Go ahead, love your body

Whole Foods in Naperville hosted a Love Your Whole Body day last week with samples, presentations and a whole lotta customers.
My husband and I were knocked out.
First, I stocked up on body product samples. It's all of the great stuff I want to try, but am scared I'll spend $12 on only to find out I'm allergic to something in it. (Whole Foods will refund your money for stuff like this, I'm told, but I hate being the person returning stuff.)
Then, we did the rounds for food samples. We ended up picking up some great Bissinger's chocolate as a early Valentine's treat.
By the time we needed to head into the community room for our class, we were feeling pretty good.
Then, it got better.
My husband and I had signed up for a Burt's Bees session with Gayle Grindley. It was free, but we got bells and whistles.
There were a ton of nice, interested people to talk with; and a table was laid out with tea, chocolate and almonds.
Now, I already loved Burt's Bees in concept. It's natural, but not the kind of natural that a company claims but refuse to confirm with ingredient lists.
Gayle Grindley, a Burt's Bees employee, actually explained what products are for (turns out I'd been wrong about what toner does) and let us try a dozen or so products.
The best part in my book: Gayle actually ate some of the orange essence facial cleanser. Oh, yes. You want natural? How about a cleanser you can safely chow down on? (She reported it tasted a bit like marmalade.) Me, I was about to dive into the marshmallow vanishing creme, which actually contains marshmallow extract.
We ended up leaving with great little sample kits with tons of products. They were in little woven bags that can be used as loofahs or composted. I don't think my old cosmetic company can say that about their plastic-laden freebies.
My "old" company, you ask? Yeah, I'm pretty happy with Burt's Bees now. I'm using their cleanser and toner and am MUCH less red and blotchy. (This is my standard look when stressed.)
And that's enough to make you love your whole body, Burt's Bees' whole line and Whole Foods.