Amber: You Learn Something New Every Day
So I want to tell you about this great amber-scented loofah soap from Sabon NYC that I’ve been using this past week. I chose this particular fragrance after Blogdorf Goodman asked me if I had any amber-scented recommendations for her, and I came up with nada. Well now I have one!
It’s a glycerine soap, which I’m not normally keen on, but really worked for me in this instance. I’ve also never used a loofah soap, but I like the idea of hiding things in your soap - like finding a prize in your cereal box.
This is great for exfoliating and smoothing your feet as you wash. But other than your feet, I don’t recommend rubbing the bar directly on your body. I found it too rough and abrasive…that is, unless you have some serious alligator skin. Still, I loved the scent and am now a big fan.
Which brings me to my fun fact of the day. I started wondering, “where does the scent of amber come from?” When I think of amber, I think of Jurassic Park with the rocks and the mosquitoes (you know what I’m talking about), but I couldn’t figure out how they could possibly eke any oil/fragrance out of that.
So then I asked my friends at Makeup Alley and was led to this website:
The first and original amber oil was from ambergris. Ambergris is the waxy substance that was found floating on the ocean or washed up on the shore in ancient times. It can be refined into a oil with a strong, but pleasant aroma. In ancient times, no one knew the source of this mysterious substance, and yet it was highly valued. Ambergris became a mythic substance. Later, it was determined that ambergris (meaning gray amber) came from the sperm whale. Today, it is thought that the sperm whale regurgitates the ambergris after eating squid (or cuttlefish, one of its favorite foods). This occurs because the squid bones irritates the stomach lining of the whale; the ambergris being produced as a counter-irritant.
Yummy, huh? The good news is that amber oils are not commonly created from ambergris anymore since the sperm whale is now an endangered species. Still, after all of that investigation, I decided that there are times when ignorance truly is the better state of being.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
for some reason i remember ambergris as being found in the brain of a sperm whale. that might be totally inaccurate. i was kinda into whales and whaling when i was younger because all children who live in long island learn about that.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Hahaha…that reminds me of growing up in Pennsylvania where all children learn about mushroom farming because apparently that’s one of the largest industries in the state.
November 8th, 2006 at 7:58 am
[…] If you’re in the dark, Sabon NYC is a fantastic bath and body line, and this has got to be the ultimate in foot pampering. Their ultimate foot spa set comes with a tingling foot cream for soothing and relaxing, and a body butter bar for moisturizing. It also contains their amber loofah soap which I’ve tried and reviewed here. Retails for $37 at Sabonnyc.com. […]