I made an order from Lush Retro recently and purchased a number of soaps, one of which was the Honey Waffle soap. Honey is meant to be very gentle and soothing and I liked the sound of it!

***What is Lush?***
Lush is a store that makes toiletries and cosmetics, using natural and organic ingredients where possible and minimising packaging where they can. It started out as a mail order company called Cosmetics to Go, but this failed and the new store, Lush, opened in Poole, Dorset. Later branches of the shop opened in London and beyond, and there are now Lush stores all over the world. As well as in store, you can also buy products from the website, www.lush.co.uk. There are similar websites for many different countries including the USA, Japan and Germany.

Lush buy ingredients only from companies that do not test on animals. All of their products are suitable for vegetarians and many are suitable for vegans.

Lush say: "We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud.
"We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again."

***What is Retro?***
The Retro range is only available online or via mail order, as it is made up of products that have been discontinued from stores, but were deemed popular enough not to be discontinued completely. Retro products are often more expensive than the normal range of products, as they are made in smaller quantities, but there is some interesting stuff to be found among the products!

***Waffling on about Honey Waffle***
This particular soap is a golden brown in colour and comes with a slice of Dorset honeycomb down the centre (though my small sample piece didn't have this). Geranium and ylang ylang oils provide a calming influence, while honey, as a natural antiseptic, is meant to soothe sore skin.

The soap is priced at £3.95, which is quite expensive for a Lush soap. However it looks and smells very luxurious - honey with a floral edge. It is creamy in texture and appearance and looks a bit like a chunk of toffee or caramel. Also, unlike some Lush soaps it doesn't wear down particularly quickly, despite its creamy nature.

I've used this soap mainly as a hand soap, but occasionally as a body soap as well. As a body soap, it lathers up well with a body puff and cleans thoroughly. I do love it as a hand soap, however. It is soft and creamy to the touch and is very gentle. Loads of hand soaps are quite drying, but this isn't at all - in fact it is quite moisturising, which is ideal in this fairly cold weather. Though I apply hand cream after washing my hands as a matter of course, I don't feel the immediate need to do so after using this soap, as it's so gentle. In addition, my hands remain scented with the lovely floral honey scent for a couple of hours.

I highly recommend this soap, but unfortunately it is about to be discontinued - if you are quick you might be able to grab some! If it wasn't about to vanish, I would buy some more to use as a hand soap as my hands are thanking me for it!