Inspired by nature

Mother Nature gives us many gifts.  Gifts we can eat, gifts we can see, and, my personal favorite, gifts we can smell.  Some beauty products can bring the outside right into our homes, making us smell as good as they make us feel.  Scents can evoke strong emotions from childhood or from special times in our lives.  Growing up with nature right outside my front door, these scents remind me of running through grassy fields as a child, eating food straight from the gardens, and basking in an afternoon sun.

Clean Rain Eau De Parfum  ($69)

If you're a native New Yorker you may think the smell of freshly fallen rain isn't the nicest smell on earth, but if you're a native UPSTATE New Yorker like myself, you know that a summer rain is the smell of renewal.  Fresh starts.  Hope.  These are the things that inspired Clean to come out with this newest scent.  Crisp notes of Watermint, Daisy, Daffodil, Violet, Waterlily, and melon combine to make an impossibly fresh fragrance.  They need to come out with this fragrance in a home scent, like a diffuser.  Like right now.   

Nourish Organic Food For Healthy Skin Body Wash in Fresh Fig ($9.99)-

Scents like this are the death of me.  You go to Whole Foods for a few vegetables and next thing you know you've brought home 4 different beauty products.  No need to feel guilty about Nourish Organics though, since they're affordable, chemical free, and cruelty free.  All their scents are delicious, but I'm particularly fond of their Fig line (comes in the body wash, body lotion, body butter, hand wash, and a deodorant).  It's a unique fragrance, but not overpowering.  Plus it's packed with skin-friendly ingredients like coconut milk, Vitamin E, and aloe.

The Body Shop Vineyard Peach Body Scrub ($19)-

This limited edition body scrub, part of the new Vineyard Peach collection, smells good enough to eat.  Skin feels moisturized and exfoliated after, thanks to the texture of ground peach seeds and the nourishing properties of peach kernel oil.  If you love the scrub, the collection also includes a body butter, shower gel, and body lotion, all using Community Fair Trade ingredients from around the world.