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/-