I love soap. Not the crappy soap you get from the supermarket but rather beautifully scented 'gourmet' soap with a thick creamy lather. I love building up a lather in my hands then massaging it over my skin. I love the delicate fragrance it leaves behind. As strange as it is, a beautiful soap makes me happy. So, you can only imagine just how happy I was to receive the Urban Rituelle Signature Soap Collection - 12 x 110g bars of their best selling fragrances packaged together in a beautiful giftbox. RRP$39.95.
What they say: Urban Rituelle Signature Soap Collection is a collection of 12 hand selected Cocoa Butter Vegetable Soaps to leave skin soft, supple, and luxuriously fragranced. Each soap bar contains cocoa butter for a super rich and creamy layer of bubbles as well as glycerin and vitamin E to promote soft and supple skin. With a rich palette of colour and lusciously scented, this gift set is guaranteed to delight. Urban Rituelle will donate 10 per cent of the profits from the sale of this gift set to The Smith Family, a non-profit organisation committed to responding to the needs of disadvantaged Australian families.
What I say: When the box arrived the first thing that I noticed was the amazing smell. All of the scents had merged together into one amazing fragrance. I was expecting that the scents from the soaps would have leaked into each other - ie that they would no longer smell of their designated scent but of a mixture of all scents, but I was wrong. As I took each bar out and sniffed it, every scent was unique and each soap smelt strongly of the scent that it should smell like so there was no scent leaking.
The pack contains the following scents:
- Oriental Lily
- Ocean
- Buttermilk and Honey
- Frangipani
- Lavender
- Rose Petal
- Gardenia
- Lime Splice
- Lemongrass
- Lemon Verbena
- Green Tea
- Honeysuckle
There is literally a scent to suit every member of the family. My husband has already bagsed Ocean and Lime Splice, The Crazy Kid chose Rose Petal (though I suspect that was due to the colour rather than the scent - in an attempt to teach him to share with Kiki and not think that he owns every single toy I have been telling him that the pink toys are Kiki's - I am guessing that he saw the pink soap, thought that it must be Kiki's; therefore, it was the one that he wanted to use the most - the road to sharing is going to be a very, very long one!). I am also planning on using the Buttermilk and Honey soap on the kids - it would leave them smelling so delicious! The rest are all mine!
This pack could be given to one soap loving person - a year supply of beautiful soap - or split up into many smaller gifts of one bar or maybe 3 bars. It would be lovely to give your children's teachers a bar or two as a Christmas gift, or to have on hand in our present cupboard for when guests turn up with unexpected gifts. Or you could keep it for yourself and use as your hand soap. One bar will not only be useful for hand washing, it will also fragrance the whole bathroom - that is how good the fragrance is.
Urban Ritulle knew that I had young ones and let me know that the soap is gentle enough to be used on them. Like any good scientist who is also a parent, I experimented on my children! The Crazy Kid took his Rose Petal bar into the bath with him and Kiki and had a blast washing himself and his sister! Crazy has fairly normal skin whilst Kiki is looking like she has sensitive skin and possibly eczema - she is a bit rashy at the moment. The soap didn't dry out either of their skin, and it didn't irritate Kiki's sensitive skin. It left them both beautifully fragranced as well. The only complaint that Crazy had was that it doesn't make a good shampoo and it bloody hurts when it gets in his eyes (he kept going to put the soap in his hair to wash it. I told him 5 times not to wash his hair with soap before giving up and letting him find out the hard way why you don't wash our hair with soap. Although it didn't dry his hair out - he doesn't really have that much - it inadvertently got in his eyes - cue massive tantrum!). Although he played with the soap in the bath for 30 mins before he had his soapy eye accident, he still barely made a dent on the bar - so the bars are well cured and are likely to last well. I'd say you'd get at least a month of daily use out of a bar, if not more.
When I used a bar in the shower I found that it lathered easily and beautifully. With little effort, I had a beautiful thick creamy lather that I could massage over my body. The fragrance is beautifully strong - I used Lemongrass - and it subtly lingered on my skin for an hour or so afterward. I could actually still smell the fragrance in the bathroom for the rest of the day.
As a soap lover, I would be absolutely ecstatic to find this gift my Santa sack on Christmas morning. I guess the only problem with it is trying to choose which soap to use first...I suspect that I am going to have multiple bars line up in my shower on the go at any one time. I store the bars that aren't in use in my undie and T-shirt drawers and this leaves my clothes lightly fragranced.
As much as I love soap I understand that it is not everyone's cup of tea. Not to worry - Urban Rituelle have another gift to tempt you with - the Limited Edition Lip Balm Trilogy. This pack will soothe and protect the lips naturally. The balms are enriched with nourishing beeswax, vitamin E, shea butter, sweet almond oil and sunscreen. The pack includes three flavours - Watermelon, Lime and Milkshake. RRP $24.95 (valued at $31.50).
The Signature Soap Collection retails at $39.95 and the Limited Edition Lip Balm Trilogy for $24.95. Urban Rituelle products are available to purchase online
www.urbanrituelle.com.au, and are also stocked in
select MYER stores & gorgeous home & lifestyle boutiques nationally. See here for stockists.
What are your thoughts on soap - do you find it as exciting as I do??
All opinions are my own and I received no remuneration for this post. The Signature Soap Collection was provided for consideration.