As I move away from reviewing so much skin care, it's been fun to try more cosmetics and bath treats. This week I'm pleased to bring you my reviews of some new things from Stila, Lush and Bath & Body Works. Enjoy!

Stila Creme Bouquet
You know that woman you've passed on the street, or in an elevator, restaurant, etc. (you know what I mean), and you notice and remember the perfume she's wearing? I am not that woman. I rarely wear perfume, and when I do it's for a special occasion or a date with my husband and he's the only one who notices. When I got Stila's new scent collection Creme Bouquet, I was skeptical that I would actually use it. Sure, I thought, I'll try it a few times for the sake of the review, and then everything will get shuffled into a drawer or the back of the bathroom cabinet like everything else. Well, that's not what happened. One try with the body lotion lead to experimenting with the lotion and the spray, which lead to purchasing another scent of the lotion and trying that with the spray, which lead to never leaving the house without wearing one of the lotions and the spray. Talk about a far cry from the perfumeless wonder I was before. I'm hooked!

Body Lotion ($30 for 6.7 oz)
The idea behind the Stila fragrance collections (creme bouquet and jade blossom, the other set) is layering, so naturally I start with this lotion. It's rich but still pourable and absorbs quickly. I started with Vanilla, then added Lily of the Valley to my repertoire there is also Pink Lilac, which I smelled in the Sephora store in Chicago and didn't care for. To each her own, I say. Vanilla has a hint of sweetness (but not sugary-syrupy) and a touch of baby powder, while Lily of the Valley is definitely floral.

Eau de Parfum Spray ($50 for 1.7 oz)
So that it compliments all three lotions, the perfume spray is a mix of the vanilla, lily of the valley and pink lilac notes. You could certainly wear it solo, but I prefer to layer it with one of the lotion so it not only accentuates the note I like, but it makes the scent last longer. One or two sprays is all you need for long-lasting (but not overpowering) scent that lasts for hours.

The one thing I didn't try was the Body Shimmer Powder ($28). It's the same idea as the BeneFit Kitten line, with the powder inside the puff. I'm just not a fan of powder, and I worry that it will cake up with the body lotion. I may pass it on to a member of our Product Panel for a review.

You can find Stila Creme Bouquet (and Jade Blossom) exclusively at Sephora.

Lush
I had the pleasure of a first visit to a Lush boutique last month while in Vancouver, Canada, and in addition to the skin care that I picked up, I also bought Buffy the Backside Slayer body massage scrub bar ($7.95) and Sweet Japanese Girl facial massage scrub bar ($9.95), somehow without realizing that they are not cleansers, but massage bars. You rub them on the skin, then either rinse and wash or just rinse and towel off if you want the oils to stay on your skin. Imagine my surprise when I first tried the Buffy body bar, expecting suds. I quickly realized that it's for scrubbing, and then you use a separate soap or body wash for cleansing. To be honest, I can't say that I like that concept, nor did I like the feel of Buffy the Backside Slayer. Once warm (from pressing it on the skin), it softens and releases scrubby bits of rice and seeds and things and is generally just scratchy and rough. Combined with the oils from shea butter and cocoa butter, it's both rough and smooth, but neither feels good. The rough is too rough, and the smooth is just oily. I also didn't realize that the bar lasts for only a few uses, so I suppose that since I didn't like it, it's just as well that it was used up after a couple of sessions.

I had the same experience with Sweet Japanese Girl (named for the Japanese sweetmeat molds that Lush uses to shape the bars). It's the same idea as the Buffy bar but for your face, which to me makes even less sense than the one for your body. My skin was very unhappy with such rough scrubbing (from very scratchy and uneven bits of ground almonds and ground aduki beans), and then it had an oily film from the cocoa butter, shea butter, palm kernel oil. With so many fine scrubs on the market, I just can't recommend this one.

You can find Lush products at Lush.co.uk and LushCanada.com.

Bath & Body Works
Are Bath & Body Works in bed with Bliss or what? If you haven't seen B&BW's new True Blue Spa, prepare to be blown away: it looks EXACTLY like Blisslabs! You have to see it to believe it: same blue packaging, same idea for catchy product names, even a similar look and feel to the displays in the store. Does Bliss know about this??

I tried Look Ma, New Hands renewing hand lotion ($12), Three Ring Citrus renewing facial scrub ($14), and Mega Mint Buffing Bar ($8). There are also moisture gloves and socks (just like Bliss) to go with the lotions, and some other skin care like an eye treatment and a facial mist. Of the three things I tried, I like the mint body bar the best. It's a huge 10.6 ounce bar with wintergreen leaf oil and peppermint leaf oil for a great morning pick-me-up, plus jojoba beads for some stimulating exfoliation every time you shower. It's scrubby in a nice way and I enjoy using it daily. The bar also has "massage" bumps on one side, but they dissolve away after just a few uses. It's the mint and the jojoba that are doing the real work here.

My second favorite is the hand lotion. It's has a nice apricot scent and moisturizes well without feeling greasy. To keep hands from drying out, particularly in cold weather, this lotion has olive, avocado and apricot oils (plus a slew of other stuff like algae extract, oat kernel extract, and borage oil to name a few) to moisturize, vitamin E as an anti-oxidant, and paraffin (plus mineral oil and more waxes and thickeners than you can shake a stick at (but, hey, it works) to hold all the moisture into your skin. All in all, a hard working lotion that makes hands soft and keeps them that way.

I wish I also had good things to say about the face scrub, but it's really blah. The jojoba beads are so microscopic, they barely feel like anything. I like the citrus-rosemary scent, but I think a scrub needs more than a nice scent to be good. Maybe B&BW is counting on those citrus extracts to also be naturally exfoliating, but that's pretty unlikely considering how little is in there and how little time the scrub is on your face. I have to pass on this one.

Check your local Bath & Body Works for these and more True Blue Spa products.

I hope you enjoyed this issue of The Cosmetic Report!