When Olivier Baussan founded L'Occitane in his native Provence back in 1976, he envisioned a socially responsible company that would work in tandem with the native farmers in each region from which botanical ingredients were derived, hence creating a model built on sustainability and solidarity. One of the best examples of this vision coming to fruition is L'Occitane's shea butter collection, which includes stellar body and hand creams made with shea butter produced by a community of women in Burkina Faso. To celebrate the brand's commitment to the women of Burkina Faso, every year a new L'Occitane Limited-Edition Shea Butter Collection is introduced, with products featuring new scents and packaged in colorful tubes and tins.
The packaging of the products in this year's Limited-Edition Shea Butter Collection, designed by Baussan himself, was inspired by the prints and patterns commonly seen on the bogolan fabrics mud-dyed by women in West Africa. Each tube or tin, then, features classic geometric patterns seen on these cotton cloths, along with some of the symbolic drawings and etchings that adorn them, which are commonly arranged in a maze-like form so as to ensnare any evil spirits within these labyrinths and thereby protect the from harming the person wearing the clothing. Unlike the brown, orange, and black shades commonly found in bogolan textiles, the patterns adorning the L'Occitane tubes feature vivacious color combinations: violet, pink, white, and yellow for the Desert Rose-scented products; orange, lime, forest green, and white for the Hibiscus Flower-scented offerings; and espresso brown, yellow, white, and kiwi green for the Cocoa Flower-scented varieties.
The collection, then, includes the delicious L'Occitane Limited Edition Shea Ultra Rich Body Cream ($21 at usa.loccitane.com), an ultra rich moisturizer that's easily absorbed by the skin, leaving it feeling soft and supple. Initially, it feels balmy and greasy, but the initial glistening appearance of the skin quickly ebbs as the all-natural cream penetrates the skin, improving its texture an even improving the appearance of chapped, chafed, and eczema-prone skin. Shea butter accounts for a quarter of the body cream's ingredients, and it's accompanied by such additional emollient, rejuvenating, smoothing botanical ingredients as cocoa butter, apricot kernel oil, wheat germ oil, sweet almond oil, sunflower seed oil, and rosemary oil.
And, of course, the collection also includes the L'Occitane Limited Edition Shea Hand Cream ($10 at usa.loccitane.com), the brand's top-selling offering, which boasts a 20% shea concentration. Last, the collection includes the new L'Occitane Limited Edition Shea Lip Balm ($12 at USA.Loccitane.com), made with 10% shea butter and incorporating sunflower seed oil, which quickly penetrates the skin, moisturizing your pout and protecting its delicate skin from harmful free radicals thanks to its high vitamin E content.
The three new scents introduced this year are: Desert Rose, which incorporates a small, muddy rose aroma derived from Moroccan rose extract; Hibiscus Flower, which incorporates hibiscus flower extract and has zesty, vivacious, orange-y notes that give it a citrus-y perkiness; and Cocoa Flower, which features cocoa flower harvested in the Ivory Coast and smells like powdery and inviting with a soft trace of cacao as opposed to heavy cumbersome scent.
A large part of this atonement needs to be an acceptance that you can’t carve your place in the sun without taking some risks.