Happy 2012, y’all! Hope your new year’s celebrations went well. We spent ours indoors, making merry and playing Monopoly, as seems to have become something of a tradition for us. I don’t know about you, but I rather enjoy being boring. It’s very restful.

With the new year, I bring you something new. Or, at least, it’s new to me. A while back, I was searching Etsy for some good whipped soaps with a woodsy fragrance for Kev. The winter months tend to play hell on our skin, and while I can easily nab some good moisturizing body washes from work, his fragrance options are really quite limited. He’s been stuck using Bath & Body Works Sea Island Cotton Creamy Body Wash, the poor chap. He likes it just fine, but it’s not exactly masculine.

My search ended at PurplecatCreatives. Initially, I was drawn by the beautiful amber packaging with whimsical product labels. I’m a sucker for great packaging. Then, when I saw PurplecatCreatives is based right here in Kentucky, I committed myself to make a purchase. I browsed their fragrance library, and decide to make a small sampler purchase to test the fragrances. I purchased mini sampler body butter jars in Dragon Butter, Raven’s Blend, Pumpkin Macchiato, Twilight Gypsy, Woodland Amber, and Redwood Grove.

A few days later, my sampler arrived in a wee box, with the body butters wrapped in a little paper bag. Simple, but somehow still fitting with the general feel of the product’s packaging. I popped open a jar and was instantly amazed at how thick the body butters appeared. They weren’t glossy like store bought butters, but rich and heavily whipped. Like, well, butter.

I purchased half of the fragrances for myself, and half for Kev to try. All of the ones I selected were very nice, with Pumpkin Macchiato and Raven’s Blend taking my breath away. Both are rich coffee fragrances, with their own unique twists. Cocoa and hazelnut plays heavily in Raven’s Blend, while Pumpkin Macchiato boasts spicy, buttery pumpkin. Dragon’s Blend smells exactly like an occult bookstore: patchouli, sandalwood and amber dominate the fragrance, with cocoa peeking through the middle.

The other fragrances were for Kev. He wound up with Twilight Gypsy, which is a deeply smokey fragrance balanced with sweet vanilla. Redwood Grove and Woodland Amber, which were lovely fragrances, though not as masculine as I would have hoped. They are very earthy, but there is a decidedly sweet quality which makes them lean feminine. Twilight Gypsy was a major hit with Kev, but neither of us could really appreciate Woodland Amber or Redwood Grove. I have already rehomed our wee jar of Redwood Grove (which is why it is not pictured above). Woodland Amber is still waiting for its time to be adopted.

Fragrances aside, the formula of the body butter itself is phenomenal – good enough that it can be purchased without fragrance, as a standalone superstar. The PurplecatCreatives etsy site states that this alcohol free, vegan-friendly formula contains shea butter, jojoba oil, vitamin E, vitamin A and cocoa butter. The appearance in the jar reveals its exact texture: rich, whipped and buttery. It does leave a slight glaze over the skin, but it is by no means oily. Rather, it is a somewhat smooth, waxy, protective “glove”. This fades after about five minutes, after the butter has time to soak into the skin.

Ounce for ounce, when compared to other popular brands of body butter such as Bath & Body Works or The Body Shop, this product is quite a bargain. Bath and Body Works comes in at $2.14/oz, The Body Shop at $2.57/oz, and PCApothecary coming in at $1.63/oz when purchased full-size. Not only is the price better, but the formula itself is much more rich and deeply moisturizing. I have been using this as my nightly hand cream, and it even trumps my old favourite from Bath & Body Works, Look Ma New Hands (True Blue Spa Paraffin hand cream, $3.70/oz).

Needless to say, I highly recommend this product, and I will definitely purchase full-size body butters for myself and the Kev in the near future. I know I will be taking advantage of one of the Gift Set options for Raven’s Blend – it’s just that wonderful!