The Rose Queen ballistic is a relatively new addition to the Lush range. The idea for it was born when, after receiving OBEs, Lush founders Mark and Mo got an invitation to the annual festival at their local parish church where a Rose Queen was being crowned. The ballistic was inspired by roses and flowers in general, and designed as a playful rose bath.

The ballistic is bright pink and contains tigerlily, apple blossom and larkspur petals. The scent is of rose absolute and geranium, which is a light pleasant floral smell. The ballistic does look and smell lovely and definitely makes me think of summer. It is round and quite small, and reminds me of the Lush ballistics of old - several that I've sampled from the Retro range have been similar in shape and design. The ballistic costs £2.50 which is similar to other ballistics in the range, not a bad price considering how expensive real rose absolute is.

I obtained this ballistic in an online order and decided to use it on the Saturday night of that week, while it was still fresh. The weather outside was really lovely so I thought a summery evening bath would complement it.

As with all ballistics, I ran the bath first so I could get in and watch the ballistic dissolve. When I dropped it in it fizzed quite strongly and dissolved over a couple of minutes. The water turned a lovely shade of deep pink - this was lighter than the ballistic itself but still fairly strong bearing in mind the amount of water that was in there. The petals floated about on the surface of the water looking pretty. The floral rose scent, which was powdery (slightly similar to the Imogen Rose fragrance), was really strong, even after the ballistic had dissolved, and lasted well. This was impressive considering the small size of the ballistic.
I enjoyed my bath with my glass of wine and my book, and stayed in there for ages. When I got out, I picked some of the larger flowers out of the bath and rinsed the rest away with the shower head, which was mildly irritating but not difficult. To be honest I would have probably just left them there until the next time I took a shower, if it wasn't for my male housemates who would probably not thank me for leaving rose petals in the bottom of the bath!

My skin was soft after my bath, although not moisturised - in fairness there aren't any moisturising ingredients in the ballistic. The product was very gentle on my skin and didn't irritate it at all. I only had to apply moisturiser to my lower legs (which get quite dry) - I was able to leave the rest of my skin unmoisturised, which allowed me to enjoy the floral scent which remained on my skin for several hours afterwards.

I really liked this ballistic and would buy it again. It had a lovely rose scent and looked lovely in the bath. It was surprisingly strong for such a small ballistic, and left my skin soft and sweetly scented. Though it is pricey, it would be worth it as a one off treat and it is no more expensive than the majority of ballistics in the range.