#37 Roses really smell like...

Last year I was sent a sample of the Sheerin O'Kho First Class Flight. Pleasing packaging, beautiful bottle, a slew of serious ingredients and a press release that wailed wonders about the all-natural scent - derived exclusively from essential oils. Now, the bottle sat in my samples drawer for upward of three months. Conditions were neither warm nor bright, so when I finally fished it out to give it a wee road test (before a week-long road trip), I almost gagged at the scent. There was something very very wrong. A sharp, sour smell - the sort that I associate with curdled milk. I sniffed again. I rubbed some on my hand to see if it dissipated on contact and quite the reverse happened. The smell lingered like (please forgive me), ahem, cat piss. I reached the only logical conclusion - the product must've gone off. Except, last week, I smelt a different product and had the exact same stomach lurching reaction. This time round, it came from Living Nature's Tinted Moisturiser. I've sniffed this product three times - three different bottles - and each time I'm overwhelmed by the smell. Cat piss. Cat piss. Cat piss. It's such a shame as I would happily have slathered this on - the colours and textures are beautiful. On the upside, the pong of the Living Nature product does fade with time - I subjected my right hand to it during this typing session, regularly re-sniffing to check for changes and by sniff 25, it had dramatically improved. But, I'm still averse to putting anything on my skin that smells bad, even for a second, as it has too dramatic, and negative, an effect on my mood.

These smells might be 'natural', stemming as they do from the innards of a variey of plants and flowers - but they are still unpleasant. Perhaps I've sniffed an odd batch, or I'm extraordinarily sensitive to the scent, but whatever the reason behind my reaction, their smells prohibit me from using them. Simple as.

Lest anyone has the same experience and decides to forgo the natural route in the future, I'd urge a bit of sniffing around first. www.lovelula.com is a good place to start, as all the skincare products on the site are naturally fragranced with essential oils and many of them smell sensational - Lavera and Trilogy are both nose- and skin-pleasing examples.