With Spring upon us, it’s time to literally shed your Winter skin. If you’re anything like me, you’ve had a teeny tiny freak out about suddenly exposing Winter skin to sunlight and are in desperate need of a few scrubs to get Spring, Summer and wedding dress ready.
So if there is now a smoother person on the planet, I’d like to meet them because after a few weeks of testing out these fantastic five body scrubs – my skin is ready to face the warmer weather! Read on for my picks of body scrubs for your own Spring beauty treatments!
Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Scrub
Soap & Glory has been one of my favourite skincare brands of late – their body creams are one of the few that hydrate my skin without leaving an oily residue, so I’d been hanging out for the “Sugar Crush” collection to be released. I’m not kidding when I say this smells like a lime lollipop, or a lime splice icypole- brown sugar and sweet lime! It’s a delicious scent for Summer.
This scrub is gentle (using a mix of brown sugar and sweet lime with almond oil and macadamia grains), and doesn’t leave an oily film – so it’s a great to use multiple times a week (and as is recommended, if you have been labelled “old lizard legs”, to try four times!). Although the initial scent is strong, it doesn’t linger and interfere with perfume or scented body moisturiser (though you can easily make it last longer with the matching Sugar Crush Fresh & Foamy Body Wash and Sugar Crush Body Buttercream). As recommended, I always use this in the bath or turn on the shower to douse the body with water and then grab a scoop of the scrub and massage it in with the shower off so I don’t lose any product down the drain.
The Body Shop Brazil Nut Cream Body Scrub
The Body Shop Brazil Nut scent has long been something in my cupboard – the original body butter was always a favourite so I was excited to try their newly released scrub (the last time I tried Body Shop scrubs they were sugar and oil!).
If there was ever a body scrub that felt like a body cream, this one is it. It smells divine – the favourite brazil nut scent, without being cloying and the texture feels like a beautiful rich body cream, with brazil nut oil and walnut shell suspended within. It exfoliates the skin really well, but because you’re also rubbing the cream into your skin it is also wonderfully hydrating without any oily residue.
Jo Malone Vitamin E Body Treatment Scrub
Clearly I am the best lizard because this treatment scrub from Jo Malone was my favourite when trying to get my skin ready to see the sunshine. The smell for starters is sublime – a beautifully light sweet vanilla scent. The scrub is intense with plenty of hard salt granules in there to get your skin smooth and oils that are almost like butter, melting into your skin, making it satisfying and easy to scrub away and rub into every rough patch.
I’ve talked a lot about the lack of oil residues with other scrubs (my previous experience being that they tend to sit on the skin, making my skin feel like it has a film on it, and anything like applying a moisturizer, or even washing my hands just ends up with water beading or moisturiser slipping off). This was the one scrub that did leave some residue behind though, but instead of sitting on the skin it actually sank into it – meaning I didn’t feel the need to moisturise and the supple feeling remained all night.
Although this is the most expensive of all the scrubs I tried, at a luxury price point, it’s also the biggest – coming in at 600 grams compared to 200-400 gram average of the others. A little goes a long way.
Natio is such a fantastic Australian brand and this body scrub comes from their “Wellness” collection. Described as an “Invigorating sugar polish with Apricot seed and antioxidant pomegranate to purify and energise” it is definitely the gentlest of all the scrubs I tried, making it a great choice if you have sensitive skin.
It has a lusciously sweet and fruity scent and the texture is a jam, gel like consistency (which I loved as it stays on the skin, giving you a chance to scrub, rather than falling down the drain). It does a great job of getting your skin smooth and clean without scratching and certainly doesn’t leave any oils or residues behind. You also don’t need a lot of product to get a good scrub and because it’s so gentle, it’s a good one to use a few times a week.
I’ve always loved the philosophy behind Lush – not tested on animals, freshly made and a sense of humor so I was intrigued to try a scrub of theirs for today’s review.
Enter, Rub Rub Rub. I have to be honest, this isn’t my favourite scent – described as a mix of Mimosa and orange flower, it smells rather soapy. But it’s brilliant in other ways – the scrub contains sea salt (which works brilliantly for a good exfoliant) and the scent is rather unisex so both you and your beloved can use it.
It works not only as a scrub (Lush recommends you use it on dry skin this way), but if using a body puff or loofah under the shower – as a shower gel, dissolving with water (which is wonderful as scrubs generally means a clean of the shower or bath). As with all Lush products it has a fairly short use by date in keeping with their Fresh philosophy.
How are you getting your skin into winter recovery mode? What scrubs do you love?
Images by Ms Polka Dot for Polka Dot Bride. All products were sent for editorial consideration in accordance with our disclosure policy.
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