I Tried the New Choulie Body Oil Brand and It Turned Me Into a Patchouli Lover

Patchouli has had many eras. It’s been a marker of luxury circa the 19th century, a fixture of the hippie era, and, if you’d asked me before Choulie launched, a note best left in the past. But my sentiment, which is frankly shared by many, is exactly what inspired founder Alison Cayne to craft a line of fragranced body oils centered around the complexity of this often-disliked note. “I've always felt it deserved a better reputation,” she tells me. “It's been fashionable, unfashionable, dismissed, and rediscovered. It brings out the best in everything around it, often without getting much of the credit.”

With the launch of Choulie—the current collection is comprised of five distinct body oils— the founder seeks to bring about a patchouli renaissance. The brand uses the highest quality patchouli oil—not the synthetic, cheap oil that gave the note its less-than-stellar reputation—and treats it like a base note, not the star. “Fresh patchouli oil has an almost minty, camphor-like quality, but as it ages, the sharper edges soften, and it develops these earthy, woody, sometimes chocolatey facets. It's like this secret ingredient that makes everything around it more interesting, giving brighter notes depth and richer notes structure,” says Cayne. The result is a range of body oils that smell absolutely nothing like one another, or candidly, like my perception of patchouli at all.

Fragrance aside, the formulas themselves are a sensory treat (and this is coming from a body oil snob). They’re deeply hydrating, sink right into my skin, and leave me much calmer and more relaxed. I’ve started incorporating a head-to-toe oil into my evening routine, and it marks a transition from the chaos of the day to the relaxation I need to channel before bed. That was precisely the intention. “Fragrance can be a deeply emotional experience, and applying it with your hands gives you the opportunity to engage another sense. You're touching your own skin, feeling its warmth, noticing how the fragrance develops across your body. Now you’re not only experiencing the emotions of the fragrance, but you’re breathing more deeply, attending to yourself, taking a beat to give yourself something not just to make yourself smell good for others,” says Cayne.

What Do the Choulie Nourishing Body Oils Smell Like?

Patchouli is a love-it-or-hate-it note, and as someone who typically fell into the latter camp, I thought I would have a visceral reaction to these patchouli-centric scents. To my surprise, I couldn’t discern where the patchouli started and the other notes ended. As I played around with the collection, I realized that maybe I just had a misconception of patchouli altogether. There’s an underlying earthiness to every scent that feels warm and cozy, not abrasive or musty.

My personal favorite is Rooted, which has a skin scent appeal. It’s a blend of vetiver, rosewood, and labdanum. If I read these notes on paper, I'd think it would smell too floral or green for me. In practice, it's a delight. Rather than smelling like an escape into a forest, it has a spa-like quality to it that forces me to slow my breathing and calm my nervous system.

The remaining four scents are equally unexpected, which is why I’d recommend the discovery kit over a full-size bottle at first. As Cayne explains, “In Grove, patchouli gives the bright mandarin and green hinoki a warmer, more substantial base, so the freshness has somewhere to go. In Noble, it brings a darker, almost voluptuous quality to the powdery orris, geranium, and toasted chestnut, making the whole thing a little less ladylike and much more sensual. In Delphine, it gives the delicate florals some gravity and a hint of earthiness beneath all that light. And in Loam, it works alongside juniper, cedar, and oakmoss, adding a woody depth that makes the cool aromatic notes feel more complex and lasting."

How Do I Apply the Choulie Nourishing Body Oil?

There’s no prescriptive way to apply the body oil—I keep one on my desk that I use as a lotion replacement approximately 20 times a day and another in the bathroom that I use in a more ritualistic manner. The goal, though, is to leverage the application as a tool for relaxation and connection. “Today we think of perfume as something sprayed from a bottle, but that's relatively recent in the history of fragrance. For thousands of years, people scented their bodies with aromatic oils, unguents, and balms. Fragrance was warmed between the hands, massaged into skin, and woven into the rituals of bathing, grooming, and pleasure,” says Cayne.

I typically add this into my routine right before bed. It’s not a dry oil, so you’re almost forced to set aside a little time to massage it into your skin. I use roughly one pump for both my arms, and another for my legs. It takes me about three minutes to apply the product to my entire body. Then I slip into my pajamas (as long as you really take the time to massage it in, you won’t have to worry about oil transfer), make myself a cup of tea, and crawl into bed. The scent is subtle enough that it’s not all-consuming, but it’s present enough to lull me to sleep.

Is the Choulie Nourishing Body Oil Worth It?

The $185 price point isn’t cheap, but to be candid, that’s kind of the point. Instead of thinking of Choulie like a body care product, I view it like a fine fragrance—just one that comes in a novel dispensary. It’s not designed to be something you quickly slather on to prevent dryness or flaking—it’s a ritual and a sensory treat; just one that also happens to leave your skin baby soft.

My recommendation is to start out with the discovery set. Each of the travel-sized bottles lasts me at least two months—and you’ll have the opportunity to see which of the five scents speaks to your soul. I guarantee you’ll end up surprised by which one inevitably becomes your favorite. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I guess I’m a patchouli girl now.

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.

Meet the Expert

Alison Cayne

Choulie began with something I noticed as I got older: I was becoming more interested in the experience of living in my body. I lingered longer in a hot bath. I spent more time massaging oil into my neck and shoulders after a shower. I became more particular about fragrance, texture, the feeling of something against my skin. These small physical pleasures seemed to matter more than they once had.

Fragrance became part of that. I wanted scent on my body—something I put into my hands and smoothed into my skin. At the same time, so much of beauty seemed to be asking me to stand outside my body and assess it. What had changed. What could be corrected. What should be smoother, firmer, brighter, younger.

I wanted to make something that came from a different relationship to beauty. I knew what the product should be: fine fragrance made for the body, carried in an oil that felt wonderful on skin and deeply nourished it. But as I started building Choulie, I became interested in something larger.

By the time you’re a grown woman, you have a life. You have taste, preferences, memories, appetites, things you know you love and things you stopped caring about years ago. I don’t think beauty needs to tell us who to be. I think it can give us another way to experience who we already are. Choulie is made in that spirit. Fragrance, touch, pleasure, attention.