New Favorites: Splurge Skincare

Splurge Skincare

Splurge: for us, that usually means getting the chicken quesadilla AND the Nachos Bel Grande from Taco Bell. (Also, who ate my pie? I don’t remember eating this pie.)

When Christine and Kara from Boston-based Splurge Skincare reached out to us about sampling products from their natural line of scrubs and lip “buttahs,” they gave us a chance to redefine the word. Their philosophy?

People shouldn’t wait for a special occasion to treat themselves well, it should be something they do everyday.

Amen. Both teachers, Christine and Kara used their free time to research and test out the best possible formulations for their products. The result? Even though this splurge isn’t smothered in nacho cheese or baked into grandma’s graham cracker crust, it is decadent and indulgent. It’s a skincare and lip treatment unlike anything we’ve ever tried (truly). Let’s get into it…!

Splurge Skincare

Kathryne’s Fave: The Rub

Let’s play a game of word association: scrub. Go!

I normally associate the word “scrub” with clean, stripped, rough, hard, harsh, etc. That was what I had encountered in the past when dealing with salt, sugar or oatmeal scrubs. Sometimes they hurt, and sometimes they stripped my skin of essential moisture.

Not. The. Case. With. Splurge. Skincare.

Splurge’s scrub, “The Rub,” ($28 for a generous 8 oz.) which I sampled in the Peppermint and Winter scents, surprised me: I took it in the shower with me, started to rub it into my legs, and then something crazy happened. Yes, it’s a great exfoliator, and you can really feel it working on that end, but it’s also a magical, melting moisturizer as well. The more I rubbed it into my legs, the scrub would sort of dissolve away.

The Rub left my legs and whole body feeling super, super hydrated, like I had just rubbed my favorite body oil all over. (Which, essentially, I did, because the scrub contains safflower oil, meadowfoam oil, aloe vera leaf juice, cocoa butter, vitamin e, and peppermint essential oil) No need for moisturizing post-shower. I simply love multi-functional products. If you can save me a step so I can have five extra minutes of sleep, I will consider giving you my first born.

I have been alternating between the Peppermint scent, which truly smells like your favorite peppermint cookie or candy (my goal in life is to smell like a delicious baked good – always) and Winter, which has a sweet vanilla/licorice aroma to it. Both are welcome additions to my routine. I much prefer rich, clean, natural scents like these as opposed to fake, flowery ones. Lemon and Almond scents are also available!

On top of feeling luxurious, The Rub really has improved the look and feel of my hibernating winter skin. It’s done wonders for my sad feet, and makes for an awesome pre-pedicure scrub! Everyone gets a little more flaky in the winter time, and sometimes moisturizing alone won’t do: you gotta slough off that dead skin and get your circulation going! What they say on the container just might be true: it is the best scrub you’ll ever use.

Splurge Skincare

Jennifer’s Fave: Lip Buttah

Lip balm junkies: you can stop your search for a moisturizing, winter-appropriate lip balm here. Splurge’s Lip Buttah ($7) is one-of-a-kind. It’s creamy, moisturizing goodness. And yup, it really is like BUTTAH.

The first thing you’ll notice about Lip Buttah is the shape of the tube: it’s not cylindrical?! We’ll see how this goes… I thought, skeptically, when applying it for the first time. Turns out, the oval shape of the applicator makes all sorts of ergonomic sense in your hand and on your lips. Why isn’t every tube of lip product shaped like this?!

Now, the good stuff: the product is packed with moisturizers and conditioners, many of which are pretty standard for all-natural lip care: cocoa butter, beeswax, sweet almond oil, vitamin E…what really piqued my interest was the first ingredient listed: babassu oil. This is a new oil for me, so I read up on it: babassu oil is similar to coconut oil. It’s a moisturizer and emollient than doesn’t absorb completely into the skin, thus leaving lips slick and protected, and binding moisture into the skin.

And it WORKS. Splurge’s Lip Buttah is honestly unlike any lip balm or treatment I’ve ever tried. And I have tried them all MANY. It’s the perfect marriage of moisturizer and protecting balm. It absorbs and relieves chapped and cracked lips while leaving a long-lasting coating of balm-y protection. The best part about this balm, though, is that although its oil based, it’s above all creamy. The opaque color and rich, creamy texture really set it apart from any lip product I’ve ever tried.

And the scent…ahhh, the scent. I really can’t stress enough just how delectable Splurge’s Peppermint Lip Buttah smells. It has a soft, sweet scent, instead of an overly mint-y, menthol-y one (there are plenty of those on the market…not my style). If my lips didn’t need the moisture so bad, I’d probably inhale the entire stick. Or maybe writing that paragraph above about quesadillas just made me hungry.

You can also purchase Lip Buttah in Almond, Lemon, or Orange Chocolate…Kathryne loved the Almond, but holy cow, Orange Chocolate? I think I’m gonna need that one.

Thank you, Christine and Kara for sharing your all-natural products with us!

The Rub ingredients:
(winter scent – check out the Splurge Skincare site for full ingredients for the other scents)
sugar (sucrose), organic safflower oil (carthamus tinctorius), meadowfoam oil (limnanthes alba), glycerin, organic cocoa butter (theobroma cacao), organic shea butter (butyrospermum parkii), aloe vera leaf juice (aloe barbadensis), anise essential oil (illicium verum), vanilla absolute (vanilla planifolia), lavender essential oil (lavandula angustifolia), vitamin E (tocopherol)

Lip Buttah ingredients:
(in peppermint – check out the Splurge Skincare site for full ingredients for the other scents)
babassu oil (orbignya oleifera), organic cocoa butter (theobroma cacao), beeswax (cera alba), sweet almond oil (prunus amygdalus dulcis), organic castor oil (ricinus communis), peppermint essential oil (mentha piperita), vitamin E (tocopherol)

**All products mentioned in this post were generously sent to me for review by Splurge Skincare. We both received two 4 oz. sample sizes of The Rub and one Lip Buttah. Check out our policy on product reviews.

Which Splurge Skincare products pique your interest?

  • http://www.mademoisellenature.blogspot.com Mademoiselle Nature

    Looking really like nice handmade beauty brand :-)x

  • http://www.callitvanity.com Call It Vanity

    Ooooo- get me some of the that rub-a-dub-dub goodness stat!

    Mayah x

    • Jennifer

      Seriously, can one ever have enough exfoliants in the shower?!

  • http://getunsullied.com Kathryne

    I want to try the almond scrub, I am almost out of my peppermint… I never thought I would have to need something like this so much… it’s to die for. And I’m picky!