The Body Shop Spa Wisdom Morocco Black Olive & Argan Oil Scrub

Of all of the products I received in my Body Shop Elle-Magazine-best-of-2011 gift basket, this scrub was the one I was the most looking forward to using. I love body scrubs and the idea of one made with Morocco black olive and Argan oil (the same stuff that’s in Moroccan Oil) sounded really decadent. Plus the scrub came packaged in a sleek plastic container with one of those metal snaps on the lid.

But because I received this scrub shortly after I had opened jumbo sized container of another scrub, I ended up putting this new item under the sink and then forgot about it until a couple of weeks when I happily rediscovered it.


Unfortunately, this product did not live up to the lofty expectations I had for it. I was picturing a luxurious product that was rich in moisturizing- and scrubbing-power and that would leave my skin feeling amazing, an image that this claim from The Body Shop’s site helped to create: “Promote a radiant-looking glow and increase circulation with a rich, intense and invigorating exfoliating scrub to remove dead skin cells while deeply cleansing to reveal soft, smooth, refined skin.”

This statement isn’t so much as wrong as overhyped. Yes, the product does provide an “invigorating scrub” meaning that you can definitely feel the tiny bits of “olive stone granules and ground argan nuts” when you rub this item into your skin. And because of that, I have no doubt that dead skin cells are being removing, revealing softer skin.

But in no way was my skin more “radiant-looking” or refined. And it really wasn’t any softer or smoother than if I’d used The Body Shop’s Cocoa Butter Body Scrub, which at $16 is much cheaper than this product, which costs $28.

This product also wasn’t the luxurious scrub that I was expecting. In fact, the aforementioned cocoa butter scrub feels nicer on my skin than this one. It also smells a lot better too.

The Body Shop uses the word “intense” to describe this product and that describes the smell perfectly. While the scrub smells quite nice and spa-y when you take a quick whiff of it, when it’s used in a steamy, enclosed shower, the scent because really, really strong and rather unpleasant. In fact, it smells sort of like plastic.

Overall, this is a very disappointing item and I’m a rather surprised that Elle Magazine picked it as one of their favourite items of 2011 because I can’t see how anyone would love it.

Would I Buy It Again: No way.
Should You Buy It: Oh no.