There's nothing worse than chemicals masquerading as ice cream
Written: Feb 12 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Scent disappears when you step out of the shower. OK body wash.
Cons: Bright pink color, chemical scent, not a good hair conditioner, $1.00 an ounce.
The Bottom Line: Another miss in the hit and miss Philosophy bath, body, and skin care collection. Other scents smell so much more natural.
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| PattyTherre's Full Review: Philosophy Strawberry Ice Cream |
I am not a Philosophy fanatic but some of their products are quite good and I even joined their rewards program and will be getting a shipment of “Make up Optional” products sent to me any day now.
Still, I just don’t get the hype behind their 3-in-1 bath products. I suppose that is because the first one I ever tried, Strawberry Ice Cream , not only wasn’t a good 3-in-1 product, but had a scent reminiscent of the cheapest strawberry candy you can find. You know, the stuff that calls itself strawberry and is pink but smells more like chemicals and something only vaguely like strawberries.
The Official Word
This is from Philosophy’s website:
ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! leave it to philosophy to create the ultimate, 100% calorie-free, sweet treat for your shower! strawberry ice cream is just one of our cool new neapolitan scented shower gels - guaranteed to infuse your shower with the refreshing scent of strawberry ice cream. this ultra-rich, intensely creamy 3-in-1 shampoo, body wash, and bubble bath is as yummy and delectable as a drippy strawberry ice cream cone on a hot summer day. be sure to check out our dreamy vanilla and chocolate ice cream flavors too!
The Packaging
This product comes in a clear 16-ounce bottle with a black cap. On the bottle is a recipe for strawberry ice cream that sounds delicious. Too bad their recipe for this shampoo, conditioner, and body wash isn’t quite so appealing. There is a flip top so you can squeeze the pearly pink product out in a stream.
The recipe, should anyone want to know it, on the bottle is: 1 pint milk, 1/2 tsp. of salt, 1/2 c. sugar, strawberries, 2 level tablespoons of cornstarch, 1 1/2 c. sugar, 1 pint of cream. sift together sugar, cornstarch, and salt. cook in milk, scalded over hot water; stir constantly until mixture thickens. cover and let cook fifteen minutes. mix berries with the sugar and let stand an hour. press through a sieve. strain the cornstarch mixture and when cold add cream, begin to freeze. when half frozen add berry mixture and finish freezing.
My Experience
I received Strawberry Ice Cream as a free gift when buying other items online. This was way before I jumped on the Philosophy bandwagon (and I am only still half onboard) and had no idea why anyone would want to wash and condition their hair and wash their body with one product. (I still don’t!)
Philosophy tells us we need this product if we are multitaskers, love fun, delicious smells that won’t linger after our baths or showers, and we want to indulge in strawberry ice cream without the calories.
Well I am a multitasker and love great smelling body washes and shampoos. The ice cream part, not so much, but I love good, realistic strawberry scents.
The body wash is pearly bright pink, reminiscent of the really cheap ice cream my parents used to buy when I was a kid. It was always super bright unrealistic pink to make up for its lack of any real strawberry flavoring.
The consistency is semi thick and it lathers fairly well. I used it on a pouf and it did lather quickly and easily. The scent, though, didn’t smell like strawberry ice cream. It had a scent sort of like strawberry but it was much more of a chemical type strawberry scent than a fresh, ripe strawberry scent. I didn’t like it at all. Yeck.
As a shampoo and conditioner, it failed me. I have long straight hair and I always use separate shampoos and conditioners to keep flyaways and dry ends at bay. The shampoo part of this product may be OK but the conditioner did nothing to help the manageability of my hair or to add sheen. My hair was limp and staticy after I used this product.
Indeed, the scent did almost immediately wear off once I stepped out of the shower. I kind of like my body washes to stick around and leave me smelling faintly sweet after I step out of the tub but, in this case, I was relieved the scent took off so quickly.
My skin felt OK after I used the body wash. I still needed a body butter or moisturizer after but that’s fine with me. I love to slather one of my many butters or creams on my body after a shower and, to its credit, Philosophy’s Strawberry Ice Cream didn’t interfere with my Mango or Lime Verbana body butters and creams.
I used this product twice and then I just couldn’t stomach it. I left it on the sink for a while hoping my kids would use it as a hand wash but no go. My younger son said it smelled like “that gross strawberry powder you put into milk” and by God, he’s right. It smells like dollar store strawberry milk powder. Ick.
I eventually sold it on eBay with a bunch of other bath products I only used once or twice to someone who must appreciate the product in a way I did not.
Ingredients
water (aqua), tea lauryl sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, glycol stearate, sodium chloride, tea-peg-3 cocamide sulfate, disodium laureth sulfosuccinate, glycerin, peg-150 distearate, tocopheryl acetate, polyquaternium-7, fragrance, citric acid, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, red 33.
Buying Info
You can buy this - and a host of other 3-in-1 Philosophy bath products on the Philosophy website or on a number of beauty and drugstore sites. It’s always $16.00 for 16 ounces. I have never seen anything of Philosophy’s products go “on sale” but they do sometimes have gifts with purchase and other promotions. I believe QVC also sells this product. Philosophy products are sold at better department and beauty stores offline as well. I have seen an eight-ounce size of this product selling on eBay so I believe smaller sizes are available for roughly the same cost per ounce.
Conclusion
I am clearly not impressed with Philosophy Strawberry Ice Cream . They have another strawberry scent called Strawberry Milkshake which seems very similar to this one but perhaps smells less concocted in a lab and more in a kitchen.
As a body wash, Strawberry Ice Cream is OK. It lathers, cleanses, and rinses off well. The scent is almost immediately gone so it doesn’t interfere with other body products or perfumes. As a shampoo, it’s average at best and it’s a terrible hair conditioner.
I wouldn’t buy this and am glad I got it free. However, I recently had a chance to sample two other Philosophy 3-in-1 products - Red delicious and Sugar Plum - and wow, what a difference! Red Delicious smells exactly like sweet, gorgeous apples. I believe that I simply got a dud in this line and the many other scents are probably much better.
Still, I prefer separate body washes, shampoos, and conditioners and won’t be investing $1.00 an ounce for any of Philosophy’s 3-in-1 products - except the Grace and Falling in Love lines for layering and the decadence of basking in scents I really, really love and wear as body lotion, soufflés, and cologne.
I can’t give this product any more than 3 stars. It’s average in every way and below average in some ways. It doesn’t smell fresh and natural. It smells like a chemical concoction that is supposed to smell like strawberries. It is expensive but a little does go a long way. It’s a decent body wash but I wouldn’t use it as a shampoo or conditioner. In all, if I hadn’t gotten this as a free gift, I would have returned it or been very angry to have spent $16.00 on what I perceive to be false promises from the scent to how it performs.
Recommended:
No
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