Solid parfum - solid perfume discontinued by Not Soap Radio - review by Hot 'N Sexy TexasMama

Island Hopping is a delightful scent if you like fruity/fresh scents that are not heavy. It is designed to be used on your pulse points. The company states on the label that this is not designed to be used on your lips or eyes, which is a good thing to note since many lip balms and eye products are the same size as this container of parfum.

The company also states that this can be used as a hair pomade because it will ease frizzies and split ends.

This is a solid parfum which according to a Wikipedia article on solid perfumes is a cream that has as its base some sort of wax. With Island Hopping, the base is beeswax.

You can apply this by dipping your finger into the cream and putting it on your pulse points or by using a cotton swab or other item to pick up the cream and then apply it to your body. I prefer using my finger.

Historically, solid fragrances have been used since the Egyptian times.

When I think of citrus scents, the two commonly used fragrances that come to mind areJean Nate which to me has a very heavy citrus/lemon scent. This was a very popular scent in the 70's and 80's among many generations of women. The second fragrance that comes to mind is Love's Fresh Lemon. This was also popular in the 70's and is made by the same people who do Love's Baby Soft and Love's Rain and other light scents. This is a much lighter fragrance than the Jean Nate line and while Jean Nate had several items available in their line for layering,

Island Hopping reminds me of Love's Fresh Lemon because it has higher fresher notes of the citrus smell. Like Jean Nate, it has several items you can use for layering so that the scent stays with you all day long, and I will be sharing the links to them at the bottom of this review.

When I say a "light smell" and I open the parfum and smell it, let me explain it this way. It reminds me of going outside to take your freshly washed clothes off the clothesline - but you've used some sort of lemon scented detergent so you get the smell of the citrus and the fresh sunshine as you stick your nose in the clothes and smell the freshness.

The ingredients in this are: Macadamia Oil, Coconut Oil, Beeswax, Jojoba Oil, Fragrance, Mica.

For me, the high notes (which you smell upon first putting on the parfum) are very citrus smelling - almost lemon but quite. I could not tell for sure what the medium notes were but the base notes seemed to be more of a coconut smell with perhaps a hint of the macadamia.

You can read more about the various notes of perfumes at this wikipedia article.

Based upon this fragrance wheel chart, this product falls in the citrus/green/water category on the lower left of the wheel.

I found myself wanting to reapply the parfum every couple of hours because I had not layered the scent with the additional products that they carry. In my personal opinion, a parfum like this is best used with other products to layer because it will provide a somewhat long lasting scent but needs the layering effect to work effectively.

Fortunately, this is available in other products to layer the scent. The products are: Moisturizing Body Souffle, Dry Oil Perfume, Foaming Cleanser and Sugared Body Polish. The links to these products will be at the bottom of the review.

It is very important to point out that this is packaged in a TRAVEL SIZE container. It holds .51 ounces (15 grams) of parfum and you can go through airport security with it in your carry-on. It is great to for putting in a purse of any size but you need to be careful when you pull it out that you LOOK at it and do not mistake it for your lip balm or eye shadow if they are the same shape and size.

As I was doing research on perfumes and scents, I was surprised to find that most fruit fragrances that are berries have to be synthetic in order to smell good - but when it comes to the citrus scents, they are made from the RINDS of oranges, lemons and limes. Sometimes grapefruit rind will be used, however, they are using synthetic fragrances of the grapefruit rinds more and more now because the natural aromatic contains sulfur which degrades and alters the fragrance over time.

Unfortunately, fragrances used in products like this are considered "trade secret" so I can not tell you exactly which scents are used.

I had never heard of Not Soap Radio before so I went to their website and did some investigating. It turns out that they have been featured in many magazines among which are US Weekly, People, Woman's Day, Rachel Ray and even O Magazine. I share this because I was hesitant to buy several products in a new fragrance if there was a chance that the company was brand new and might not be around in a year or two. However, it appears like they will be around for a while, so if you find a fragrance you like, it will hopefully continue to be in production.

I also want to point out that this is a "green" product according to the company website and packaging. It is paraben and phthalate free and has never been tested on animals.