I love mint.
Wait, let me expand on this a little. I love the vitality of mint, the way its scent enlivens a room and the way its taste zings across my tongue. I love the science of mint; the incredible little magic act that mint plays and tricks my skin into feeling cold where none exists. I love the way mint clears my mind, I love the way it belongs in my tea and my icecream. I just really love mint.
Mint, however, isn’t a popular fragrance when it comes to bath and body things. I can sort of understand why: mint, even when adulterated with notes of chocolate or cream, is quite a strong scent, both medicinal and foody at the same time. It’s a fragrance that cuts through other odours, making it unsuitable to be layered with perfume and fragranced body lotions. It’s a challenging scent that can deafen the olfactory senses and, if the scent is coming from a natural mint oil with organically occurring menthol, can play havoc with the TRPM8 receptors in exposed delicate skin membranes (ever wondered why your sinuses feel icy cold when you smell mint oil?).
I don’t care though. I love mint, challenges and all. So why am I rattling on about mint?
Original Source & Malin+Goetz
I recently found two mint shower products and I’m thrilled to finally have something mint-o-licious in my shower caddy. Original Source Mint and Tea Tree Shower Gel is exactly what it says on the bottle: a bracing combination of cooling mint and tea tree oils, all packed into a high lathering wash. I see on the Original Source website that there’s an XXX Black Mint wash which sounds like my idea of hardcore minty heaven, although I haven’t seen it in the shops. Alas!
Entirely more sophisticated is Malin+Goetz’s Peppermint Body Scrub, a super sleek unisex body scrub with pumice and bamboo. I’m generally cautious with scrubs that aren’t salt- or sugar-based as the skin on my arms and chest is quite thin and easily scratched, but this is more of a buff than an abrading scrub. Smoothing, not scratching. Once or twice a week I apply a generous dollop to wet skim in the shower, then scrub-a-dub until the pumice and bamboo washes away. It buffs away winter skin and leaves me feeling as refreshed as if I’d been founding back caprioskas in the shower (which, now that I think about it, sounds like a great idea…).
So there you have it. Mint on mint on mint!
Who: Original Source
What: Mint and Tea Tree Shower Gel
How Much: AU$3.99 for 250ml
When: available now
Where: Coles, Woolworths and IGA supermarkets.
Who: Malin+Goetz
What: Peppermint Body Scub
How Much: AU$45 for 236ml
When: available now
Where: Mecca Cosmetica
