Adventures at the mall: Origins vs Aveda

Last Friday I grabbed two of my friends and headed to the mall. First we started with a cocktail, appetizers and dinner so we could catch up with each other and visit. It was a night out that we all needed so I am happy we were able to make it happen. I was also excited that they were interested in trying out two department store lines that were recommended to me. I was an Origins user before I started with Sensaria so I was pretty familiar with it but it has been 7 years since I looked at it. Aveda was another line that people raved about over the years and my friend's SIL is a huge fan and wanted her to check it out.

We hit the Aveda store first because my friend had already checked it out (due to her SIL recommendation) and we all wanted to see what the fuss was about. We started out in the hair care section and found a Rosemary Mint Shampoo. We miss the shampoos Sensaria had to offer and we really liked the scent of the Aveda one. It was definitely more minty than the Sensaria one which we liked. Next we hit the essential oil section and it was definitely a bit strong for us so we didn't linger long. They did have a really yummy tea that we sampled! Next up was some of their body care products and I really liked their Caribbean Therapy Body Scrub. It was very much like Sensaria's Sweet & Smooth as it is a sugar and salt scrub and you have to stir it up before using it. It didn't smell as wonderful as the Sweet & Smooth but it was a pleasant, soft, tropical smell that I liked. Again, they had a nice minty Rosemary Mint Body/Hand Wash but we were disappointed how much it cost. I am not sure I would pay $16 for just 8.5 oz of body wash? I guess I am just spoiled! Finally, we headed over to the skin care section and started playing around with that. It was nice to see familiar lines like "Sensitive", "Acne", "Anti-aging", etc. It was a bit confusing because there were quite a few lines that seemed to overlap each other. The products felt nice but there was definitely a strong essential oil scent to most of their skin care products. It wasn't a smell that appealed to us.

After the Aveda store we headed over to the Origins store which was right around the corner. The gal there was very perky and helpful. Maybe a bit too helpful? We headed right over to the skin care items and looking over the lines I remembered all the different products I used way back when. There were of course some new anti-aging things too. We were all much more excited about the smells of these products and they also felt really nice too. Our favorite cleanser was Checks and Balances and my friend almost bought one but took home a sample instead. I really have to get her to try Beauty Society! We did a price check and the Origins line is a little more expensive ($3.90/oz) than Beauty Society ($3.69/oz) and plus you can't get Origins on sale or earn it for free for having a party. ;) After the skin care we checked out the body care items. We really liked the apricot smell of the A Perfect World line but didn't like their prices. The shampoo line was yummy smelling too but again the prices seemed high.

Bottom line? We liked a lot of products in both lines but I think our preference was Origins in how things smelled and the skin care line was more reasonable than Aveda.