INTRODUCTION

Habanita Body Lotion is part of a number of beauty products (lotion, powder) that complement Molinard's epitomous leathery vanilla fragrance that came with my Habanita EDT I won on eBay.

THE PACKAGING

A little disappointment straight away was that the packaging for the body lotion is quite different from the fra-grance bottle. Instead of the sculpted, black Art Deco container, we get an uninspiring, standard, white plastic bottle with golden inscriptions across the front and back.

APPEARANCE AND APPLICATION

When opening the bottle, I'm met with a light, creamy textured lotion that's delicately scented and is light peach in colour. The fragrance reminds me remotely of Habanita however, it's sweeter, a lot more floral and with a pronounced smell of unscented body lotion lingering in the background.

My skin is quite dry especially in winter and very dry in areas such as back, elbows and legs. The body lotion is quite runny so care should be taken when pouring it out of the bottle. The thin consistency doesn't bode well for my thirsty skin, I go on nevertheless and apply a penny-sized amount on my arm and start working it into my skin then adding more for my whole body.

For a while, the lotion just sits on top in big white swathes everywhere that won't sink in as it's too watery, I can feel how thin it is and doesn't have the creamy, thick consistency of even a typical body lotion. I finally rub it in and the results are not so bad as I expected. My skin feels soft and moisturised though not particularly nourished and I only notice a very slight protective layer on my skin.

THE FRAGRANCE

A few minutes after application, the body lotion turns into a smoky - musky floral scent reminiscent of Nivea crème only woodier and with a smoky touch. I can recognise some elements from Habanita's middle notes mainly the white floral - lilac - rose, neroli and musk accord, the same ingredients found in Nivea, hence my reference that keeps coming up. Here's it's in a highly diluted form that's only discernible on close sniff being its projection practically zero. The pleasant, creamy and musky floral smell lingers on for about an hour.

From the second hour onwards, I'm surprised to notice that the lotion has changed its aroma and showing a somewhat stronger and definitely mossier and even muskier facet than before. It's still only detectable from close and isn't powerful enough to be worn as a fragrance on its own though. In the final phase, it finally took on a creamy and smoky vanilla tinge that, combined with the lingering Nivea scent was quite nice. It disappeared after after about 5 - 6 hours.

CONCLUSION

I already own and love Habanita, so I wasn't particularly interested in having the body lotion as well. Wasn't it for the fact in came with the eau de toilettle, I would have never bothered buying it on its own especially considering how useless it is. It isn't capable of locking in moisture for more than 4 - 5 hours, let alone for the whole day. It's mainly made up of water and waxy esters that are pretty poor in providing real nourishm-ent to the skin and are primarily there to enhance the smooth and silky texture of the formulation.

In summary, I would not recommend the lotion on its own or as part of a set thinking it will complement or sub-stitute the perfume either. Firstly, it doesn't technically smell of the fragrance as the lotion ingredients change its character dramatically. Secondly, its fragrance is too subtle anyway to work in case you'd like to wear the scent but find the EDT too strong.

I was also shocked to see that the composition had a more than the reasonable amount of preservatives and no fewer than five types of parabens instead of the recommended two (the shortest chains, ethyl and methyl paraben) for those companies who cannot pass it up. On top of that, the lotion doesn't contain any vegetable extracts or any natural emollients that would actually be good for the skin. Shame from a company that do formulate beauty products for more than a hundred years now.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

Available on Amazon.co.uk or other beauty discounters for approximately £15 / 200ml Body Lotion. The full RRP is Euro23.60 in France.

Thanks for reading.

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