I applied about 2 tablespoons of unrefined Palm Oil to my torso and legs to evaluate it for use as a full body lotion. It was easy to apply with texture and skin absorption properties somewhere between Shea Butter and Coconut Oil.

The strongest characteristic of the unrefined Palm Oil is its vivid neon orange color. The orange carrot-like tint is so pervasive that I could not avoid staining my clothes with an obvious orange residue. I was looking as if I was combating some kind of tropical disease that was making my skin to look a sickly yellow-orange color. It took about three hours before the tint finally disappeared and let my skin look like its normal color. The second characteristic of unrefined Palm Oil is a slight lard scent, similar to what Shea Butter by itself can leave on your skin. It was not an overtly noticeable, but it is not something that was particularly attractive to the nose.

So who is unrefined Palm Oil for as a body lotion? To be honest, as an ingredient by itself, I don't think it could pass the social acceptability test. If you use it, you will spending your time trying to reassure people that you have not contracted malaria and worrying about staining expensive clothes. Perhaps it could be used in combination with other ingredients, such as brown tinted mica, to get the exact desired skin coloring and bronzing lotion for one's particular skin tone. By itself however, I would NOT use unrefined Palm Oil as a body lotion - unless you want to look like a carrot.

I tested Hazelnut Oil for use as a body lotion. I applied about 2 tablespoons of the refined and deodorized variety and had no difficulty swishing it on over legs and torso. It's a very light yellow transluscent oil.

Hazelnut Oil gave me a light balance of various oil properties: light absorption, light barrier protection, with a little bit of anti-grip effect thrown in. Because Hazelnut doesn't seem to have a particular oil characteristic that stands out, this oil seems like it could be used as great all-purpose skin care product. It could also be used as carrier for essential oils or blended with another oil that may need to have a strong oil property toned down for a specific skin care purpose.

I recommend Hazelnut Oil as a good all-purpose skin care body oil.

I poured some Jojoba Oil to test as a type of full body lotion. I applied about 2 tablespoons of the oil to torso and legs and had no difficulty applying it. It was a bright golden translucent yellow color.

Jojoba Oil has minimal scent with a generic vegetable oil odor to it that is not detectable when standing close to someone else. By comparision, Jojobal OiI felt silkier to the skin during application than Coconut Oil. So I looked up this oil in Wikipedia to see if could uncover a possible explanation for why it might feel so smooth. Apparently Jojobal Oil is mostly composed of natural liquid waxes and so would explain the silky smooth sensation.

To whom would I recommend this oil? I would recommend Jojoba Oil to anyone looking for an alternative to Coconut Oil, perhaps because of allergies to the latter, and I would also recommend it as a massage oil because it glides on well, as opposed for example to Shea Butter which nourishes well, but grabs the skin. There was little sensation of nourishment to the skin, but did provide the sensation of light barrier oil against the outside world.

 

 

 

Wheat Germ Oil is a translucent amber oil that I applied to legs and torso to try out as a full body lotion. It was easy to apply and did not stain my clothes (because I was able to control the spread).

There are two salient characteristics of this oil. The first characteristic is the strong and pungent smell from the Wheat Germ Oil. It hits the nostrils full blast with an intense whole wheat baked bread scent just as it comes steaming hot out of the oven. I would even describe the scent as slightly musky, but on the high fresh note side of the scale.

The other strong characteristic of the Wheat Germ Oil is the feeling on the fingers of a complex blend of different oil structures. It rubbed on smoothly like Olive Oil does, but there was an additional pleasant sensation of very light liquid waxes flowing onto the skin. It did make me think of a liquified Lanolin. The bottle itself recommended to shake the oil before each use to make sure the different internal oil and waxes gets evenly distributed. The end result was a fulll and silky finish sensation on the skin. 

I would recommend Wheat Germ Oil for those who really want to nourish their skin. I'm thinking especially of someone who has thin elderly skin or for someone with skin that needs some gentle boosting after getting over some skin reactions due to food allergies. And speaking of food allergies, I would like to pass on a tip passed that was shared from a fan on the Facebook hard lotion page: be aware that if someone is already allergic to wheat in food, then they will probably react to it when used as an oil on their skin.

I rubbed on about 1.5 tablespoons of Avocado Oil on torso and legs. The application was swift and it was easy to control any excess.

The Avocado Oil I had was of a golden green tint and looked and felt very similar to my previous Olive Oil test for a body lotion. There was a very slight sensation of Avocado Oil being softer or silkier than Olive Oil. However there was a significant attribute to this oil that immediately made itself known: an unmistakingly clear scent of chocolate! The chocolate scent is laying in a bed of bitter olive oil scent turning this whole lotion into a mouth watering trigger. I certainly was not expecting that to pop out of my brown bottle of Avocado Oil. A few hours after application, as I write this review, the scent has morphed into a gentle nutty scent detectable only when nose is put to skin. 

The effect I'm noticing is that the Avocado Oil has increased the suppleness and smoothness of my skin. Very similar in its effect to Olive Oil which I can't help comparing to.

I would recommend Avocado Oil as a body lotion oil that can stand on its own without any added oils, but I can also see it a fantastic building block to some added essential oils or other butters. It is already complex to the nose and silky to the touch, but I could see it played up into an even more sophisticated concoction. Enjoy this one, I say!

 

 

Cocoa Butter Body Lotion made by the Vaseline company is a brown-beige lotion that is hand-pumped from a big container. I applied about two tablespoons over torso and legs. It was quick and easy as it was a creamy liquid water-based lotion. It gives off the same scent as that of the scent of a large chocolate muffin.

The sensation is similar to many water-based lotions. It immediately starts evaporating away from the skin so I get a quick cool down sensation. It feels as if it wets the skin, but does not do much more than that. The single charateristic of this body lotion is the scent that does not diminish from first application in the morning to changing into pajamas at night.

So for whom would I recommend this lotion? If think of this Vaseline Cocoa Butter Body Lotion as a fun finger gliding lotion for parents to apply onto children to soothe them with the touch of their hands after an afternoon of hard outside play in the summer. I could also envision it being used by young teenagers who just want the fun scent to linger on their bodies all day. If you have those demographics in your house, thenVaseline might find a welcome place in your home. For actual skin care or skin nourishment, this body lotion will be a disappointment. This lotion has no sealing protection or fatty buffering needed for effective dry skin care.

 

I applied a concoction of Almond Oil with added drops of Lemongrass Essential Oil. I put it on legs and torso. I have already reviewed Almond Oil by itself and those properties haven't changed. What is different is the psychological sensation of lemongrass that this concoction adds. Lemongrass elevates the mood as that kind of scent is known for and that is what it did for me. Lemongrass triggers the mind. By a mind trigger, I mean the same kind of trigger as one gets as when smelling freshly baked bread or when catching the fresh scent of a rose on a dewy day. This is why I would recommend Almond Oil with Lemongrass as a good massage oil to use on someone who is feeling under-the-weather, such as on a child who needs a physical touch and a boost at the end of a sick day.

Besides, for me personally, the Lemongrass scent triggers memories of my childhood visit to the country of Turkey where private visits in people's homes were accompanied by a lemon scented hand moisturizer as part of a ritual of greeting. That combined with the amazingly intense and flavorful food in that country conspires to trigger very physical memories.

I got a hold of some Olive Butter for my continued review of ingredients that can be used in skin lotions. The butter was white in color and solid in form at room temperature, similar to dairy butter at room temperature. It exuded no scent until warmed by the heat of my hands. 

I scooped and applied about 2 tablespoons of the Olive Butter onto my legs and torso. It went on quickly. It melts into a liquid within a couple of hand rubs, but in the process of melting all of the butter, I could feel specs of it needing a couple more hand rubs to fully blend. That aspect of the butter did give me a bit of sand paper feel at first, but disappeared as soon as it liquified. My skin started absorbing the Olive Butter right away, however didn't finish full absorption until after a full hour (in comparison for example, Shea Butter absorption is immediate). This delay means I could feel some extra oil on top of my skin. Therefore I would be careful not to put so much on that it might absorb into clothes. The Olive Butter did give off a slight bitter green olive aroma, which is the same scent you would expect from a raw olive. It could be noticed during the first couple of hours if your nose got close. It was not unpleasant, but I would not call it a sensual scent or a sophisticated urban scent.

This Olive Butter gave a me a thick skin sensation as if it could buffer me from overexposure to wind and sun. This is why I could recommend the Olive Butter as a single skin nourishing ingredient for outdoor activities such as sailboating or fly fishing. Also one advantage of this butter is that it is not a nut based ingredient. That property is in itself an important factor as many have signifcant nut allergies making the use of alternatives such as a Shea Butter a forbidden option. For the hands and feet, unfortunately, it would be a dissapointment as it would feel too greasy if used as a single ingredient, but it would be good for non-impacting areas of the body.

 

I applied lotion by Curél (that's the correct spelling) to body and torso and I only needed about 2 tablespoons worth to cover the entire skin area. Creamy and milky white in appearance, I had no difficulty spreading it on. My skin absorbed it immediately leaving no greasy or oily sensation.

During application, Curél felt like it was on the boundary between being a purely water based lotion and a butter based lotion. I think what gave it an unusually creamy consistency was the presence of some Shea Butter and Tapioca Starch as ingredients. However it is still a water-based lotion in the end and that is how the post-application felt. The final sensation was a wet skin sensation, but not wet merely at the surface. Curél left several layers of my skin feeling like it had absorbed water and held that same full-water sensation throughout the day. This was very unusual, as this is the first water-based lotion I have tried that seemed to last all through the day in providing moisture to the skin. The lotion did give a slight grabbing sensation when putting on clothes, but it was not enough to be annoying.

So for whom who would I recommend the Curél lotion? I would recommend Curél for anyone who has itchy skin that needs immediate relief. I'm thinking this lotion would be perfect for a slight redness on the skin that is triggered by allergies outdoors or for some reaction on the skin to a laundry detergent. Amazingly, that is exactly what Curél claims their lotion was designed for: as an "Itch Defense" for dry, itchy skin. It is not designed for healing cracked skin or for acting as an emollient barrier for working hands, but it does provide soothing coolness on contact. Curél gets extra credit in my book for being very clear as to the purpose of this product. Go Curél!

I rubbed three tablespoons worth of Radiance Body Lotion made by Burt's Bees. I applied it over torso and legs as if I was putting on sun tan lotion. This milky-white looking body lotion contains over two dozen ingredients, including a little bit of mica for a slight fun skin shimmer. Quite a few of the ingredients I could recognize right away as to what they were and they appeared chosen for their safety and easy recognition.

The application was very quick, though I did have to rub in a little bit longer in a couple of spots some specs of what appeared to be white beeswax. It felt cool to the touch as this lotion is a water based lotion with some suspended oils and wax and not a lotion based on butters or oils. If it wasn't for the Burt's Bees brand name, I could well have imagined I was using a standard pump lotion with the same obligatory lotion scent that seems to come in all the pump lotion bottles. It felt wet, because it was mainly water and as soon as it started to dry on my skin, I would get that same dry tightening sensation I get whenever I use water based lotion. After a few minutes I could sense no benefit from having applied, but I could still clearly smell the scent on my hands throughout the rest of the day.

I would recommend this Body Lotion to anyone who insists on staying with a water based lotion. I will admit that for a water based lotion it did appear slightly creamier and of a higher quality as compared to other liquid lotions. However because it is water based, I don't see how this type of lotion could have any effective use for nourishing the skin or sealing the skin from outside harm. Essentially, this body lotion is just another variation of using lotion as a reason to carry scent or perfume rather than to be used as an effective skin protecting agent. I am disappointed by Burt's Bees decision to put out such a product as it seems a downgrade from their original oil and butter balm skin care line of products.