Review: Island Basics Body Butter

Hi there! Remember the body scrub I told you about *here?* Well, here's another product from Island Basics that you might want to try out. Island Basics is an online store which produces and sells all-natural and locally made bath and body products for reasonable prices. For more information about the brand, check out their Multiply site *here.*

It's the Island Basics Pink Pomelo Uplifting & Calming Body Butter.

Description (from Island Basics): Give your skin an intensive moisturizing treat without the greasy or sticky after feel. Mildly scented and leaves your skin feeling soft. 

Ingredients: Virgin coconut oil, pink grapefruit extract, chamomile essential oil, Vitamin E, shea butter.

Basically, body butters are concentrated lotions. As lotions, they are also formulated to maximize skin hydration, but body butters contain less water and preservatives than regular lotions. Most of the ingredients of body butters are natural, and these ingredients help keep the skin moisturized and prevent loss of moisture.

I actually have more lotions than body butters on my dresser. I had this impression before that body butters would feel oily and heavy on the skin. Now that I've tried the Island Basics body butter, I realized that maybe not all body butters were like how I imagined them to be.

The peach color definitely caught my attention! The first thing I did after opening the tub? I smelled the product itself. I figured it would smell fruity because of the pomelo. Honestly, I don't remember what pomelo smells like but this product has a pleasant smell that, for me, is not too strong, especially when already applied on the skin.

The consistency is a bit  thicker than that of my favorite lotion, but this is still very easy to apply and spread onto the skin! 

And it's effective, too! This product does keep my skin soft and hydrated, which is what lotions and body butters are supposed to do :)

Thumbs up:

• Has a pleasant smell
• Easy to blend and spread onto the skin
• Keeps my skin moisturized
• Doesn't leave my skin greasy and oily
• Doesn't irritate my skin
• Affordable - Priced at P150 for 100g of product
• Several variants available

Thumbs down for me:

• Packaging - For lotions, I prefer pump- or squeeze-type packaging.

So all in all, this is a pretty good body butter. It does keep my skin soft and hydrated, it's all-natural and locally-made, and it's affordable, too!

One thing you need to remember about this is that it doesn't contain the common preservatives that can be found in most body products so you need to consume this within a year after you open it. I doubt that this will last you a whole year, though. But still, always keep the lid tightly closed. Avoid getting the product wet and use a spatula (instead of your fingers) when scooping the product out to avoid bacterial contamination. This is also why I prefer tube/bottle-type packaging for lotions.

Variants available:

• Green Tea and Mint - anti-aging and revitalizing
• Olive - aAnti-aging
• Goat’s Milk and Vanilla - nourishing
• Pink Pomelo - uplifting and calming (shown above)

I use this body butter after exfoliating my skin using the Island Basics Body Scrub for that really soft and smooth skin.

If you are interested in these products, you may order them online through Island Basics' site *here.* I don't know why this variant is not in their site, though.

Anyway, now is the best time to order Island Basics products! From November 2011 to January 2012, Island Basics will be giving away P1.00 per item sold to the "Piso para sa KMBI" project. KMBI (Kabalikat para sa Maunlad na Buhay Inc.) is a development organization whose goal is to help transform the lives of its clients by providing sustainable microfinance, training and non-financial services. The donations that will be collected will be added to KMBI's funding for different environmental initiatives and projects that have already been started by KMBI members. Such projects include recyling, gardening and tree planting, site clean-ups and waterways declogging. Show your support and help provide jobs and education to fellow Filipinos by buying Island Basics products :)

For more information about Island Basics and KMBI, visit the following links.

• Island Basics website
• KMBI website
• KMBI Facebook page
• KMBI Twitter account

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Disclaimer: Product was sent by the company for review but the views and opinions expressed in this post are purely mine and based on my own experience with the product.