I am H-A-P-P-Y! (Lush Happy Pill Bath Ballistic)

Member Name: bondgirlk8

Product:	Lush Happy Pill Bath Ballistic
Date:	18/01/09 (199 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smells amazing, skin feels wonderful, actually made me happy,

Disadvantages: I can't afford for every bath to be this wonderful

It was my birthday last week, and my lovely fiancé surprised me with a collection of wonderful Lush products. I really love Lush but, though I often go in for a smell and a dream, I can rarely afford the high prices. Having already reviewed the Fair Trade Foot Lotion, I am now reviewing The Happy Pill, my first Lush bath ballistic experience.

The Happy Pill was probably selected for me because, despite being a lovely person, I can be a right moody cow. The second half of 2008 was particularly fraught for me which of course meant my poor fiancé had the pleasure of a grumpy, tetchy, and often upset girlfriend repeatedly taking it out, unfairly, on him. Poor chap.

I'm working my way through my birthday delights and have included in each review some information about the company, Lush. You will notice if you read more than one, the same information about Lush itself is provided. The actual review, however, is not the same and is specific to the product in question. The company information is included for those readers who choose to only read one of my Lush product reviews.


WHAT IS IT?

The Lush Happy Pill is a large orange and yellow bath ballistic. A bath ballistic is a product that is designed to be dropped into a warm bath with which it will react by fizzing and dissolving. As it dissolves, a whole host of lovely aromas is released as a result of the essential oils contained within. This scent fills your bathroom and will penetrate your mind producing a different result depending on the specific oils contained in that ballistic.

The Happy Pill, as you might expect, is designed to make you happy. It contains grapefruit, mandarin and lemon fragrances which uplift your mind and help your troubles melt away. It is quite large and heavy, and is round with a line scored through the middle, kind of like a giant Paracetamol. It is half orange and half yellow, and if you look closely there is very fine gold glitter all the way through it. Well, that just made it for me!

Lush are a cosmetics company which specialises in making 'fresh' and 'handmade' cosmetics. They are an environmental and ethically aware company, and promote these ideals through their products, packaging, and manufacturing processes. They use minimum packaging, source their ingredients ethically, use natural ingredients and essential oils, encourage recycling, are against animal testing, do not use animal fat in their products (indeed many of their products are vegan)...the list of goodness goes on. They are indeed a 'good' company, and their prices reflect these ideals which, as we know, always cost more.

In addition to being such a lovely company, their products are also rather lovely. The aroma of the shop is so strong that you can tell when one is near before you even catch sight of it. As I mentioned above I often find myself in a Lush shop purely to enjoy the smells and a look at all the pretty slices of soap and solid bubble bath. Like many of the girlies out there, I'd shop in here for all my cosmetics if I could.


PRICE

I don't know how expensive this product is, given that I received it as a present. I don't wish to know for that exact same reason so I'm not going to look it up so I can tell you. It will be on the Lush website (www.lush.co.uk) if you care to find out.

Given that this is a Lush product, it is going to be fairly pricey. It is also designed as a single use product, so it means your bath is going to be quite expensive. But, it is a lovely decadent treat that, now and again, is worth paying for. I loved the experience, and as every bath can't be like that, it made it all the more special.


PACKAGING

The Lush packaging is very simple. As mentioned above, the company intentionally use as little packaging as possible as it is part of their environmental ethic. Like many of the Lush products, this is a solid product and the packaging required is therefore minimal. My bath ballistic is provided in a small recyclable paper bag which is sealed with a sticker informing me of what product is inside and directions for its use. The bag itself is yellow and features the Lush logo and a cute cartoon-style picture of smiling tree holding a package at a shop counter along with the phrase "Bring it back to Lush to have it filled with more lovely things. Recycle again." The bag itself is made from 100% recycled paper. This packaging definitely appeals to my inner hippy, and also does successfully encourage me to return to the shop and buy more stuff!


SCENT

I didn't use my bath ballistic right away, although I did break into the packaging to see what lay within. The scent hit me immediately. It was fruity, invigorating and soothing all at the same time. I then left the package in my bathroom for a week or so before I got around to making enough time for a decent soak in which to use it. The result was that for a whole week, my bathroom smelt amazing. It was lovely; my bathroom had that fabulous smell that you get when you walk into a lush shop.

When I actually used the product, the reaction with the water meant that it the scent was released and my bathroom exploded with the smell. It was wonderful. You could smell it from half-way down the stairs and the whole upstairs of my house smelt nice.

After use, this lingered the whole evening, thus providing yummy air freshener for our house as well as a lovely bath for me. Just to be clear, it wasn't overpowering or sneeze inducing or anything, it was just right, and was the kind of smell that you WANT to linger.


DROPPING THE BOMB

I filled my bath with the warm water, and then excitedly removed the Happy Pill from the paper bag. I'd dragged in Mr Bondgirlk8 so that we could both 'oooh' and 'ahhh' at the fizzy water, and you could feel the anticipation in the room. I dropped the bomb. Into the water it plopped and the fizzing began. To be honest it was a calm, gentle fizz - as opposed to the mad fizzing you might expect - and it took a long, long time to dissolve. A kind of, for want of a nicer word, scum seemed then to appear on the surface of the water around the pill. It was a combination of white, yellow and orange froth and was quite oily. It was, to be honest, a bit gross. The smell, however, was amazing.

The water at the tap end - where the bomb had decided it wanted to stay - then started to turn a brownish orangey colour. The 'scud' was still forming. It had been a good few minutes now. Mr Bondgirlk8 got bored and left me too it. The bath was really starting to look quite psychedelic by now. The water was becoming increasingly orange, with the white, yellow and orange oily swirling going on at the surface. The bomb was still quite big and it must by now be 5 minutes in.

I too got bored and got in, the fizz was still happening, but it wasn't extreme and I decided I'd be safe to get in...as long as I didn't sit on it. I took care not to do this.

After a further 5 minutes or so, all fizzing ceased as the final shard of bath ballistic dissolved. The scud also vanished and I was left sitting in bright orange water in a room that smelt, well, happy.

Now I'd stopped obsessing over the fizzing and the trippy water, I sank into my decadent bath to see what would happen next.


RESULTS

Given that this is called the Happy Pill, I'm pleased to report that this (either actually via the ingredients, or psychologically via the name) really did result in me experiencing A Calm Mind. I really did feel pretty happy. Even more remarkably, I stayed calm and in a good mood all evening. Mr Bondgirlk8 must be so relieved.

The water, as well as being orange, also felt incredibly soft. This had the double impact of feeling very nice, and for some reason stopping my skin from wrinkling up as quickly as it normally would. This meant I could stay in and enjoy the bath for longer. Given that the product can only be used for one single bath, the fact it allows it to be a longer one is a good bonus.

Both during the bath and for the entire rest of the evening my skin felt incredibly soft and silky. The lovely smell of the bath also lingered on my skin for a long time. To be honest, you can tell it is quite pricey from the effects it has. Inferior bath bombs tend only to fizz and there is little else to go with it.

Remarkably, despite the orangeness of the water, the bath was not in the slightest bit stained after I drained the water out. Not even a 'ring' at water level. There were no scud marks, and no debris to be removed from the bath after draining.

So would I get it again, you bet I would!



Thanks for reading

© BondgirlK8 - January 2009

Summary: Forget your troubles c'mon get happy...