The Body Shop Body Butter Duo in Floral Acai

When I first heard about The Body Shop’s Body Butter Duos I thought, “What a gimmicky idea.” Each duo (there are four flavours) uses a typical body butter container that’s divided in two: One half is for “normal skin areas” while the other half is for “dry skin areas.”

This packaging is why I found the whole idea of this product gimmicky. I will give you that some people want/need a heavier moisturizer for certain parts but packaging it with a lighter moisturizer just doesn’t make  sense to me because I really doubt most people are using both types of creams at the same rate. And then you end up with one side being empty and needing more of that kind while the other side is still half full and… You get my point. Personally, I don’t see this product being as convenient as it first seems.

So if I find the idea of this product gimmicky, why do I have a container of the Floral Acai flavour?  Because it came in the Body Shop basket I won a few weeks ago.

One of the first things I did with this product was check out its ingredients list because I was curious to see if each “side” had its own ingredients list. It did not so I’m assuming that both sides contain the same ingredients but in different quantities (after water, shea butter, cacoa butter and glycerin top the list, all typical  and useful moisturizing ingrediants).

The two sides do clearly look and feel different, with the dry skin side being much thicker while the normal skin side actually feels lighter than regular body butter. While both versions do leave skin feeling soft and smooth, not surprisingly, the normal side absorbs quicker while thicker side does leave a bit of tacky feeling.

After seeing that the sides were sharing an ingredients list, I was curious to see if the thick side really was any different than the normal side so I set up a little test. For over a week, I moisturized my left foot with the thick side and my right foot with the normal version.

After a few days there was a clear winner: My right foot. Yes, the foot getting the moisturizer intended for “normal skin areas” was definitely softer than the foot getting the thicker cream. Guess the packaging isn’t the only gimmicky part of this product.

I’m a big fan of the Cocoa Butter Body Butter and no question, it does a better job than the Floral Acai butter. While the latter did moisturize, it just didn’t excel like its cocoa butter cousin does.

All of the products that were in the basket I won were part of Elle Magazine’s top picks for beauty products in 2011. I have no idea why this made the cut other than it smells nice.

Would I Buy This Again: No.
Should You Buy It: No.