Aquolina Pink Sugar Body Mousse

Earlier this season I wrote about the Pink Sugar Glossy Body Gel that had been part of my body product collection for quite a long time, I love that gel but can't deal with the rest of the body product collection.  The Body Mousse is the major illustration in why this is one of my least favorite body product brands and I wish that Aquolina would improve on the quality of the line.  I bought these products for the same initial reason that everyone else did and I will not repurchase for the exact same reason, the quality is just not there even though the fragrance is wonderful.  I think that is what this company banks on to get people to buy the products, they all love the fragrance and want to be able to use it in more ways than just the perfume.  I had stopped using the perfume itself a few years ago but I still got great pleasure from using the scent in body products.

"A rich and luxuriously soft cream based on a compound of limnanthes alba oil with extract of karite butter, to moisturize and nourish the skin after a bath or shower.  Notes: Lily of the Valley, Candy Floss, Licorice, Fruits, Strawberry, Woody Notes, Powdery Musk, Vanilla, Caramel."  Now I never talk about prices on this blog, being a firm believer that if you love something enough than you will figure out how to pay for it, but this collection is way over priced.  The pricing is along the lines of Laura Mercier and LUSH however the quality is something like you would buy at the drugstore.  Many people buy this product once for the smell and then are so disappointed in the product itself that they never repurchase it. 

I was expecting a body butter-like texture for this product but sadly it is nothing like a great butter or cream.  The texture is light and whippy yet somehow sticky at the same time.  This cream has next to no hydrating properties to it and does nothing but fragrance my skin.  It leaves a film on my skin that will annoy me for the rest of the night and the only way to avoid this is to use such a small amount of the product that I get hydration benefits at all.  There is just no point to whatever hydrating ingredients are in this formula, I could find 20 better formulas on the market for practically half of the price.  The formula is why no one ever repurchases this product, I firmly believe that if Pink Sugar improved the product quality, they would have a surefire winner on their hands.  Not even lower the price, just improve the quality of the formula, I would glady pay the full price that is asked for this price if I felt that it actually helped my skin.

The shower gel is great in this line and I might try the regular lotion in an attempt to find something to layer the gel with.  If this doesn't work than I am going to have to find a cream in one of the major notes or just give up on this whole body product line.  Which is such a shame because it smells so great and I will only use the body products now.

photo courtesy of Nordstrom

Aquolina Pink Sugar Glossy Shower Gel

Pink Sugar is a scent that takes me all the way back to college, I used it non-stop right after I turned 21 and then all the time for the next two or three years.  I went through multiple bottles of it over the years but now I can barely spray it on myself in a store without getting sick of it in ten minutes.  I have moved on to a beauty place where the EDT in this fragrance is no longer for me and I can't wear it at all.  I still like the fragrance itself but there is something in the EDT that makes it not work with my skin.  A bit sad since I did love this fragrance for years.  But at least this fragrance comes in a full array of body products....

I have been using the Glossy Body Gel in this scent on and off for a year or two now since I bought a tube of it from Sephora, even with the lighter scented shower gel, I still go through phases of loving and hating this scent.  I tend to prefer it in the colder months since it one of the stronger scents gels and it produces a very rich, creamy foaming lather.  "Ideal for a fresh and mouth-watering wake up call, cleansing the skin to perfection by delivately embracing it in a sensual fragrance.", states the Nordstrom website for a product description.  The notes of the fragrance are: Lily of the Valley, Candy Floss, Licorice, Fruits, Strawberry, Woody Notes, Powdery Musk, Vanilla, Caramel.

The fragrance itself smells more of cotton candy but the shower gel is more of a yummy vanilla and caramel mixture, being very heavy on the sweet vanilla.  This shower gel's fragrance reminds me very much of the Vanilla Bean Noel scent from Bath and Body Works, just add a slight cotton candy note to it and you will have this exact scent.  This shower gel produces a thick, creamy lather; it lathers well enough but doesn't produce the masses of lather that many shower gels do.  Which is one of the major reasons that I really like it, it doesn't strip or dry out my skin and helps to keep it hydrated in the cooler weather months.

My favorite aspect of this shower gel is that it can be layered with so many types of fragrances.  I have used it with so many types of scents, from the matching Pink Sugar lotion to any type of cotton candy scent that I have ordered from etailers.  There are very few washes that the layering and matching works so well and it is fun to play with this scent and see how many combinations that I can come up with.

I may not use the EDT anymore but I still love the body products in Pink Sugar and will continue to layer them with all kinds of other sweet fragrances.

photo courtesy of Nordstrom