Pacifica Island Glow Coconut Crushed Pearl Luminizing Body Butter — A Shining Victory?
Last week, I mentioned that Pacifica founder Brook Harvey Taylor would be making her QVC debut on August 2nd, introducing Pacifica’s new Island Glow collection, a five-item selection of body butters, scrubs, and lip balms meant to leave skin glistening. At the time, I had yet to test drive any products from the collection, but I promised that, as soon as I did, I’d fill you in on all the juicy details. Well, gals, today I’m making good on that pledge, recounting my experiences with the Pacifica Coconut Crushed Pearl Luminizing Body Butter ($24 at PacificaBeauty.com), which I tried out over the weekend.
Like most of the brand’s body butters, the Pacifica Coconut Crushed Pearl Luminizing Body Butter smells delicious and succulent, like coconut milk mixed with creamy vanilla, and yet the fragrance isn’t quite as robust as, say, the Hawaiian Ruby Guava Body Butter or the Brazilian Mango Grapefruit Body Butter (which rank among my top picks for body butters). Then again, this particular body butter, along with the Island Glow Coconut Crushed Pearl Bronzing Body Butter, marks Pacifica’s first foray into the tinted and shimmering lotion space, where moisturizers double as body makeup. To that end, then, the primary goal of this body butter isn’t to seduce you via a full-bodied floral or fruity aroma, but to coat your skin with shimmering pearls that will make your skin glow and sparkle so seductively that every step you take will make onlookers’ jaws drop, as if you were reenacting that classic scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Phoebe Cates emerges from her friend’s swimming pool.
Thanks to the mica particles and pearl powder in the formula, when you smooth this coconut-scented lotion onto your skin, it develops this luminous, sparkling, frosted finish. It’s quite a hefty amount of shimmer — a bling-bling kind of glow, if you will — so this isn’t necessarily the best alternative for those seeking a subtle, understated shimmer. If you want a head-to-toe sparkle, as if you were basking in twinkling fairy light, you’ll appreciate this body luminizer. But here’s my main gripe with the Pacifica Luminizing Body Butter: it transfers onto everything and anything. Every time I applied the shimmering body butter, its pearl particles wound up on my clothing, on my handbag (including a black leather Treesje purse that I will now spend an eternity cleaning), and on the pages of a book I was reading. The pearl bits wound up being as insolent and cantankerous as the sand granules you carry home after a day at the beach.
On the upside, the body butter hydrates and softens skins thanks to ingredients like: antioxidant-packed, fatty-acid rich argan oil, which replenishes, softens, and protects skin; tamanu oil, which is often used to combat acne and can also heal scars, burns, and inflammations; sea algae, which detoxifies and has a skin-tightening effect; softening shea butter; moisturizing coconut oil, which features a high concentration of saturated fatty acids (chief among them lauric acid which, when converted into monolauric acid, helps to fight infection and bacteria), polyphenols that protect the skin from free radicals, and linoleic acid and oleic acid, which boast anti-inflammatory and moisture-retention benefits; sweet almond oil, which has emollient and brightening properties; and pineapple extract, which is rife with alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) that, when applied to the top layer of the epidermis (known as the corneal layer), exfoliate dead skin cells and reveal a new fresh layer of skin.
If this body butter came in a non-shimmering variety, I’d be positively smitten with it, but the messiness of the pearl particles prevents me from fully committing to this skin illuminating lotion.
