Product Review - Kings & Queens Caspar Myrrh Body Butter

I had a tube of this in my bathroom up until recently. Originally I was in two minds to review it, but then one of my lovely readers, Amanda of A Fairy Cake Tale (check her blog out if you want the most awesome cooking recipes!) asked for some advice on body butters - how could I refuse?

Kings & Queens are a cosmetics company with a difference. They make very posh, swanky body butters, body milks, soaps, shower gels and even candles all with decadent ingredients that for hundreds of years have been celebrated as being fit for royalty - for kings and queens! Their collection is therefore designed, from their packaging all the way through to the smell and textures, to make you feel like a princess.

With this in mind, let's take a look at their product description for the body butter I chose - Caspar Myrrh and see if it's up to scratch:

A rich, luxurious body butter with intense fragrance enriched with a royal mix of pomegranate, blue Egyptian lotus and malachite extracts to maximize indulgence. The purple fruit of pomegranate ends in a crown-like top which is why it is shown on the coat of arms of many royal houses. The flower of the blue lotus was the most popular ancient Egyptian symbol of glory and eternal life for gods and mortals alike, while malachite was loved by princes across Europe. Kings & Queens products are free from mineral oil (synthetic oil from processed petroleum) and parabens (category of preservatives).

Rich and luxurious?

Definitely! This body butter is exactly that - buttery! But my only gripe, as is Amanda's and many others' is that some body butters take far, far too long to soak into the skin. If you're getting ready for a night out you don't want to be dancing around your room for 15 minutes waiting to get dressed because it won't soak in quickly enough!

Some body butters are so intense they're too heavy and concentrated for the skin to absorb quickly and effectively. This body butter is surprisingly good at soaking in quickly. It's nowhere near as fast as a lotion or a body milk but that's the price you pay for butters - the richer the moisturiser the more concentrated it is and the more time it requires to absorb. It needs a bit of work but if you put the effort in this body butter will have soaked in within about 3 minutes!

The reason why I wasn't going to review this product yet was because when I came to the end of the bottle I was unsure as to whether I'd try it again. I loved it but I'm impatient and sometimes I just want a body lotion that soaks in in 30 seconds. I thought I'd try something else and get back to it. Needless to say I want to buy more because despite the 3 minute wait it's still better than most body lotions and butters I've tried, doesn't leave the skin greasy and my skin felt baby soft after using it daily.

Intense fragrance?

Yes, most certainly! This moisturiser is obviously scented with myrrh - dried tree sap, used for its medicinal properties to this day and valued as much as gold during ancient times. The name Caspar is from the three 'Magi' or kings, who travelled to Bethlehem and gave Myrrh as a gift to baby Jesus.

It's a beautiful body butter perfect for the wintery months as the fragrance is heady and spicy. It may be too intense a smell for the summer months when you want something lighter, more citrussy or floral, but you can always try the other scents in the Kings & Queens collection such as 'Emperor Akbar Mango' or 'Sultan of Granada Lemon Flower'.

Pomegranate, blue Egyptian lotus and malachite extracts?

Yes (pomegranate's listed as Punica Granatum Fruit Extract), yes (blue Egyptian lotus is listed as Nymphaea Coerulea Flower Extract) and yes. This lotion also contains beeswax, shea butter, coconut oil - all known for their ultra moisturising properties, safflower seed oil and sweet almond oil. If you like your lotions to be synthetic ingredient-free then you may want to reconsider this product as it does contain a few artificial ingredients but...

Free from mineral oil and parabens?

... it doesn't contain a jot of parabens or mineral oil! I've counted three and sometimes as many as five individual parabens in some body butters on the market. Parabens are artificial preservatives that are now known to be carcenogenic. Mineral oil, as discussed in my article on lip balms and hand creams provides no benefits whatsoever and is a derivative of petroleum which is also bad for the body.

Overall...

This product is available online and in Superdrug stores, so as you can imagine it's not going to break the bank coming in at £4.50 on their website, but a few months ago I could have sworn I paid something in the region of £5 or £6. Some of their body butters do differ in price due to the ingredients used in each, but they're all very reasonable and suitable for all budgets.

The richness of this product means that a little goes a long way and you therefore get what you pay for. The seductive packaging, names, scents and ingredients do encourage you to try the entire range and I am contemplating trying out their other scented body butters and perhaps trying their shower gels at some stage.

I was really impressed with this body butter and as I said before, it soaks in really quickly compared to other body butters I've sampled. My skin became very soft after a week of using this and after three weeks it was beautifully silky and as I can get dry skin on my arms sometimes this was a complete treat for me. Since moving onto a body lotion from another brand I've noticed the deterioration in my skin once again so to be honest I'll be going straight back to this product once I'm through with my current one. What better testimony than that?

So if you're considering a body butter that doesn't take an age to sink in, give this a try and let me know how you get on - I always love to hear what you all think!