Volcanic Cooling Body Scrub from Human Nature (Review)

The color purple grabbed my eye when I went to the Human Nature website. There were three new rosemary-themed products on the front page, so I decided to give them a go. I ordered the Rosemary Strengthening Plus Shampoo (Php 159.75) and Conditioner (Php 159.75) and the Volcanic Cooling Scrub (Php 495).

Purple!

For this review, I'm only going to do the review on the Volcanic Cooling Scrub.

I've only used the Rosemary Strengthening Plus Shampoo and Conditioner once so I don't see any immediate effects yet. All I can say is that it smells like rosemary but in a "relaxing-spa-way" rather than the "roasted-rosemary-chicken-way". I can't tell at one use if it gave me stronger and fuller hair, but studies show that rosemary helps with hair growth (see rosemary benefits).

Going back to the Volcanic Cooling Scrub, it contains rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, bamboo charcoal, and volcanic sand. The essential oils mixture cools the body and smells great. The bamboo charcoal (read benefits) and volcanic sand (read benefits) helps with drawing out toxins from the skin. Overall, it's designed to give you that home spa experience.

When it comes at the price, Php 495 for a 200ml bottle seems a little steep. It's nearly double the price of Human Nature's Natural Body Scrub (Php 275) and the St. Ives scrubs you find in the supermarket. Spas also have minty foot scrubs but I'm not sure how much they are and if they're even for sale. However, the incremental premium you're paying for is the bamboo charcoal (also known as activated charcoal) -- it's a trendy ingredient in today's beauty products.

Back-label of the Volcanic Cooling Scrub. Now, I'm curious, where did they get the volcanic sand from?

Upon squeezing out a bit at first, the product is dark grey. I'm guessing the bamboo charcoal is uniformly mixed into the liquid portion while the black scrubby beads are the volcanic sand. I'm happy they didn't skimp on the volcanic sand so the exfoliation part was quite effective.

What the Volcanic Cooling Scrub looks like

After lathering and scrubbing, I left it on for about 3 minutes. It doesn't say in the instruction to leave it on, but I just thought I ought to give the bamboo charcoal some time to absorb the toxins and for the rosemary, eucalyptus, and peppermint oils to sink in. It would be such a waste to rinse it off so quickly!

While rinsing it off, the minty-ness stuck around. I felt the coolness even more when contrasted with hot shower water. I could still feel the coolness while towel-drying. It was super relaxing. My skin felt so soft. The entire bathroom smelled like mint. *Heaven*

Final thoughts: At first use, I loved it. I thought at first it was expensive, but then this product is unique (for now) and the incremental benefits were worth it. When this bottle is finished, I'm definitely going to reorder.