Body Creams & Lotions
Buy and sell body creams and lotions in Guatemala.
Plenty of the body lotion resold in Guatemala arrived in a suitcase: litre pump bottles with English labels, brought by family visiting from the United States in larger numbers than one household gets through. Beside those big bottles of thin daily lotion come thicker creams for shins and heels and near-solid body butters. A sealed bottle is an easy thing to buy from a stranger. With an opened one, ask when it was opened and where it has been kept before you agree to anything.
Lotion, cream, body butter and body oil:
differ mostly in how much water they carry, and that decides when each one gets used. A lotion is thin enough to pump and is gone into the skin in a minute. A body cream is thicker, comes in a tube or a tub, and is the one kept for shins, elbows and heels. Body butters are mostly shea or cocoa butter, close to solid in the tub, and are the night-time option. Body oils go onto skin still damp from the shower. Aloe gels are the lightest, often kept in the fridge for after a day in the sun; sun protection itself sits under sunscreen and self-tanners. The perfume a scented lotion is made to match goes under fragrances and small hand creams under hand and nail care.
Fragrance-free, scented and the English label:
smell is the first decision. A scented lotion is worn almost like a light perfume and is often layered with the matching spray. A fragrance-free one suits skin that reacts to perfume. On bottles bought in the United States, fragrance-free and unscented are not the same thing: an unscented lotion can still contain a masking fragrance that covers the smell of its ingredients. The dry skin and extra dry versions are richer than the daily ones. Packaging matters once a bottle or tub has been opened: a pump or a tube keeps fingers out, a tub of butter gets scooped into every night.
A litre bottle against a small dermatological tube:
a family-size pump bottle of a mainstream lotion, close to a litre, costs around Q120 to Q140 new in Guatemala, and a pharmacy-line body cream for sensitive or very dry skin can cost as much or more for a tube a fifth of that size. The supermarket sets the ceiling for the big bottles. Anyone can replace one the same afternoon, so a sealed one goes for a little under the shelf price at best. Sealed dermatological creams hold their value better, because they are the ones people hesitate to pay full price for. Once opened, either kind sells for little, priced for someone happy to finish it.
Opened bottles, US-bought lotions and copied scents:
a lotion bought in the United States often carries no expiry date at all, only a batch code on the base, so the bottle has to tell you its age. Unscrew the pump: a crust of dried lotion around the neck and inside the cap means it sat open for a long time. A lotion that has split into a watery layer, turned yellow or smells sour is finished. Body oils do not separate; they go rancid and start to smell of old peanuts or crayons. Copies of the best-known scented lotions are also passed off as genuine American imports, so be wary of a stuck-on label where the real bottle is printed, a texture thinner than you remember and a scent that is gone from your skin within minutes.
Spare bottles from a relative’s suitcase:
list each scent and size on its own unless it came as a set, and give the name as it reads on the label, in English if that is how it is printed, because that is what buyers type. Photograph the front, the back label, the base where the batch code sits and the plastic band around the cap. For anything opened, say roughly how full it is, when you started it and whether it lived in the bathroom or a cupboard. Say plainly where it came from: bought here, or brought from the United States by family. A buyer coming from Quetzaltenango for two sealed bottles will want to see that band unbroken and read the code on the base before paying, and to smell any opened one on the back of a hand.