I love shopping in Lush and although soap might seem a bit boring, Lush always try their best to make it more interesting! I received a block of this Northern Lights soap as part of a gift set last Christmas, as it was one of their special seasonal products which was released just for the Christmas period.

Product description: "This soap was made by Wesley, who perfectly matched the colours of the auroras he watched on the internet, and then found a special way to pour the soap to represent the natural light show. Then Pia, our trainee perfumer from Finland, came up with an electric, fresh pine and lime perfume to finish off Wesley's work. Together they will make you feel like you are in the crisp climes of the arctic circle, with nature's amazing light show performing about you."

The Northern Lights soap is really fantastic to look at. It has a neon bright colour to it with swirls of bright yellow and green giving it an almost glowing effect. Mine had been cut into a triangular sort of wedge shape and was a large size. I did notice that to begin with when I first started using the soap it did not react well to being wet and would retain droplets of water on the surface of the soap, which made it feel really slimy and was hard to grip onto when using. This sorted itself out after a while so it may have just been a reaction from the outer layer being exposed to water for the first few times.

This soap has a lovely refreshing fragrance to it, with zingy lime oil being the most noticeable scent. The soap also includes both pine and cypress oil so I would have expected it to have a bit of a woody scent, but I find that it is just very bright and citrusy without much of a heavier woody edge at all.

I only ever use bar soap to wash my hands as I prefer other products for cleansing my body. I find that this one lathers up well and gets my hands fully clean without being drying on the skin. The strong scent and bright colour makes it fun to use, but it is also very effective and leaves my hands squeaky clean.

The soap itself feels quite solid and had a firm texture which I believe has helped to make it really long-lasting. Usually I get on pretty well with Lush soaps and they'll last me for two months or so before running out. This one lasted for more than double that and I got a full 5 months use from just one bar of soap. I don't know if it's the different consistency or if the ingredients are more long-lasting, but I was pleased that it lasted so well and this makes it great value for money even though Lush soaps can appear a bit on the pricey side to begin with. However, towards the end of the bar the soap did seem to stop working completely. It lost all its colour and the fragrance disappeared, and then it stopped lathering up. I had to chuck the small remaining chunk away but wasn't too sad about this as it had lasted for so long until that point.

Overall, I'd say that this is a long-lasting soap that offers good value for money. Highly recommended if you like lime scents, and the bright colours are fascinating, they really seem to make the soap glow!

Ingredients: Water, Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Perfume, *glycerine, Sodium Stearate, Propylene Glycol, Pine Needle Oil , Cypress Oil, Lime Oil, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, *Citral, *Linalool, Citronellol, Limonene, Colour 59040, Colour 45410, Colour 17200, Colour 42090
*occurs naturally in essential oils

This is a vegan product and Lush are against animal testing - please keep your beauty cruelty free!