Random Product Review! Lovely Nothing: Villainess Ennui Whipped!

Purchased

Villainess Whipped! body creme is a body butter with a lovely formulation that comes in a fantastic variety of scents, but the one I'm going to discuss today is even more boring than plain vanilla. Ennui is Whipped! in its unscented form, described as "lovely nothing."

Here's the description of Ennui Whipped! from Villainess's site:

VELVETY BODY CREME
Whipped! body creme is thick and stiff, yet light and quite soluble - much like edible whipped heavy cream. We've used a combination of three vegetable derived emulsifiers to create a very stable, conditioning emulsion. Mango butter (so light, not greasy and very decadent), Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (which sinks in like a dream), Grapeseed Oil (nutrient rich and again, so light), and Cherry Kernel Oil (also light and loaded with Vitamins A & E). A touch of silicones to ensure it leaves a soft, silky touch to your skin, and Optiphen - a brilliant paraben-free preservative that isn't a formaldehyde donor either. Whipped! has a heavy moisture content for your dry skin, enough oils to create a breathable emollient barrier, and has a velvety-soft afterfeel. You'll love it.

Whipped! has a 12-month shelf life when stored out of direct light and kept cool. We recommend using Whipped! completely within two months of your first use, and always using clean hands to prolong your creme's lifespan.

FULL NAME: Ennui Whipped!
WEIGHT: 6oz (170g)
COLOUR: Stark white.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Extra-decadent cherry kernel oil, antioxidant rich grapeseed oil, light coconut oil, and our favourite luxury mango butter.
CHARACTERISTIC SCENT: Lovely nothing. (Unscented)
WANTED FOR: Moisture restoration, gentle emollience, and velvety texturising.
INGREDIENTS: Aqua (Water), Mangifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Cetearyl Alcohol (and) Polysorbate 60, Cyclomethicone (and) Dimethiconol, Prunus (Cherry) Kernel Oil, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Behentrimonium Methosulfate (and) Cetearyl Alcohol, Stearic Acid, Glycerin, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein (and) Hydrolyzed Wheat Starch, Phenoxyethanol (and) Caprylyl Glycol

My thoughts:
Whipped! sells for $11 for 6 oz. (For price reference, I compared this to Bath and Body Works body butter, which normally sells for $20 for 7 oz, but is usually on sale, and as of now is on sale for $12 for 7 oz on their website. Whether Whipped! is a good deal compared to B&BW depends on whether you'd rather compare to the normal price or the nearly omnipresent sale prices.)

Although the description touts it as having the texture of whipped cream, I find it to be more like a normal body butter, like the ones from Bath and Body Works. It is thick and slippery, pleasingly silky and dense--I'm not actually a big fan of airy, whipped-style lotions.

lookin' disgusting. Sorry, I couldn't think of a nicer way to present a creamy white product glob.

After scooping out a bit of Whipped! from the jar: this may give you a better idea of the texture

I normally like scented products, but when I got more interested in perfumes, I realized that I would like to have a nice, luxurious hand cream whose scent wouldn't fight with whatever perfume I was wearing. I also can't deal with hand creams whose scent is too strong--I have a sad, unfinished, expensive tube of L'Occitane hand cream lying around that was just too perfumey for me. I think the issue is that my appetite for hand moisture is greater than my tolerance for scent: I like to slather on lotion but I can't use that much scented product at once.

Enter Villainess's Whipped! in Ennui, the unscented variety. I previously had a jar of this same lotion in the scent Dulces en Fuego, a spicy, chocolatey scent, and liked the formula but like with many products gone before it, found the scent to be too much for me. So I bought the jar of Ennui and have been enjoying its versatility ever since.

Ingredients are printed on the label

Whipped! is rich and moisturizing, but the oil-heavy formula does mean it takes a few minutes to sink into the skin. I can feel it on my hands for quite some time afterwards. It's not greasy or sticky, but you can definitely feel it. If you don't like heavy lotions and creams, this may bother you, but I personally don't like putting on lotion and feeling like it's gone five minutes later, so I like the fact that it lingers.

Coconut oil and mango seed butter are high on the ingredients list, and this contains other good moisturizing ingredients (emollients and humectants) like cherry oil, grapeseed oil, and glycerin, so if you're not sensitive to any of the ingredients, it's good stuff. I know many people find coconut oil, silicones, and cetearyl alcohol comedogenic, so I could see the ingredients list being a problem for some. (I don't use this on my face, but I do touch my face after applying lotions, and I assume other people are similarly unable to quarantine their hand lotions.)

boring

So why is this jar still so full, if I like this cream so much? The main problem: I don't like the jar packaging. This has languished compared to my other favorite hand lotion, JR Watkins Lemon Shea Butter Hand Cream, which comes in a flip-top squeeze tube, mainly because of the convenience factor. Aside from the annoyance of having to unscrew a lid every time you want to use some lotion, jars are less hygienic, and allow any active ingredients (of which this has none) to degrade due to exposure to air. Cue shrieking violins from the Paula's Choice Beautypedia editorial team... Yes, I know I could use a tiny spatula to dispense this, or decant it into a new container, but come on, ain't nobody got time for that.

Honestly, I feel a little guilty writing this review that I've neglected this jar of Whipped! --writing up my thoughts about it made me rediscover what a great product it is, despite the annoyance factor of the jar packaging!

What's your favorite indie hand or body cream? This is the nicest one I've tried, though I haven't really explored the world of indie lotions as much as I'd like, so I'm sure there are other amazing ones out there that I just don't know about.

I don't know about the vegan/cruelty-free status of this cream--see Villainess's eloquent manifesto regarding their thoughts on "natural" products, easy-to-pronounce ingredients, and animal testing.

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