Dig in! Hungry for something sweet? A selection of new products aims to satisfy an appetite for epicurean delights – with none of the guilt

Are visions of sugarplums dancing in your head? Or are visions of sugarplums filling you with dread?

This, the most wonderful time of the year, also is the most fattening. Even if it seems like one more helping of pumpkin pie surely couldn’t hurt.

Yeah, tell that to the scale.

What you need is a suitable substitute. And I’m not talking about Boston cream pie. I’m talking about guiltless pleasures. Things that fill your home with the scents – or sense – of all your favorite treats with none of those pesky calories.

Bath & Body Works is the place to go for all things fragrant and fruity, and that goes into overdrive for the holidays. Take, for instance, the Spiced Apple Rapture plumping gloss ($8) – the package reads like a bodice-ripper, and the gloss will make your pouty pucker taste sinfully rich. Also tasty are the Wickedly Hot Chocolate and Twisted Peppermint balms ($6). Don’t like to bake? No matter. A vial of Pumpkin Pie Paradise home fragrance oil ($7.50) will fill your home with the scents of the season.

If all that sounds a little too tame, then you need to visit Uniquely Me on Route 1A in Hampden. The shop carries decadent body products by Private Reserve, including Mocha Milk Shake bubble bath ($21, in a milk bottle), Cr?me Brulee hand cream ($10, Cocoa Powder ($14, in a powdered sugar shaker), Whipped Cream Body Lotion ($19), Brown Sugar Scrub ($17) and a White Chocolate bar soap ($10). After your delicious bath, you can use one of the massage-oil bonbons, which look like chocolates and melt when they hit your body ($5).

At Garden Cottage in Belfast, you can indulge in peppermint-candy soaps from Crabtree & Evelyn ($2.75) and a hot apple cider travel candle from Botanicus ($5.75) – both would make great stocking-stuffers.

Still hungry? Sink your teeth into The Cookbook from Philosophy ($30 at Nordstrom.com, search for “philosophy”), with shower gels in the scents of Blackberry Sauce, Belgian Waffles and Fresh Cream. What a way to start the day!

Breakfast not your thing? No problem. You can still get a guilt-free treat with a fleece scarf, wrapped up and sold in a plastic cupcake cup from Molly’s in Winterport ($22). The label says “Too Sweet.” Which it is.

But you know what’s really sweet? There’s not a carbohydrate, fat gram or spoonful of sugar in sight.

Shop Notes

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ShopGirl would love to hear from you! Send questions, comments or suggestions by e-mail to: kandresen@bangordailynews.net, by U.S. mail to: Kristen Andresen, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402-1329, or by fax to: 941-9476. Tune in to ShopGirl at 5 p.m. Fridays on WLBZ-2.