This is one of many products I recently got from Boots - this is something I've wanted for a while, but at £9.99 a pot it seemed a lot of money - however Boots currently have a free gift worth £8.49 if you spend over £10.

This is one of the "spa essentials" range - these are the original products from The Sanctuary's range of products.

The jar is made of glass, with a lid as shown in the picture really - it's quite nice looking, and this makes it so giving it as a gift would be a nice idea as well. It's simple to open, just pull up the metal lever and unhook the lid. To get it out it's quite easy to scoop some with your fingers.

But to the important bits!

The actual product is rough sea salt with almond oil, coconut oil and jojoba oil. It has that slightly spicy/warm smell like the rest of the essentials range, it's a very pleasant scent, I'm not keen on overly floral scents and this fits the bill for me.

The texture as you'd expect is quite rough - I was a little concerned at just how rough initially. I generally only exfoliate areas I shave/epilate etc on a regular basis, the rest is very "as and when needed", as such I started on my legs. I'd just waxed part of my legs so I was a little concerned how the salt would effect them as well. Although rough, this is surprisingly gentle - which I realise sounds odd, but despite the exfoliation being very very strong, it left my skin smooth and undamaged. I actually progressed to using this everywhere as it was leaving my skin so soft, and I'm glad I did - my skin felt as though it'd been moisturised afterwards. As I shower instead of having a bath I just left the scrub, salt and all, for the oils to be absorbed - this worked fine as well.

Now I sometimes I have to admit struggle with getting and keeping my underarms fresh - I often find myself scrubbing a lot to get them clean and fresh after a long day, afterall we put our underarms through a lot at times - not helped by the fact I'm hoping to wax them soon and therefore can't shave at the moment! I don't know whether it was the oils or the salts but there was no problem with this, I was left clean and fresh very quickly, and I noticed they were in much better condition when I washed this morning, it seemed to get rid of residue of sweat and anti-perspirants very efficiently.

Now I do have to state a word of warning; initially I was worried I'd smell like salt after a salt scrub but it smells beautifully fresh - however if you accidentally taste it, you should know it still tastes of salt and the flavour is hard to get rid of, so just beware of that. Although handy if you run out of table salt perhaps!


In my bathroom I has various exfoliating scrubs, gloves, mitts and all sorts - and none of them have left my skin as well exfoliated as this has, and what's more is none have left my skin as smooth after - I usually have to put on 2 lots of moisturiser for my skin to feel as smooth as it did straight after my shower, which was a very big bonus to me.

The label says this can be opened for 12 months - how long it lasts I'll have to wait to see, but you don't need much at all, so I can see it lasting quite a while with weekly use.

If you're looking for a new exfoliator I think this may well fit the bill for almost anybody. It gets 5 stars as I simply have no complaints with it!