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Good Scents
By Debbie Steele
I recently tried out two lines whose clear focus is fragrance. They
also both score very high on the "pretty packaging" scale. If
you love highly-fragranced bath and body products, these are
worth a look.
By the same token, if fragrance is not really
your thing, there's not much reason to consider these lines.
You'll find no unscented (or evenly lightly scented) products
among their offerings.
elizabethW
Albert Nichols, the founder of
elizabethW,
named the company in honor of his great-grandmother, Elizabeth
Wightman, whose
"spirit of determination and independence went hand in hand
with her romantic nature and classic elegance."
The
company,
 based in San Francisco,
eschews trendy fragrances (no double-chocolate-mousse-with-caramel-sauce scents here).
Instead, they focus on such classic fragrances as lavender,
rose and vetiver.
I found the scents I sampled to be complex, rich and true. If you’ve ever
been turned off by a fragrance that kind of "misses the mark",
you will be in for a treat with elizabethW’s creations.
The
packaging on everything is so elegant, I found myself thinking
“I need to save this for a special occasion.” (Like what, I
don’t know.) This makes the products ideal for gifts.
I started off with the Bar Soap in Rose ($9 per bar). As with all their
products, this one is thoughtfully packaged: wrapped in
plastic first, then in a trademark
gorgeous outer box.
It had a very good rose scent and smooth,
medium lather. I enjoyed the pleasing rounded-oval shape. This
bar lasts FOREVER (because of the triple milling?).
Continuing in the floral family, I tried the Body Cream
in Tuberose ($22 for 4.2oz).
The luxurious texture of
this cream rivals most facial creams I've tried. As with
the other elizabethW
products, this one is heavily scented. For me, using this
as an all-over body cream would leave me a little
overly-fragrant.
Probably my favorite of the products I tried was the Bath
Pouch, which I tried in Lavender (in my opinion,
you can't go wrong with the classic spicy sweetness of lavender!).
Ingenuous: fragrant bath salts sewn into a soft terry pillow.
The salts disperse to create a silky bath; the terry cloth
pouch serves as a gently exfoliating scented washcloth.
These sell for $9.00 each.
Besides perfumes and bath and body products, elizabethW.com also
offers a range of fabulous home fragrance products, including
sachets, drawer liners, candles and room sprays.
Zents
"Zen" plus "Scents"...cute.
Zents
describes itself as
"a young, hip perfume house that believes in old style
perfumery...[with a] vision to bridge the worlds of designer
scents and aromatherapy."
The scents
all have simple, Zen-like names: for instance,
"Water" is a blend of spearmint, coriander, linden blossom and
citrus.
"Spirit" contains sandalwood, myrrh and
frankincense (they do offer scent samples for a small
fee).
My personal favorite: "Sun", a powdery soft blend of sweet
orange, grapefruit, vanilla and sandalwood.
Zents also has a creative approach to packaging: their solid
perfumes and bath salts are available in solid stone cubes
(not exactly portable, but great on a vanity).
The bath and body products in this line (lotion, soap and bath
salts) feel almost like an afterthought.
Still, if you
fall in love with one of their fragrances, it's nice to know
you can find it in a range of products. I tried their
medium-weight Body Lotion ($23 for 6oz), which is
smooth, creamy and (not surprisingly) heavily fragranced.
Available at Zents.com.
So, if you're a fragrance aficionado, or searching for a gift
for someone who is, these lines are definitely worth a look.
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