Naked Full Of Glee Starflower Body Butter

For variety on my last online shopping trip, I took a gamble and bought Naked's Full Of Glee Starflower body butter for no other reason than I needed a new one and hadn't tried it. It was, however, a close-run thing between this one and the Coco De Mer version (which I also bought on the spur of the moment and fell in love with). So would this one turn out to be a rival? Let's see . . .

The tub is semi-transparent plastic so you can see the body butter is white and opaque before you open it. I don't think the colour's quite as pretty as the pink-tinted Coco De Mer body butter but the tub serves its purpose; the lid screws on and off easily, the tub is wide enough that I can sweep my hand across the butter to pick it up and as it's a short cylinder, I know I'll be able to get every last bit out when it's nearly finished. I'm surprised Naked didn't make it pale purple to match the Starflower bath foam but as they claim the product is "97% natural", perhaps adding colour would affect this? (As with the rest of the range, it's not tested on animals and you can recycle the tub if you want to.)

Although there's an inner plastic lid that's a bit fiddly to pick up, I find I get a waft of smoky/creamy fragrance as soon as the tub is opened. It's similar to the Starflower bath foam and body wash but there is a more pronounced aromatic edge; I'd say that the three complement each other rather than match each other precisely. However, if you've tried the bath foam and/or body wash and found them too scented, you're probably better giving the body butter a miss. It's a more complex scent than I thought it would be.

Like the body wash and bath foam, the Full Of Glee body butter contains patchouli (not one of my favourite fragrances), as well as borage, lavandin, sweet orange, ylang-ylang, geranium and rosemary so it sounds like it should be pretty floral but actually I think it's got woody notes too. I can't pick out anything exactly 'floral', except maybe a bit of ylang-ylang (which is on the woody/aromatic side anyway) and there's only a tiny citrus hint in there (just detectably orange, certainly not as sharp as lime or grapefruit). It's probably a little more feminine than masculine, but perhaps I'm just thinking that because I don't know any men who use body butter . . . or at least any who admit to it!

The texture is quite dense, with a bit of 'give'. Think firm egg custard and you're close. If I press a finger into it, I get a little smudge on my finger tip but it's not at all drippy. If you want, you can hold the open jar upside down and the contents won't budge, which to me is a promising quality in a moisturiser.

Most importantly (for a moisturiser) it is moisturising and gives that extra bit of moisturisation that you'd expect from anything that calls itself a body butter, so a little bit goes a long way; I often scrape out what I think is enough to do one lower leg and find that it'll actually do most of the other one too. It sinks into totally dry skin if I really massage it in; being creamier in texture rather waxy or greasy it absorbs comfortably but I get the fastest results on warm skin (i.e. just after a bath or shower).

Although it's quite thick and I usually wait a few minutes before getting dressed, waiting isn't vital and the effects last a while. I don't find that I have to apply it constantly just to keep my skin soft and, if I use it before bed, my skin feels quite smooth well into the next day. I'd say Naked's claim that it provides 24 hour moisture is pretty accurate. Quality-wise, it's as good as the Coco De Mer version and the claim on the tub that it'll give you "skin that feels god enough to stroke" is no exaggeration; mine feels great! I can see why they chose the name "Full of Glee". I'd also say it was on a par with the Body Shop body butters, at half the price!

When used after shaving, it doesn't sting or tingle or irritate; actually it's quite soothing. My legs can get dry after shaving (although not parched) so I think this could be a good option if you like to give something back to your skin after a session with the razor. (I have no idea what it's like after using hair removal creams as I can't be bothered to wait for them to work!)

So would I buy it again? The truthful answer is 'maybe'. I don't dislike the fragrance, I just personally prefer the Coco De Mer body butter. That said, I am glad I tried it and if I couldn't get get the Coco De Mer one, I'd buy this; for me, the other body butter just has the edge over this one!

You can find this on the Naked Bodycare website, priced at £4.99 (you get free delivery if you spend over £20), but surprisingly it isn't on Boots' website so it might be worth investigating if you've got a large branch nearby.