Does H2O Plus Bath Aquatics Escape Collection Equal the Ocean in a Box?

Do you sea? Over there on the counter? The new H2O Plus Bath Aquatics Escape Collection looks like the ocean in a box. The $22.50 gift/travel set comes with four 4-oz. bottles of bodacious sea-derived body care.

What do you get, besides a good-looking present?

• Shower & Bath Gel
• Body Buffer
• Moisturizing Body Balm
• Hand & Nail Cream

BIG bottles — well, big for a gift set. As a matter of fact, the bottles are a little too big to bring in your carry-on (the TSA limit’s 3.4 oz.), but that’s both a blessing and a curse. At least you get more for your ducats.

All four have the same fresh scent, a mix of watery notes, baby powder and lemon. I like it. H2O calls it Natural Spring…

I wonder if it’s located near the Irish Spring, haha!

Right at the top of the box are the words, “sea-derived skincare,” and each of them contains cool things like watercress, Iceland moss, algae and seaweed.

My favorite of the four, the Body Buffer, gently exfoliates and cleans at the same time with grains that foam up into a lather in the shower. I use about the size of a silver dollar to cover my whole body.

The hand cream absorbs quickly and doesn’t leave a greasy film. It’s my second favorite of the four, and like the buffer, a little goes a long way.

The other two products, the shower gel and body lotion, aren’t bad at all, but I wouldn’t recommend the set just based on them.

The gel could stand to be a lot thicker. It’s so thin and runny that too much ends up going down the drain. Coupled with the screw cap, it’s not the most efficient product known to woman kind. A flip cap sure would help.

PRICE: $22.50; four 4-oz. bottles
AVAILABILITY: H2O Plus stores and online
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: B

My biggest quibble? I sea by looking at the ingredients that very little of the sea actually made its way into these bottles. Well, water’s the top ingredient in each, but the coolest sounding compounds — the algae extract, nasturtium officinale (watercress) and cetraria islandica (Iceland moss) — are way down the lists below things that don’t sound as cool, like sodium laureth sulfate and benzophenone-4.

I’d be more enthusiastic about these if they were natural, but I think they’re still pretty good.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen