Philosophy I Love Jam and Italian Soda Bar

Philosophy's shower gel gift sets never fail to tempt me with their delightful array of scents. Recently, I purchased I Love Jam and Italian Soda Bar from Nordstrom.com. Each set contains three shower gels (180ml/6 fl oz each) that can also be used as shampoo and bubble bath. I vastly prefer these sets of three, instead of purchasing the larger individual sizes, as you get to try out more scents without getting bored quickly. Each bottle lasts just over 2 weeks for me. They lather up easily and leave a subtle scent on the skin.

I Love Jam is exclusive to Nordstrom while Italian Soda Bar can be found on several US websites including Philosophy.com (which ships internationally for a flat rate of US$40) and Beauty.com (which accepts non-US credit cards). The two sets retail for US$25 each. Beauty.com is currently offering a Summer Sun gift with US$50 purchase while Nordstrom has a skincare gift set with US$35 purchase.

The shower gels in I Love Jam are Sweet Orange Honey, Apple Butter Jam and Mixed Berry Jam. Mixed Berry Jam is a syrupy sweet strawberry scent while Sweet Orange Honey is a soothing orange scent, that reminded me of Fanta orange soda. Apple Butter Jam is like a delicious apple pie, all lusciously warm and sweet.

Each bottle is printed with a jam recipe, pretty useful if you have a culinary bent.

The Italian Soda Bar shower gels are lighter in comparison, to evoke fizzy cool sodas on a hot summer day. Limoncello Italian Soda is a bubbly citrus scent, while Strawberry Italian Soda is sweeter but with the same effervescent soda note. Black Cherry Italian Soda turned out to be too cloying for my liking, like a thick cherry syrup. The bottles are printed with soda recipes.

Philosophy shower gels are now available at Sephora stores in Singapore but I'm not sure if these two sets are available. My Nordstrom order was shipped to my MyUS.com address in Florida, and forwarded by DHL to me in Switzerland. After signing up for a MyUS.com account, shopping at websites like Nordstrom, Beauty.com, Drugstore.com, Beautyhabit.com and Sephora on Amazon.com has become much easier for me as MyUS.com helps to consolidate the packages. The membership fee is not cheap but it's not exorbitant if you are a regular shopper. If you order primarily small, lightweight beauty products, the DHL shipping cost per item works out to a few dollars, which is alright for me as these are brands that are otherwise not easily available to me. The DHL service is also amazingly fast with up-to-date tracking. It took just two days for the package to arrive from the US, although customs clearance added on a couple more days. VPost by Singapore Post is cheaper in comparison but that's not an option for me.