Making love massage oil - oil discontinued by Beyond All Expectations - review by Carrie Ann

I'm going to put it out there right off the bat: Making Love flavored massage oil is not a good massage oil. It is, however, an amazing bath and body oil.

Let me explain.

It's a very, very dry oil. This means you can dump about a pea sized dollop on the back of your hand, rub it in and it absorbs within 30 seconds to a minute. I'm not exaggerating. It completely absorbs. The skin feels velvety smooth and soft but not the least bit oily. Within a minute there is no reduction of friction between the fingers rubbing it in and the skin you're rubbing it in to.

This, obviously, means massages need to be completed within a minute or two and that isn't very fun at all. We gave it a good try, twice, and both times ended up growling in disgust and grabbing a different oil to finish the massage.

However, this also means that this oil works phenomenally to moisturize your skin, especially fresh out of the bath or shower, without leaving you feeling greasy or coated. It sinks in and leaves you soft and supple and smelling divine.

So it's a failure as a massage oil but my new favorite body oil. I can use this while sitting at my computer, slather up my dry hands and elbows, and a minute later I'm not leaving my laptop keys all oily and grody. I can also enjoy the scent wafting from my hands for a good half hour to an hour, which is very calming and relaxing.

This massage oil is both scented and flavored - though, quite honestly, I don't taste anything at all when I lick it. It's not nasty or perfume-y on the tongue but it's not sweet or yummy, either. The scent is vanilla and it is a very pure vanilla scent. I can almost not tell the difference between smelling this and smelling the bag of fresh vanilla beans I keep in the kitchen. It's luscious and sensual and one of the best scents for combating stress and anxiety. It's comforting and, while it may not turn people into ravaging beasts of desire, it produces a feeling of contented relaxation that is great for a slow seduction and leisurely love making.

My advice? Use it after a bath or shower and go to bed smelling and feeling wonderful but don't bother trying to use it for massage. Enjoy it for its good points and ignore its bad.

The oil comes in a 8 oz bottle with a click top lid. It doesn't leak but oil does tend to run down the side of the bottle and leave it a little greasy to the touch. The oil is thin and golden in color and contains a mixture of natural oils like safflower, coconut, avocado and apricot kernel as well as vitamin e, saccharin, vegetable oil and some relatively harmless cosmetic chemicals, natural and artificial flavors.

The dryness of the oil reminds me a lot of tea tree oil, if you've ever used that. It feels oily on the skin for just a very brief time but instantly dries, soaks in and is gone. This is probably not a great oil for those with very dry skin but will work great if you tend to have oily skin, as it will not add a lot of greasy coating.

I actually like it quite a bit.

Not for massage, mind you, but it's an excellent skin oil and even works well added to your bath water for a soft, silkening bath.

I was fairly happy with this when I first received it and rated it as an average massage oil. Unfortunately it has changed quite a bit in scent since then and had to be tossed as it smelled almost rancid.

Not a good thing -- though likely not a problem if you use it quickly and don't have it hanging around for a year or more.