Caudalie Vinotherapie Vine Body Butter — It’ll Butter Your Biscuit!

Winter isn’t leaving without a fight — if anything, it’s making a rather dramatic exit, kicking and screaming via final snowfall spats and frozen rain tantrums. In addition to more weeks of trudging through icy sidewalks in unflattering shoes and avoiding being stabbed in the eye by other people’s umbrellas, the extended winter weather conditions mean more of a beating for already dehydrated, flaky, itchy, parched skin. And, while aTahiti spa vacation may not be a viable option at the moment, you can always recreate the massage portion of a luxury treatment by smoothing on some Caudalie Vinothérapie Vine Body Butter all over your body.

Now, before applying to skin, do remember that this is a body butter and therefore, by design, its consistency is noticeably thicker than most traditional lotions. Even squeezing it out of its silver-colored tube will require some effort (think of it as squeezing a stress ball, and you’ll get an idea of the amount of pressure you need to apply). The cream itself has a consistency similar to whipped apple butter, but it melts onto the skin faster than Parkay on hot toast.

The Vinothérapie Vine Body Butter gets its rich consistency from moisturizing shea butter, while grape seed oil delivers anti-aging benefits, stimulating collagen production, fighting free radicals, and firming skin thanks to its high concentration of vitamin E, polyphenols and linoleic acid. Most importantly, the balm was formulated with Caudalie’s proprietary Vinolevure technology, which holds 100 times its weight in water, helping the skin retain moisture. A botanical-based hydra-complex, meanwhile, infuses the skin with moisture.

When you first massage it onto your skin, it will feel slightly greasy, but just be patient. Though it will take a few minutes for the moisturizer to be fully absorbed, once the skin is free of any balmy residue, it feels replenished and velvet soft.

Caudalie Vine Body Butter, $28. Available at Caudalie.com