Let's get one thing straight: we love candy canes, Christmas cookies, and sweet pies of all varieties. But we definitely don't want to smell like them. Yet for some reason, it becomes ubiquitous this time of year to gift each other bath and body products in scents so cloying, saccharine, and nauseating—you'll never actually use them. So when I came across Rituals' new holiday collection, called Ritual of Light, I sniffed each product with the utmost hesitation. You never really know what kind of candy-filled bombardment awaits your nose. But what I discovered was a warm, delicious, and chic scent that evokes a festive feeling without hitting you over the head with caramelized pinecones. You'd be surprised at how hard that is to find.

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The Ritual of Light scent is warm and spicy with splashes of sweetness. It smells exactly like a fresh orange pricked by dozens of cinnamon sticks, which was a staple in my Florida home around this time of year. I'm partial to the Shower Foam and Body Scrub, although there is also a candle, body cream, bubble bath, and diffuser in the limited edition line. The foam comes in an aerosol canister and shoots out with such impressive force, you might hit the other wall of your shower the first time you use it. It's truly foamy—which is why I use it as shaving cream more often than body wash (can we also talk about how terrible all women's shaving creams smell? Truly upsetting). The Body Scrub uses sugar as its main exfoliator, but it's also spiked with skin-softening oils like avocado, sweet almond, safflower seed, cinnamon, and sweet orange. The scent lingers for both, but not long enough to compete with your perfume.

The brown-and-gold packaging is also a nice touch. It feels gift-worthy but isn't tailored to one holiday in particular. And it will look just as chic in your shower caddy come February. So if you're looking for a collection of luxe bath products to gift this year—you'll need to buy at least two of everything mentioned here. Because after taking a sniff, you're going to want to keep them all for yourself.

Rituals The Ritual of Light Shower Foam and Body Scrub, $15 and $29 respectively, US.Rituals.Com.

Headshot of Jenna Rosenstein
Jenna Rosenstein
Beauty Director
Jenna Rosenstein is the Beauty Director at BAZAAR.com. While attending NYU, she held internships at Women’s Wear Daily, Bloomingdale’s, Harper’s BAZAAR (as Glenda’s intern!) and Allure, the latter of which she parlayed into her first job as the Beauty Assistant. She left Allure three years later as the Senior Beauty Editor, spent a few months at Refinery29 in the same title overseeing branded content, before finally landing back at BAZAAR to oversee all digital beauty content. When she's not testing every lipstick known to mankind, getting zapped by new lasers, or interviewing experts and celebrities, you can find Rosenstein re-watching Star Wars movies, reading books about new discoveries in science and health, and playing with her Bombay cat named Maddie.