Izia Moisturizing Perfumed Body Lotion 150ml

Sisley Izia Moisturizing Perfumed Body Lotion 150ml is skincare that happens to be scented, and it deserves judging on both counts rather than one.

The scent is the Izia one, a rose built outward rather than upward. Bergamot and pink pepper open it with a bright, slightly fizzing lift. Rose is the centre, handled green and dewy instead of jammy, with peony and lily of the valley around it adding that cool, watery, just cut quality, and jasmine giving the arrangement a creamier weight. Angelica is the quiet surprise: a root material, herbal and a little earthy with a bitterness of its own, and it is what stops the flowers reading as a conventional bouquet. Cedarwood and musk close it, dry and soft, which on a lotion matters more than it sounds.

On skin a lotion behaves nothing like a spray. The scent sits in the surface of the lotion instead of lifting off it, so what you get is a close, low level halo for an hour or two rather than a trail. That is the point of the format, not a shortcoming of it. It is for after a bath or a shower, on arms, shoulders and legs, and it leaves a soft finish without any film. 150ml goes a long way if you treat it as a scented moisturiser rather than a heavy balm.

It also makes a sensible companion to the Izia fragrance itself, laying the same flowers down on the skin first so the scent has something to hold on to. Worn on its own it is gentle enough for an office, or for a day when a full fragrance would simply be too much.

Sisley is an independent French company, founded by Hubert and Isabelle d'Ornano and still run by the family, working across skincare, make up and perfume. Hubert d'Ornano came out of perfumery: he and Michel d'Ornano set up Jean d'Albret in 1946. The business is known above all for plant based skincare, and it has been making fragrance since 1977.