with essential oils and containing locust bean gum, guggulu extract for excellent soothing benefits for sensitive skin, and red raspberry extract for anti-oxidant and antibacterial properties. ($26.00, skinstore.com)
The name says it all: Rodial’s Glam Balm rolls a multitude of uses for glamour (or just feel-better beauty) into its pomegranate-infused skin cream. Pomegranate is fast becoming a beauty maven’s magic trick: This head-to-hand, all-in-one balm hydrates skin, incorporating vitamin C, myrrh extract, shea butter and calendula oils in this mighty mix. Get your glam on! ($95, blissworld.com)
Stick it to signs of aging around your eyes with Booth’s Black Licorice Eye Cream. This non-greasy eye cream fights back with natural avocado, wheat germ oils, sage essential oil, and most importantly black licorice root. ($12.99, drugstore.com)
What a concept: You can have your chocolate (and eat it, too!), with Ligne Chocolat, a line of body care treatments containing decadent raw cacao (poliferol), which helps slow down the natural aging process, fights free radicals and highly contributes in putting back a natural radiance and healthy glow in your skin. Try luscious Chocolat Body Butter: The aromatic and exotic scent of chocolate will give you an overwhelming sensation of indulgence and sense of well being — without the calories! ($9.90, cosmoproshop.com)
Leave it to Lush — experts in blending all-natural and unusual ingredients for unique results — to incorporate licorice and another dark but effective ingredient into one of its skin-friendly blends. Coalface Facial Cleansing Bar looks like a bar of black soap, but its soothing lather is much more, resulting from detoxifying liquorice root and charcoal, which absorbs excess oil from the skin’s surface and serves as an exfoliator. ($9.35, Lush stores and lush.com)
Jo knows scent! Few do exotic natural scents like Jo Malone. Her newest is Blue Agava & Cacao offers notes of spicy cardamom and blue agava sharpened with sea salt for a refreshing floral scent that will make you yearn for summer. ($50-$90, jomalone.com)
Naturopathica’s aromatherapy line offers a host of unusual aromatic concoctions that battle stress and fatigue. Some sound like a favorite from your local take-out — like Naturopathica Lemongrass and Ginger Bath and Body Oil. Spicy lemongrass and ginger warm the muscles and stimulate the senses with lemony, hay-like notes. The blend combats dry skin as well as jet lag, fatigue, and sore muscles. ($28.00, naturopathica.com)
Burt’s Bees Carrot Nutritive Day Creme uses carrot seed oil, proven to stimulate cell renewal, with a host of other natural oils, balsam of Peru, aloe vera and vitamin E to help heal skin damage. ($13.65, burtsbees.com)
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