La Bomba Shiny Body Oil 150ml

Carolina Herrera La Bomba Shiny Body Oil 150ml is a skincare product first and a scented one second, meant to go on damp skin after a bath or a shower rather than to be sprayed like a perfume.

What it smells of is fruit and flowers in roughly equal measure. Pineapple leads, sharp and juicy with that slightly green bite the fruit has at the stem, and yellow mandarin sits beside it, sweeter and rounder. The middle is generous: frangipani thick and creamy, red peony fresh and petal like, orange blossom clean and faintly sweet in character, and jasmine sweet and heady over the lot. Underneath, vanilla and tonka bean give a soft warmth and patchouli adds a dark, earthy edge that keeps the sweetness in check.

On skin an oil behaves differently from a spray. The scent stays where you put it, close and warm rather than reaching across a room, and it fades gradually over a few hours instead of marking out stages. If you already wear the fragrance of the same name, this is the quiet way to carry it; if you do not, it works perfectly well on its own.

The 150ml bottle is a reasonable size for regular use, and oils of this kind go further than lotions do, so a little across the arms and shoulders is enough. Nine materials in all, which is a full composition for a body product rather than a token perfuming. It suits warm weather and bare skin in particular, and the finish on the skin is the point as much as the scent is.

Carolina Herrera began as a fashion designer in New York, showing a first collection in 1981. Fragrances and related products carrying the name have been made on licence by Puig of Spain since 1988.