Journeys Are My Diary

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Lush bath bombs and bubble bars

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Some time ago, after writing a Halloween Lush Wish List, I went to Lush in Doncaster and purchased a whole bunch of bath bombs and bubble bars. Since then I have managed to review Monster’s Ball, Lava Lamp and Ruby Red Slippers but I have actually used them all! I decided that instead of doing a separate post for each one, I would just post a few pictures (for the two I do have them for), the original description from the Lush website and my opinions one which I liked and would buy again etc.

Of the ones I haven’t reviewed yet, there were; Pumpkin, Autumn Leaf, Never Mind The Ballistics and Northern Lights – all of which were bath bombs. There was then Candy Mountain and Big Bang, which were both bubble bars. Northern Lights I have reviewed previously last year, though it looks slightly different now. I have also reviewed Big Bang previously too. As for Candy Mountain, I’ve been using that for years so there is no reviews on this blog but I love it so much that I buy every year, at least one and its my favourite Lush Product.

Never Mind The Ballistics (bath bomb) – These aren’t ingredients for anybody else except for yourself. Lime and sweet wild orange oils are fresh and peachy on the nose, exciting the senses and shaking up your mood. There’s no time for apathy in the bath, so this anarchic bath bomb fizzes and rolls and spews colour with no holds barred energy. Fair Trade cocoa butter melts alongside fresh bananas to soften both the water and your skin. God save the clean; this deserves a replay.

Never Mind the Ballistics is the only remaining bath bomb that I didn’t take pictures for and so it’s pretty hard to review. I enjoyed the smell and the half pink side made the bath water feel smooth and softening. However the pink side did give a similar effect that the Lava Lamp did, adding a sort of residue to the bath.

Autumn Leaf (bath bomb) – Autumn colours dapple your bath red and yellow, as falling leaves signify the start of winter. From the comfort of a hot bath, watch as the evenings draw in, and the trees don vibrant plumage. The scent of fresh grass evokes the crunch of crisp leaves underfoot as the last remnants of summer are stolen away.

One of my favourite things about Lush bath bombs are definitely the way they react when they touch the water and the colours they turn the bath. Autumn Leaves doesn’t disappoint, displaying many colours related to nature in a very pretty fizz. The smell is good too and the after colour of the bath once the bomb is completely dissolved. I don’t remember it having a specific scent, but whatever it was, was likeable.

Pumpkin (bath bomb) – Bath-o’-lantern. This year, we’re introducing a very traditional looking fizzer to our limited edition range: one look at those geometric features is all it takes to put you in a Halloween-y mood! With a spicy, sweet perfume full of exotic pimento, sweet vanilla and warming cinnamon, our jack-o’-lantern will have you imitating his toothy grin once he hits your bath water.

Pumpkin was a great fun bath bomb, both in design and colour. Though it didn’t do anything dramatic when dropped into the bath, the colour of the water was really dramatic – almost like orange juice. The smell was great too, very reminiscent of Halloween and spicy. Again, another bath bomb that I would be happy to recommend.

Lush Bubble Bar – Ruby Red Slippers

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After a couple of bath bombs, I thought it was time for a bubble bar instead. I hadn’t tried Ruby Red Slippers before and so I picked it up as part of my haul. At a first sniff, I liked it but I wasn’t really sure but when I went to use it, one of the plus points was definitely that it was easy to break up into pieces and use on separate occasions, rather than all at once.

You don’t have to travel to the Emerald City to find your inner Dorothy. Crumble your ruby slipper under running water to add sparkle to your bath time, then immerse yourself in the spicy, floral fragrance of carnation absolute. With tangerine oil’s hypnotic effect and rose absolute’s soothing properties, you’ll be in the bubbly land of Oz in no time. Lie back, click your heels, there’s no place like foam.

Lush had a bubble bar called Dorothy once and I definitely wasn’t a fan but this one is much better. It’s smell is nice, though not as sweet as I usually like them and of course as with all their bubble bars, it makes the bath water soft and your skin smooth. I also love the colour it turns the water so that’s a plus. I’m not sure if Ruby Red Slippers is a seasonal bubble bar or just a new addition but it’s definitely one that I would pick up again in the future.

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Product Review – Lush So White Shower Gel

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A few days ago, I posted about one of the new shower gels I recently purchased from Lush. I also mentioned that I picked up another one – So White. Today I’m going to tell you all about this new shower gel, what I think and how it smells.

You might think that the name “So White” sounds familiar. That is because for many years Lush has made a bath bomb called So White. Deliberately sounding like “Snow White”, So White is an fruity smelling bath bomb and the new shower gel So White, is very similar!

Lush describes this product as:

A crisp apple shower gel to leave you feeling the fairest of them all. This creamy, shimmering wash is made with cleansing fresh apple and cyder vinegar as well as soothing rose water to leave you feeling fresh and soft. This contains organic rose absolute and bergamot essential oil to help clear the mind and leave you feeling as pure as the driven snow.

While the bath bomb has an orange/citrus smell, the shower gel is apple. This to me makes far more sense, given the actual name of the shower gel.

The consistency of So White shower gel is a little strange. I want to liken it to “off milk” but at the same time I don’t want to put you off. For the most part, the shower gel feels normal, however I don’t know if you can see from the picture, but it has sort of lumps in it. It almost looks like it should be exfoliating, but it isn’t as the lumps do just dissolve as you rub it into your skin. I did notice on the Lush website that someone else commented on the consistency of the product which is good (though bad for Lush) as I wondered if I just got a bad one!

Either way though, the shower gel does rub in normally and does lather as it should. Perhaps the lumpiness is just moisturiser as I have no complaints about the actual product. The smell is really good and apple is definitely the main scent I get. It’s delicate and subtle, but still lingers. I definitely wish the bath bomb smelt this good!

Would I buy it again….? Maybe. The consistency is a little off putting. If it was more like the other shower gels, I think I probably would as the smell is great. However pouring off milk into your hand, probably isn’t top of my list when it comes to taking a shower!

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Product Review – Lush Hot Toddy Shower Gel

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You may remember that I mentioned a “Lush” Haul, well this is yet another product review! So far I have mentioned both the “Sparkler” and “Northern Lights“, both of which were for Bonfire Night. This particular Shower Gel however, covers the whole winter period. “Hot Toddy” is a Shower Gel, much like all the other Lush shower gels. It comes in 100g, 250g and 500g. As always I bought the 100g, as even that costs £3.95, a price I would never justify if I was shopping in Tesco! However, sold as always on a Limited Edition shower gel, I had to at least give it a try!

Hot Toddy is a beautiful red colour, with little flecks of gold that make it look like its shimmering. The smell is quite strong but not in a bad way – a total memory of Christmas Markets, spiced candles, just pure Christmas really.

Lush sells the product as:

With all the spice of a Christmas market, this deep red shimmering shower gel is sure to blow away the bah humbugs. Laced with softening seaweed, fresh ginger, cinnamon leaf oil and cleansing lemon oil, this will warm up even the chilliest of days and bring a sparkle to your shower. 

I could definitely get the cinnamon but otherwise the rest of the scents are subtle. I actually didn’t fully expect to like this shower gel but I was pleasantly surprised! Having used it twice now, I can honestly say I like it. I actually hope that this becomes a Limited Edition a bit like Snow Fairy, making a reappearance every Christmas. I do have a cold so I can’t say for sure, but sadly I didn’t smell it on my skin afterwards. I’m hoping that is just my cold though, as one thing I’ve always loved about Lush shower gel is that you catch a whiff every now and again after the bath or shower!

Still to come, So White Shower Gel, Butterbear Bath Bomb and Wizard Bubble Bar! I have more, but these are the ones I’ve tried and tested – coming to a blog post near you (soon!).

Product Review: Lush Prince Charming Shower Gel

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On Friday I convinced Chris to catch the train over to Saxilby and meet me from picking up the kids at school. Mum was having them overnight and I fancied a wander around Lincoln – something we haven’t done since before November. I tempted him over with talk of McDonalds for dinner and visits to CEX and Game for second hand games. However I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to visit Lush.

Since writing about Lush’s Valentine’s products, I’ve been dying to go in and have a sniff – and of course buy myself a bottle of Prince Charming shower gel. So after parking in Lincoln, the first place I dragged Chris off to, was of course Lush. That said I took pity on him and let him head into Game, while I took a wander around the shop by myself. I have to be honest it didn’t really take that long. There wasn’t much different from the last time I went and with such a limited Valentine’s range, there was much more to look at. After a brief moment of decision, I bought myself the smallest bottle of Prince Charming shower gel and headed back out to meet him.

I snapped a picture of my bottle as soon as I got home, posting it to my instagram! Can you tell I was excited to have it? I even planned to use it the very next day and while I didn’t get my shower that morning, I did manage to take it in the evening instead!

The bottle really reminds me of Snow Fairy, my most favourite shower gel of all. I had high hopes for this, especially given its name and my love of all things Fairytale. The scent is a mixture of marshmallow, vanilla and pomegranate. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

As I poured some out to my hand, it still reminded me very much of Snow Fairy by the colour at least. The smell was definitely sweet too, though it had a much fruity side to it. In fact, on first sniff it reminded me a lot of Happy Hippy, another Lush Shower Gel.

When I first started to use the shower gel, I thought how nice it was. A sweet fruity smell is really the best way to describe it. I washed all over with it and because I like to know how the smell lingers, I also washed my hair with it to. At the beginning, the smell was lovely, though the odd time I would squirt a little too hard or too fast and I found myself a bit overwhelmed by the pomegranate side of it. However towards the end, I’m not going to lie – I actually felt quite nauseous by the smell. I wasn’t in the shower for long, perhaps fifteen minutes, twenty max. By the time I was washing out the last of the shower gel, I was actually holding my breath so that I couldn’t smell it any more, for fear of actually being sick.

After I got out of the shower, I felt fine again. The strong smell was gone and I was only left with what lingered on my skin and hair. The shower gel itself is just the same as any other one Lush does. Great for both skin and hair. Does what it says on the bottle. That said, one of the reasons I love Snow Fairy is because even out of the bath/shower and dry, I often catch whiffs of the smell – for hours afterwards even. On my hair for even longer. Not with Prince Charming. While in this instance I was actually glad not to smell it any more, I never once caught a whiff of this scent once I was dry, not even on my hair.

Now I don’t want to put everyone off this altogether. It is a nice smell and perhaps if you’re more into sweet fruity smells, then you’ll be okay with it. For me it was too much and I’m sad to say I’m not even sure I’ll want to use it again – even to use up the rest of the bottle. At £4.95 for 100ml, this has been quite an expensive trial of a product. In fact it occurred to me that I’m not entirely sure how I justify buying a small bottle of shower gel from Lush for £5, when if I went into Tesco and saw a bottle that size, for that price, I would think it was ridiculous. Luckily I got a bottle of Snow Fairy and a bottle of Rose Jam (something I reviewed a few months ago) in a gift box for Christmas. These will have to keep me going until I try yet another of Lush’s creations.

Have you tried Prince Charming yet? And do you like it? Let me know what you think!

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Product Review: Lush Rose Jam Shower Gel

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As I’m starting work on my dress tonight, I figured I should probably jog on and get a blog post written. In my last post, I mentioned about my Lush Addiction and hinted at a next post. Well this is my first beauty product review – Lush Rose Jam Shower Gel.

On the first day of this month (pay day!) I finally treated myself to my first Lush purchase in probably a year. Its been tough only using what people buy for me, but at the same time I knew I needed to be sensible. However having moved out of my rented house last month and in with my partner, I knew I had a little spare for a cheeky “treat yourself” gift.

I think deep down I had been considering treating myself to some Lush anyway, but then at the end of last month I also received an email about a new Limited Edition Shower Gel (online exclusive) called Rose Jam. This was definitely the push to make me place an order and order I did!

As I said, its been a while since I purchased from Lush and I have to admit I was a little surprised to find everything wrapped up inside my package. I’m so used to that “knock you out” smell as you open the box, but it was definitely lessened this time. I’m not complaining however as I have to admit, wrapped like this they actually store a lot easier and don’t get damp etc.

I ordered; 100g Rose Jam Shower Gel (to try), Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds, Creamy Candy Bar, Ma Bar, Marzibain, Karma and Happy (all bubble bars!). The lovely people at Lush also sent me a little freebie (as you can see in the little black tub in the right-hand corner) though I haven’t tried this yet.

However, back to my original point of the post, a review.

“Our Rose Jam shower gel with its sweet, addictive scent is back by popular demand. With a vanilla pod infusion, goji berry juice and vitamin rich, nourishing argan oil, this shower gel is truly indulgent. People who love Rose Jam Bubbleroon and Ro’s Argan Body Conditioner will love this too as we use the same floral, fruity-smelling combination of Turkish rose absolute and geranium oil.” – Source, Lush website.

On first sniff, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this shower gel. It did smell sweet but there was also definitely an edge of rose – flowery scents not really being my type of thing. However I had vowed to give it a try and so I placed it in my bathroom, ready for the next bath or shower.

I’ve always been a fan of Lush Shower Gel, as I mentioned in my last post – my favourite being Snow Fairy. When using their shower gels, the liquid lathers well, smells great and even better is that when you get out of the bath or shower, you catch whiffs of the scent, still lingering on your skin and hair. Rose Jam Shower Gel did not disappoint, being exactly the same as any other shower gels I have used from Lush.

In the bottle, Rose Jame looks quite dark, though it pours a little lighter. The small is definitely a mix between sweet and roses – a scent that I really couldn’t place for the majority of my first use. I used the shower gel to wash with, but also washed my hair with it too. I wanted to make sure I gave it a good trial. By the end of my bath I had placed the smell. Rose Jam basically smells like Turkish Delight. Not the chocolate coated stuff, but genuine Turkish Delight. Its an incredibly pleasant smell and over the three uses I have given the Rose Jam shower gel, I have definitely decided I like it.

Of course, I made everyone sniff me when I got out of the bath. That sounds kinds gross but really its not. Megan and Lily both sniffed my hair in the morning and said how nice it smelt. Chris even placed the smell as roses. All in all though, I was won over by the shower gel itself.

I don’t know how long it will stay for sale, but if you haven’t tried it yet I would strongly recommend you do. If, like me, you’re a fan of the sweet smells that come from Lush – give Rose Jam a go.

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Addiction – #3 Lush

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I was very late to the whole Lush party. As a company they had been around for many years, before I even knew they existed, or at least took any notice of their existence. It certainly wasn’t love at first sight either (or first sniff as it was) but now I know its a love affair that will last forever.

Number 3 in my Addiction topic, is LUSH.

I remember the exact time that I discovered Lush and made my first purchase. It was 2008 and just into the new year. I was a member of a Livejournal Community, that acted as a Thriftstore. It was known to most as TSUK. Loads of people sold off their unwanted Lush after Christmas, but it was a particular post about Lush Mystery boxes being sold on the actual Lush website, that caught my eye. On 3rd February (I still have the email confirmation) I purchased my first box of Lush. I selected a small box, costing £10 but that was advertised as having £20 worth of products in it. I was excited!

Sadly, when it arrived, I wasn’t so excited. When the box was delivered (only a few days later) the scent of the Lush was so overpowering, even before I opened it. I was 8 months pregnant too and I’ve always found my senses were heightened during pregnancy, especially smell. Anyway the smell actually made me feel quite sick and after a quick look through it all, I hid it all in the yet to be used Nursery. Every now and again though the smell would catch my nostrils as I went up the stairs, until eventually I decided I needed to know which I might like and which I might not and get rid of anything I didn’t.

Anyone who knows a bit about Lush, will know that some of their Christmas scents are very strong and spicy. At the time they weren’t at all my kind of thing and I ended up selling them through TSUK. However a few things did smell good, sweet and candy like. A bottle of Snow Fairy made its way into my bathroom, as did a bar of Candy Cane Bubble Bar.

I’ll admit that from this moment, my addiction to Lush began. Though Christmas was over, I did at least venture near to the Lush store, located in Lincoln. From outside the smell was incredibly overpowering still and I remember having to take my time before going in and then try not to breath too much while inside the shop. It seems ridiculous in hindsight, but at the time it was really something I struggled with.

Over that year I would try anything that smelt sweet, making some favourites with Ma Bar, Honey Bee and Bathos. Eventually I was brave enough to try other things and would always try Limited Editions, published at Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter etc. Lush fast became the easiest present to buy for me, especially Mother’s Day and Birthday.

When I first became a single mum, approximately three years ago, my Lush Addiction had to take a backseat. Money became tighter and the kids had to come first, buying Lush for myself was no longer an option. Don’t get me wrong, I actually have no objection to the price of Lush (give everything the company stands for, the fact its handmade and not tested on animals, and of course the fact it smells amazing) but I’m not going to deny that it is an expensive luxury, rather than a necessity.

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Both my girls are a lot like me and over the years they began to pick up a love for Lush. They would ask to get in the bath with me, or ask if I could save the water from my bath so they could bath after me. They loved the sweet smelling products, just like I did and so it became a tradition to give them some Lush on Christmas Eve – as a Christmas Eve bath is a tradition in itself in our house. I would also treat myself to one Bubble bar too.

Now I rarely buy myself Lush at all. I stopped popping into the shop so I wasn’t tempted and I hardly ever look at the website. I rely on friends and family to buy me Lush on special occasions, but otherwise its not really something I have any more. That said, what little I do get, I make last. I try to always have at least one of something hidden away in the drawer, for that bad day when I just need an amazing bath.

Luckily on my last birthday (May), both my best friends bought me a bundle of Lush. It wasn’t something I asked for, or even mentioned that I don’t really buy it myself any more, but they still got it nonetheless. Its now September and I actually still have a few bits left!

My favourite Lush products are without a doubt, the Bubble Bars. If you’ve never tried them then you really should. They create SO many bubbles and make the water feel somehow smooth and silky. I genuinely don’t think there is a Bubble Bar I have tried and not liked, though of course I have the ones I prefer. After that come Bath Bombs. In an ideal world I would have a full bomb and a full bubble bar in every bath, but I would need to be a millionaire AND spend two hours in the bath each time, just to warrant it. Finally after that I would have to pick Shower Gels. I’m not really one for showering, always prefering a bath, but even in a bath you need to wash. Wherever possible I try to buy a few bottles of Snow Fairy at Christmas and make it last all the way through the year. It’s even good for washing your hair with!

Though I don’t dislike any products, I would definitely say I wasn’t fussed about the soaps or massage bars. I’m not one for soaps anyway and I’d be lucky to get given a massage (and certainly can’t be bothered to give myself them). I’m not really one for a skincare routine, or spending time on grooming. As such none of the other products really interest me. I know other people rave about them though and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend any Lush product. I’ve tried lip scrubs, face masks, shampoo bars and body lotions. Though I might not buy them again (that’s purely based on my lack of effort to groom), I would have good things to say about any of their products.

I could bang on and one about Lush, telling you all my favourite products both past and present, but I’m sure you get the idea. If you’ve tried Lush then I’m sure you must have a few favourites yourself – and if you haven’t then I strongly recommend you do.

On my last pay day, I finally treated myself to more Lush than I have in years. There is two reasons for this, one of which you’ll have to wait till my next post for, the other being that I’m finally a bit more settled financially and felt like it was something I could treat myself to. I’m glad I bought it when I did though, as now later into the month I might have been having second thoughts about the spend! (though I have booked a holiday with my wages this month so I supposed I shouldn’t complain).

Want to know what I bought? You’re going to have to wait till next time to find out…

What’s your favourite Lush product, and why?

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