A Winter-warming bath for aching muscles! (Lush Marathon)

Member Name: wildrose9104

Product:	Lush Marathon
Date:	01/10/07 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very soothing and warming, lovely spicey fragrance, can be used for more than 1 bath.

Disadvantages: The colour of the bath water is a strange orange which I couldn't get used to!

As some of you may already know from my reviews, I am a bit of a fan of Lush products. Some are fantastic, and some not so fantastic, however this review is on one product which was given to me as a gift last Christmas and it was something I hadn't tried before, or considered trying.

For those who are not familiar with Lush, they are a bath and body cosmetics company, who pride themselves on using natural ingredients in their wide range of products (bubble bars, shampoos, face masks, shower gels etc). They do not test on animals and many of their products are vegan!

Now back to Marathon bubble bar. I had recieved this at Christmas as a gift, and whilst I had heard much about it before then, I had never actually thought of trying it. It is meant to help soothe aching muscles and relax them, as well as helping relieve the monthly cramps. This sounded great to me as I always have an achey back, and I dont know why I hadnt tried it sooner!

The bright orange bar costs £1.95 and is around 100g in weight. Poking out of the top of the bar is a little paper flag, this one being the flag of Bahrain (the flags differ from bar to bar just incase you were wondering). The bar came wrapped in a small plastic Lush bag with a sticker on the front stating the product name and Lush web address for a list of the ingredients...

Ingredients (as taken from Lush.co.uk):
Sodium Bicarbonate , Cream of Tartar (Tartaric acid) , Sodium Laureth Sulfate , Lauryl Betaine , Glycerine , Cinnamon Leaf Oil (Cinnamomum cassia) , Olive Oil (Olea europaea) , Cocamide DEA , Peppermint Oil (Mentha piperita) , Witch Hazel Extract (Hamamelis virginiana) , Aloe Vera Gel (Aloe barbadensis) , Mustard Oil (Brassica alba) , Myrrh Gum (Commiphora myrrha) , Olibanum Gum (Boswelia carterii) , Benzoin Gum (Styrax benzoin) , *Cinnamyl Alcohol , *Cinnamal , *Eugenol , *Benzyl Benzoate , *Limonene , *Linalool , Perfume , Gardenia Extract (Gardenia jasminoides) , Colour 59040 , Colour 14700 , Paper Flag
* Occurs naturally in essential oils.

Taking the bar out of the bag, what immediately hit me was the fragrance. Strong and spicey, but in a very relaxing sense. The cinnamon and peppermint really stand out and actually this sort of smell really helped to clear my sinuses! I decided to use the full bar one evening in the late months of winter as I had a cold and was feeling achey all over from the monthly cramps and the cold combined!

To use the Lush bubble bars, Lush recommend to simply crumble under running water. I have found that to really get the most bubbles and make sure it disolves, is to crumble the bubble bar into a bowl, mix with hot water until it is a runny consistency then pour slowly under the bath taps. I think just half of the bar would have been enough as there were mounds and mounds of bubbles using the whole bar! And the fragrance really came out with using fairly hot water. The only thing that made me feel a little uncomfortable was the orange colour of the bath water!

After climbing in the bathtub, I'm sure that the water felt much warmer due to the cinnamon leaf oil in there, as my aches and pains eased and I felt very cosy and comforted! The bubbles lasted well over an hour, which to me is something hard to find in bubble bath products. Normally they start disappearing after 10 minutes! But I have to say I was very very impressed by Marathon. I felt much better after having stepped out of the bath, and was ready for a good nights sleep.

I still cant believe I hadnt tried it sooner, and this is now a must-have for when I'm bunged up with a cold or when I'm having backache.

I definitely recommend it to anyone, and one thing that made it stand out for me was that it worked 100 times better than any muscle-pain relief gels I've tried.

Marathon is available in all Lush shops and on their website www.lush.co.uk

Summary: Ideal bubble bath for achey muscles.