Reminder: This is the last post of the year! I will be taking the last half of December, and first half of January off from posting.

I will be back Jan. 14th with the 1st short story of the new year!

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If you saw the Instagram post I made about finally getting my hands on this collection, you’ll know what a wild ride it was. But, luckily, I was finally able to try it (last year), and that means I can now review it!

I’m actually a little sad to report that I didn’t like this body wash collection as much as I thought I would. I don’t know if it’s because I was chasing after it for literal years, so maybe I built it up in my head to be better, or what, but I was actually a little disappointed with this collection. Which sucks, because I wanted to love it a lot, so that I could get it every year.

This is the I Love Cosmetics holiday body wash collection. It came with 6, 100ml bottles of body wash, each one a different scent: Luxury Hot Chocolate, Crushed Candy Cane, Gingerbread Cookie, Coconut and Cream, Strawberry and Cream and Raspberry and Blackberry.

For those of you who don’t know, this company is based in the UK, and most of their products are vegan. I actually use this company exclusively for body wash (and shampoo) purposes, because I love their scents.

I first tried them back in 2014, when I was gifted their non-festive Lots of Bubbles collection.

This collection also came with 6, 100ml bottles. After I tried this collection, I was hooked. I started doing my research, and found Shopper’s Drug Mart sells their 5 ‘main’ scents: Raspberry and Blackberry, Strawberry and Cream, Vanilla and Ice Cream, Coconut and Cream and Mango and Papaya. They also sell some of their Signature Scent collection, but I haven’t tried any of those, and honestly? I don’t really want to. At least, not until I’ve tried their other body wash scents.

Unfortunately, because they’re based in the UK, their products aren’t very wide-spread here in Canada. After doing some digging/research, I discovered that Shopper’s is the only store in all of Canada that is allowed to sell their products. They do have an online store, so you’d think this isn’t that big a deal, right?

Wrong! They can’t ship to Canada, so Shopper’s is the only hope you have of trying them. And, if you want to try this Festive Collection? Good luck. I had been trying to purchase this collection for three years without luck. I had sent countless e-mails to both Shopper’s and I Love Cosmetics.

Finally, I received an e-mail from a Shopper’s employee with a link to the page, telling me exactly when the collection was going up for sale. I was super excited, and while I’m pretty sure they did it just so that I would stop asking about it, I’m very grateful I got the direct link!

I bought the collection within about 20 minutes of it being available, and by the time I finished my purchase, it was sold out. Yes, this collection sold out that fast! I was both happy and sad to see that happen. On the one hand, I loved that there was such a big demand for the collection, because that means it’ll stay available, but on the other hand, I was sad, because I thought I’d have time to try it out, and then possibly buy another one before the season was over.

However, it kind of worked out, because I didn’t end up liking this collection as much as I hoped I would.

I’m only going to review the three holiday scents that came with this collection, since I’m planning on doing separate reviews for the regular scents (Coconut and Cream, Strawberry and Cream and Raspberry and Blackberry) later on.

 

Luxury Hot Chocolate

This was the first of the scents from the collection I tried. It was also the one I was the most excited to try, and, surprisingly, my least favourite one!

I wanted to like this scent so badly, but it just didn’t work out. It was very strong – all the scents in this collection were very strong – and it gave me a headache when I smelled it. I thought at first, I was just too excited and inhaled too much of it (I smelled all of the scents as soon as I ripped them out of the box), so I did a shower test.

That didn’t go as good as I thought. It was still very strong, too strong in my opinion, and, though the scent was super strong, when I actually washed myself with it and got out of the shower, the scent was practically completely gone!

Their other scents that I get all the time (Raspberry and Blackberry is my favourite) they tend to stay/linger on your skin for a bit after you use them, so that you can tell you actually, y’know washed yourself and are clean.

This one… didn’t.

I thought maybe it was a fluke or something, so I tried it again and got a friend to sniff me after I came out of the shower, and they said I “had no scent. Sure as hell not like hot chocolate.” As far as they could tell, I hadn’t showered. Not that I was sweaty or anything, but usually when someone just gets out of the shower, their shampoo/soap lingers on them at least for a few minutes.

I ended up using the rest of this up as hand soap, so that I wouldn’t keep giving myself a headache by using it in the shower.

As said above, this was the one I was most excited to try, and my least favourite. And, after being disappointed by this one, it got me thinking: they have a Chocolate Fudge Cake scent that I’ve wanted to try for a long time, too. But, if I was disappointed by this Hot Chocolate one, now I’m mildly concerned because what if I don’t like the Fudge one, either?

I don’t know if it was a certain ingredient they used, or if it was just too strong, but so far I don’t like their chocolate scents, even though I really wanted to!

 

Crushed Candy Cane:

This was the 2^nd scent out of the collection I tried. For some reason, I read ‘candy cane’ and my brain didn’t immediately jump to ‘peppermint’, so when I smelled this one, and it was mint-y, I was surprised.

That said, this turned out to be favourite of the holiday scents! When I used this one in the shower, it actually stayed on me when I got out.

It was also very pleasant, even though it was just as strong as the hot chocolate one. This one didn’t give me a headache at all, and actually slightly relaxed my body. I actually have about half the bottle left (at the time of writing this article, 21.06.08), I wanted to save it so that I could use it after I finished using the other ones.

This is the only one out of the festive scents I’d actually buy again. If they ever decide to sell it by itself (and it becomes available here) I’d definitely buy it again!

 

Gingerbread Cookie:

This scent was the one I was actually the least excited to try. I thought I would hate it, honestly. I don’t like eating gingerbread (and can’t), so I figured why would I like their smell?

Well, I was wrong, because apparently, I enjoy the smell! Or, at least, this smell. This one was actually surprisingly ‘light’ and dare I say… fruity? It actually smelled like ginger, not ‘gingerbread’, which I turned out to like. I don’t know if it was because of the lack of cinnamon, (I’m allergic, and everyone I know who makes gingerbread uses cinnamon) or what, but this one surprised me the most. It went from the one I was least excited about, to pretty decent.

When I used it in the shower, my skin got a little tingly, and I panicked, because I did not want to go through that again (this story will be revealed in an upcoming shampoo post, but long story short, I ended up discovering I’m allergic to SLS [Sodium Lauryl Sulfate] because I gave myself chemical burns), but luckily, I didn’t get a rash or anything, and the tingling went away when I washed it off.

This scent didn’t give me a headache, either. So I don’t know what they put in the hot chocolate one, but my body did not like it!

This scent I would probably get again, though it wouldn’t be my first choice.

All in all, the festive scents weren’t as big of a win as I had hoped, but my surprising love of the Crushed Candy Cane scent and liking of the Gingerbread Cookie, it definitely made it worth the purchase. Though, I would’ve loved if it was a collection of 6 totally ‘festive’ scents, instead of three festive and three regular.

 

It also wasn’t that expensive, it was listed at Shopper’s for $19.99.

I was also happy to get the collection, because I had been reusing the non-festive Lots of Bubbles containers, and the last two I had were finally dying. Seriously, the one of them I kept taping up over the cracks, because I wasn’t able to find 100ml bottles that were a similar shape.

(Can you tell which one is the new one?)

The ones in this collection are slightly smaller and rounder than the ones I had, but they say they hold the same amount, and they’re close enough in shape it doesn’t matter. So, now I’ve also got 6 brand new containers I can reuse for various toiletries (I don’t recommend reusing the containers for food), that should last me another 7 years.

I also liked the snow and festive decorations of the box, though I wish they would use a reusable/recyclable material for the box, instead of plastic.

Have you tried this Festive collection yet? If you haven’t, which scent are you most excited to try? Let me know in the comments below!

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