I love the smell of cucumber in the morning. Actually, I rarely take showers in the morning, so the fresh cucumber scent Pattern Body Wash is one I've come to love early evening-ish, post-jog.

Proudly vegan with no parabens or other petrochemicals, Pattern lathers up easily and leaves you feeling clean and cool as, you know, a cucumber -- unless you got the black pepper, citrus, or eucalyptus version, in which case you'll feel a different scent of clean and cool.

These scents are, however, listed as "fragrance" in the ingredients list -- a nebulous term that could contain all sorts of weird stuff. Pattern does note that their fragrances are "naturally derived" -- and Pattern's evident enviro-commitment makes me liable to think they don't contain anything crazily bad. However, many eco-companies with naturally-derived fragrance actually name the ingredients that make up that fragrance. For example, my usual soap -- Dr. Bronner's Lemon Organic Bar Soap -- has a fresh lemony scent derived from good old organic lemon oil.

My soap also ranks a "low risk" 1 (out of 10, 10 being the most dangerous) on Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep cosmetic database. Pattern isn't in the database yet, but I looked up the ingredients -- to find that six of them are in the "medium risk" range: peg-150 distrearat and disodium EDTA have 3s,
tocopheryl acetate and
phenoxyethanol have 4s, and cocamidopropyl betaine and peg-40 castor oil have 5s.

Now that's not so bad a record. After all, Avalon Organics soaps and body washes have scores ranging between 3 to 6; I use Avalon's facial cleansing gel, which scores a 4. Still, even for body wash lovers who shun bar soap, both Aubrey Organics and California Baby offer a number of shower gels in the "low risk" range. Erin of Make Her Up says her whole fam loves California Baby bubble bath. Mie of Kokochi has photographic proof that her kid loves the bubbles California Baby makes -- as does Magi at Kaffee Katsch

Of course, Pattern's scent or feel could be generally superior or more likable to shower takers. Megan of A Girl Must Shop!, Henna of Canadian Beauty, Beauty and Fashion Tech, and Specialkalle of Face Candy all have declared they love Pattern -- without doing the anal comparative analysis I'm trying to do.

Unfortunately, while I can pop into Whole Foods or Co-opportunity to pick up those two, Pattern's only available online -- at $20 per 8.1 fl. oz. bottle. While Pattern works great, smells delish, and is more eco-friendly than most body washes out there, I'm just unlikely to order personal care products over the 'net when I have Whole Foods and Co-opportunity in walking distance with products that are just as eco-friendly. How about you? Have you ever ordered lotion or body wash online?
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BlogHer Contributing Editor Siel also blogs for the Los Angeles Times at Emerald City, and at greenLAgirl.com.