Pure absolution (Lush Absolution Massage Bar)

Member Name: sweetpea01

Product:	Lush Absolution Massage Bar
Date:	07/05/09 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very relaxing

Disadvantages: Quick melting & can stain white clothes

A few years ago I dipped my toe in the whole massage bar craze at Lush. I had spent years never using them, not even paying a lot of attention to them really. Hard to believe now as I probably use one a week! I'm always curious when I go into Lush just incase they have anything new and pretty looking! Anyway in my local store I wondered over to the little wooden shelves to see hundreds of massage bars gleaming in all their glory!

After speaking to a very helpful assistant she personally recommended Absolution. This quite plain looking green bar. Which wasn't pretty and it certainly wasn't gleaming! But I always think that you should never knock a recommendation and so a bar of Absolution was promptly purchased (among other things) and taken home!

Absolution is a sensually smooth textured, easy-to-melt massage bar filled to the brim with calming lavender, comforting vanilla orchid, soothing ylang ylang, and metaphysically protective Tonka (also believed to promote prosperity). In general this bar is found in quite a few shades of green depending on the batch, one could be an apple green the other could be a darker more grass green.

Hence, these fragrances, along with the visually beautiful engraving of a spiritually liberated dove (just try and pick one from the top of the pile as the bottom bars seem to get a bit warm and tend to fuse together, this will then cause the dove to be slightly misformed!), indeed lend themselves to Absolution's intention of...well...freeing you from the past by helping you to "absolve" yourself of guilt and regret. To try and take you to a better calmer place!

But then there's another "greener" fragrance which, in my opinion, doesn't quite seem to fit in with these slightly sweeter, fluffier scents (could this be the reason why the sales assistant practically forced this bar upon me?!). Enter a combination of hemp oil (which has a green, yet slightly nuttier fragrance) and bitter, slightly sulphuric Southeastern Asian neem oil, which is most often used as a broad spectrum insecticide - do I really want to bath in something that could kill bugs? This thought crossed my mind when I did a little bit of research as I'd never heard of neem oil, what an earth could it do to my skin?!

Despite how all that may sound, hemp and neem aren't at all off-putting; rather their contribution towards Absolution's headily dense incense simply strikes one as being out of place here, ultimately giving one the feeling that this massage bar is of two minds: it's not quite sure whether to give in to it's girly, pink side, or skip barefoot through the trees in search of it's inner hippy. Now me I'm more of the first as much as I like feeling liberated I tend to like being very much a girly girl and to me this bar sat on the fence. It wasn't absolutely amazing but it was neither boring nor dull.

But despite its weird flaws this massage bar actually does a great job, yes the bathroom or bedroom is filled with a slightly strange but nice scent (which you get used to) but its silky smooth texture glides onto the skin with no problems and definitely no green residue! You skin feels remarkably refreshed and almost cooled. But one thing this bar definitely does is moisturise. So apart from just being a massage bar it's a great moisturising bar which keeps your keen hydrated for hours. And from a person with sensitive skin I am always worried when I try new items but this didn't irritate or dry out my skin at all. Just remember as this is a green bar that the colour may stain white clothes etc!

What Lush say:-

This is a quick melting massage bar that relieves your spirit of anxiety and gives you a big reassuring hug. Its green colour, decorated with a bird in flight sums it up completely. Absolution is for those guilt-ridden souls who need to rid their spirits of anxiety, forgive themselves and start again. Don't worry be happy.


Ingredients:-

Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Butter (Cocos nucifera), Lavender Oil (Lavendula hybrida), Beeswax (Cera alba), Hemp Oil (Cannabis sativa), Neem Oil (Melia azadirachta), Copaiba Balsam (Copaifera officinalis), Ylang Ylang Oil (Cananga odorata), Vanilla Absolute (Vanilla planifolia), Tonka Absolute (Dipteryx odorata), Chlorophyllin, Perfume.

Unfortunately Absolution was discontinued in 2006 and has never been brought back despite quite a bit of protest from the Lush community! So unless you speak to Lush to see whether any other stores in other countries do it then the chances of getting hold of this one is quite rare.

Summary: I'm being "green"!