Buying stuff from Alverde is a rather hit or miss affair: some women like their stuff (me included, most of the time), some not so much. Complaints from members of the latter group include (among others) that Alverde's products smell weird, and I must concede that they're right: most of Alverde's products do need a little getting used to smell- and texture-wise.

However.

*pregnant pause*

I really can't imagine anyone not liking the smell of this:




That bottle up there is Alverde's newest and, as far as I know, limited edition body oil scented with blood orange and passionfruit (also known as 'maracuja'). :) It's a blend of many fine vegetable oils such as soy, olive, sweet almond, jojoba and sunflower, and it has such a zesty fragrance that every time I sniff it I go thirsty. (I dunno, some scents just have that effect on me. ^_^) It has this incredibly sweet orangey fragrance that reminds me of a type of orange-flavored hard candy I used to eat when I was a kid. The candy itself actually was shaped like orange slices, came in orange and yellow colors, and I suppose it was perfect to shut kids up as it was much too big to fit into the mouth of an average child. (And it might also be responsible for the Pavlovi-reflex I seem to have developed for zesty fragrances... :-)

Anyway, the oil comes in a matte glass bottle which has ridges on both sides so as to prevent it from slipping out of your hand. (The bottle is in a box, but I managed to throw it out before taking a picture, jeesh...) The oil itself has a really nice consistency, although perhaps it's just a teensy-weensy bit thicker than I would prefer my body oils to be. It's definitely more viscous than jojoba oil, probably about as thick as almond oil.

It feels really nice on my skin ( I apply all my body oils and butters right after taking a shower while my skin is still wet), but as with all body oils my gripe with it is that I just can't spread it in a thin enough layer. (NOT Alverde's fault though!!!) My solution to that is creating all sorts of yummy body scrubs: take a scrubbing agent, add some fragrant body oil (all other goodies are optional) and treat your whole body with it while still in the shower. Somehow, with the help of the added particles I'm able to spread the oil/butter in a micro-thin layer on my body and it feels just like having grown another (much softer) layer of skin to protect me in the cold, hard winter.

All in all, I can only recommend that you try this body oil if you can get a hold of it. The scent itself is enough to make you fall in love with this stuff, I promise, aaand it's perfect for massages too. ;-)

Ingredients: Glycine Soya (Soy) Oil, Passiflora Incarnata (Passionfruit) Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Heliantus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Parfum, Limonene, Linalool, Citral, Citronellol

Price: 1200-1300 HUF??? (yikes, I honestly don't remember) for a 100 ml bottle
Available: in Drogerie Markt stores only
Rating: 5 out of 5