Do you like pie? (Nirvana Spa Lemon Souffle Body Scrub)

Name: missixty

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Product:	Nirvana Spa Lemon Souffle Body Scrub
Date:	19/08/08 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smells like lemon mirangue pie

Disadvantages: Superficial, doesn't actually do anything for your skin, smell doesn't last, not refreshing

A while back now a range caught my eye whilst I was escaping the boredom of food shopping in Asda by making a (long) detour down the beauty aisle. It was a bubble bath that looked quite similar to the Philosophy ones, which even I will never be willing to spend so much money on something that just goes down the plug hole. This however was a mere £2 and I couldn't resist a smell and I absolutely fell in love.

Now at the time I was terminally poor. Yes, I mean poor to the extent where I didn't even have £2 to spare!

However a few weeks later and I was still thinking about this gorgeous smell and decided that's pretty amazing, even for me, so I went back to buy it. Whilst I was there I spotted also in the range they sold body scrubs in various flavours all of which had been reduced to £1. They are available in Vanilla Crème Brulee, Lemon Souflee, Rasberry Milkshake and Orange Smoothie. I chose the Lemon Souflee as I felt it would be perhaps a bit more invigorating and "wake me" up which is what I'm looking for in a shower, whereas for my bath I'd chose the truly indulgent Vanilla Crème Brulee (the bath and shower gels are the same 'flavours').

The Lemon Souflee scrub that I chose was a pale lemon pastel color, with little black dots of exfoliating granules in it.

Despite the cheap price I was expecting luxury goods. I'd heard of N Spa before, and seen their products and they seemed like they were a "spa" luxury range. I thought I was just getting a bargain. However, what I got was an average to low quality body scrub.

I guess recently I've become accustomed to high quality things. Scrubs made of salt or sugar that exfoliate the skin before desolving, and being within a mix of essential oils and butters to leave your skin coated in moisturising nourishing ingredients. I've also recently tried Porridge Soap exfloiator which is interesting in that it doesn't actually transfer any of the exfoliating oats onto your skin, they remain with in the soap bar whilst working there magic, and again leave a creamy moisturising residue on the skin to nourish and look after your newly exfoliated skin.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected here but I got none of that. The mystery black exfoliating particles, which I'm not sure what they are, scrub the skin yes. It does it's job in that it does exfoliate your skin no doubt. However they don't dissolve, and they are of course all over your body. I've tried to wash myself thoroughly, I mean really thoroughly after using this (especially once I was aware of this next problem) but no matter how long you rinse for and how hard you work to free yourself from these little black dots, rest assured there will be many still attached to your skin when you exit the shower. You may not notice unless you are moisturising but when it comes to that you will feel them all over you. It therefore is not good to use if you are going to be fake tanning or using a gradual tanning moisturiser.

Speaking of moisturising you will need to do it. This isn't full of moisturising ingredients that are good for your skin and will leave it already feeling moisturised, soft and supple. It's made of chemicals, none of which I'm sure are beneficial to the skin. It is I guess a very superficial product.

The smell is gorgeous, but not how I'd expected. I'd picked Lemon as I thought it would be quite uplifting, I'm not sure what it is but in the shower I like pick me up scents, not sweet scents. This is however sweeter than sweet. It is lovely, it smells like Lemon Meringue Pie and I can't help but love it even though it wasn't what I'd initially hoped for. I think, the bath gel of this scent would be quite lovely. The smell only was around for as long as actually using the product though and didn't linger on the skin or in the air in the bathroom.

The product got absolutely everywhere! I'm not really sure why but this was more so than with any other shower gel/exfoliator/shampoo/condtioner etc that I had used, I was trying to just get it on my body but it ended up mostly on the shower curtains. This may be partly to do with the fact that when I used this, the shower curtain became absolutely obsessed with me, clinging to me for dear life. I can't explain this, but it doesn't happen normally, but I was trying and failing to fight off the shower curtain throughout my whole shower whilst using this.

It is quite a runny consistency compared to good quality exfoliators, it is about the consistency of a regular shower gel.

The product is said to have; "A sunny blend of zesty lime, uplifting Sicilian lemon, and oranges". I'd have to disagree in that the oranges are nowhere to be smelt at all, and the lime if it is there is in a very mild key lime pie manner. There is nothing uplifting or zesty about this product. It's also been described as fruity and refreshing, which it really isn't. It's like washing in dessert, which is fine I guess, but isn't what it is advertised as.

The packaging is good. Looking like it could have stepped out of the Philosophy range it does look quite high quality in a fun way. Again though it just misses the mark. It has writing saying "Give a girl a lemon," said the wise man "and she will add some sugar and make you the sweetest of lemonade and should you bathe in the zest of this most playful of fruits then be prepared to emerge from the water unavoidably and deliciously edible". The problem with this being, it not highly witty or entertaining like the Anatomicals products, yet it's not serious, and when something isn't funny or serious what is it? Pointless? It also irks me a bit that it suggests again a zestyness that isn't there, and says you will emerge deliciously edible, when you don't even emerge with a scent, and the only thing you will taste of is chemicals, and god forbid you do let anyone think you are edible, as along side the bones, muscle and blood, they will get a mouth full of black grainy bits - not nice!

Whilst I did love the smell of this and it was no doubt a bargain, with packaging and an image that suggests a far more luxury product than it is I wasn't really satisfied with it. It didn't really do anything for my skin, and the scent meant that I wasn't left feeling fresh and clean so much as I would have with a more powerful product. It's fine if you like this sort of thing, it's not a product you will hate, and it does smell nice. However I personally wouldn't buy it again. To be honest, if I was exfoliating I would be doing it for one of two reasons; either to prepare for fake tanning, or because my skin was dry and sluggish and needed the dead skin removing and the other skin nourishing and softening. Obviously it's not suitable for pre fake tanning due to it being virtually impossible to be grain free when you exit the shower, and needless to say it doesn't nourish or soften your skin, or give it that healthy glow that exfoliating can do. It fell short of the mark on almost all it was supposed to do. I don't hate it but I definitely wouldn't buy it again. The smell was nice though so perhaps it would be better buying this in the bath and shower gel variant.

Summary: It just doesn't compare to what else is out there, but it does smell rather yummy