Lavender and basil soap. Fabindia

The lavender and basil soap did what I least expected it to do. It brought back memories from college. Second bench, first year of degree college, physics class and Sijo. Sijo was my classmate and the most distinct smell in class . He didn’t believe in attending lectures and since our college had a strict 75% attendance rule (as most colleges in Mumbai do these days), he managed to sneak into class through the doors when the teacher wasn’t looking during the attendance and more often than not he always ended up sitting next to me. I tried sitting somewhere else but he always seemed to find me. I could always tell whether Sijo was coming from a mile away. And every physics class that I ended up sitting next to him, I got a bad headache. I have never to this day found anyone who smelt like him. I’ve met people who haven’t had a bath for several days (even months) but none of them have even come close to smelling like him.

The soap reminded me of Sijo. Both of them have a smell that skips the nostrils and hits you straight in the head. Like a bullet would if you’d shot it through your mouth. Both had scents that could be characterized…for lack of a better word, as pungent. The soap though has a very strong basil character and the soft element of lavender seems to have been lost in the bargain. Now I’ve smelt basil before and it actually has a very fresh, earthy scent to it. Lavender has a very sweet, floral and diffuse scent. None of the two scents happen to be particularly strong. Fabindia seems to have overcompensated, in the soap, with a very strong basil character for the lack of intensity of either ingredient to sufficiently abuse the nasal capacities of any human. I don’t know of any woman who would want to smell like it which is really sad because the clear bar of soap is really appealing and the soap also lathers quite well. Fabindia did manage to think up a heavenly marriage of lavender and basil; I only wish they had managed to get the proportions of the two ingredients right. Lavender and basil, in the right proportion, could have blended to come up with a brilliant scent to have linger on your body after a hot water shower during the rains.

The lavender and basil soap by Fabindia is actually very attractive looking. The promise of the combination of the two fragrances and the price (Rs. 65) makes anyone want to pick it up. But, even though the soap sounds exciting, I can think of other soaps that do the job better than this one (will write about those in my future reviews) and this soap would best be avoided. For now, I have to risk smelling like Sijo until the soap bar decides to dissolve into the hot waters of my shower, little by little and ascend into soap heaven.

Seller: Fabindia
Purchased from: Flipkart (http://www.flipkart.com/search/a/all?query=lavender+and+basil+soap&vertical=all&dd=0&autosuggest%5Bas%5D=off&autosuggest%5Bas-submittype%5D=default-search&autosuggest%5Bas-grouprank%5D=0&autosuggest%5Bas-overallrank%5D=0&Search=%C2%A0&_r=n_2yuAC4xgh0SZTuulvAtw--&_l=Tnndui8JdMVk7CZmDKIfXQ--&ref=24b3834a-d199-4de4-968a-38aefa7fbb00&selmitem=)
Price: Rupees 65/-

Satsuma Soap, The Body Shop

I don’t know what excites me more about the Satsuma soap bar by The Body Shop- the way the tangerine scent engulfs my bath space or the way my skin feels after a wash. Lets starts of by getting the name sorted, shall we? Satsuma sounds pretty exotic and all of that exoticism dusts off when we realize that it is in fact a type of orange, a commoner among fruits. Satsuma oranges originated from the Satsuma region in Japan and is often seedless as Wikipedia informs us. I just found it a little funny when The Body Shop website claims that the bar of soap is made from “real” Satsuma “seed” oil. Seed? Oopsy, indeed.

Keeping this minor mystery aside, the Satsuma soap priced at a slightly above average price of 90 rupees, is a far cry from disappointment. The soap is soft, smooth and shaped for a perfect fit in your palm.  The scent is highly citrus based and smells slightly of more than just oranges. Though it gathers up a good lather, it does not fail to leave your skin well moisturized. I don’t see how it can harm an acne prone skin or oily skin- as far as I’m concerned, it would suit any skin type… The scent diffuses beautifully onto your skin and stays on for a long time. Since I stay in a very summery Rajasthan, the soap was quite a blessing- with the lather leaving me squeaky clean (from all that desert sand) and the Satsuma scent leaving me confident enough to face the world (and not have to worry about sweat stains or BO).  Uplifted senses are just the cherry on the cake…

Now for the pricing- yes, it is not necessarily affordable or fit a student’s pocket easily, and one might argue that we will find other citrus soaps that is lighter on our wallets and that is where I would disagree. Being a huge fan of citrus scents, the Satsuma soap is the best I’ve used so far and I’ve tried many others since and they have all been disappointing- either they don’t lather enough or the scents smell like artificial chemicals. More over, with The Body Shop’s no animal testing policy and giving back to the community policy, I feel like that 90 rupees is my little bit towards the environment.

Just go pick up a bar, will ya? Don’t you see, I cant stop gushing about the soap?

SELLER: The Body Shop

Soap name: Satsuma Soap

Price: Rupees 90

Bought from: The Body Shop store, The Forum Mall, Bangalore

Wikipedia link: 

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/SATSUMA_(FRUIT)

Seabuckthorn Scrub soap, Fabindia

For the first soap I picked to review, sea buckthorn turned out to be a disappointment. Before googling it, sea buckthorn sounded like one of those happy sea-weedish scents that made me think of a blue lagoon with merry sea horses and exotic little fish floating in and out of the reddish green tentacles of seaweed. Sea buckthorn, Google confirmed, was not sea weed at all. It is actually a deciduous shrub that gives yellow-red fruits resembling  gooseberries. The fruit did look pretty tempting and I decided to put it on my online shopping cart anyway.

“Made from legendary seabuckthorn berries found in higher altitudes of the Himalayas, this bathing bar contains nutrients, essential oils and vitamins that protect and nourish your skin” claims Fabindia.

The soap smells a lot like a seaweedy citronella only much more damp and diffuse. It has an extremely harsh scrub that can reduce a thick-skinned bull to mere bones. Not really recommended for sensitive skin. Might serve the purpose of a pumice stone for many but too hard for sensitive areas like the back or face. The soap has two layers and the scrubby layer tends to wear off after 3-4 uses leaving behind a black gravel-like residue on your bathroom floor every time you have a bath.

The soap really doesn’t lather all that much even when you use a loofah and the fragrance isn’t all that distinct either. At the end of a shower, the soap doesn’t make you feel fresh or revitalized after a hard day at work and leaves a lot to be desired. It might be good to try it out once to satisfy your curiosity of what a seabuckthorn bath feels like but I would be surprised if someone decided to take another go at it.


Soap: Seabuckthorn with Scrub
Seller: Fabindia 
Price: 65 rupees
Bought from: Flipkart, India.
http://www.flipkart.com/fabindia-seabuckthorn-scrub-soap/p/itmd9uz3rvrcgwhd?pid=SOPD9UTC8TGKFNTT

If you want to know more about seabuckthorn, visit: http://www.seabuckthorninsider.com/