For cherry blossom fans everywhere... (Lush Sakura Bath Ballistic)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Lush Sakura Bath Ballistic
Date:	25/04/09 (106 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smells gorgeous, leaves skin soft

Disadvantages: not the best 'bathing experience'

I bought this Lush bath bomb when I was in Edinburgh a few weeks ago. I've been curbing my spending in Lush, instead opting for some cheaper liquid bubble baths, however I decided to treat myself to three ballistics one of which was Sakura.

Now I'd spotted Sakura in the Lush stores before and could never really smell it in the shop. If you've ever been in or indeed even just walked past a Lush shop, you will know that because they have so many products there are a lot of mingled scents in the store and it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. I had read some reviews on here of this product though, and knew it was supposed to be cherry blossom scented, and cherry blossom being one of my new favourite scents (I even bought a cherry blossom perfume), I had my heart set on trying it, so decided to give it a go.

This appearance of my ballistic was similar to the one pictured, however the colours were totally different. It is predominantly white with a pale pink mottled appearance and the top is covered in turquoise and dark pink salt crystals.

The name Sakura is Japanese for 'cherry blossom' and the ballistic contains fine sea salt, lemon oil, mimosa absolute, orange blossom absolute and Jasmine absolute. These combine to give a soft and gentle cherry blossom fragrance. It's very sweet, but it also has a slightly sharp edge to it which I guess comes from the lemon oil. It's not quite the same as the L'Occitane cherry blossom products that I adore, but it's still very nice all the same, and I was really looking forward to my bath.

When I put this in the bath it started to dissolve, releasing a lovely plume of fizz into the water. Ballistics don't provide bubbles, but many of them do colour the water. Because this one is mostly white there is no colour, however it did briefly make the water go cloudy.

The scent of the ballistic really came out once it was in the water. The sweet cherry blossom scent seemed much stronger than it had done when dry, and filled the room. It's a really luxurious and relaxing scent, and made for a lovely bath.

As the ballistic dissolves you can start to feel a slight change in the water. It begins to take on a very slight oiliness, though it's not so oily that it makes your skin feel greasy - this is a very subtle change, and just enough to make you feel like you're using a luxury product.

The aroma of the cherry blossom lasted for the duration of the bath and lingered on my skin for hours afterwards. My skin felt lovely and soft too, and despite having fairly dry skin I didn't moisturise that night (due to laziness more than anything!) and the next morning still woke up to find my skin was soft and supple.

A Sakura bath bomb will cost you £2.99 from Lush stores or you can also purchase online from www.lush.co.uk This is fairly pricey for just one bath, although you can, if you choose, cut this up, although I find that to be a fairly messy process, so often opt just to put the whole thing in. At the best part of £3 for a single bath, this perhaps is not the sort of product you would use on a daily basis, however it's fantastic for the occasional treat.

In terms of scent this product gets five stars from me, and again I'd give the five stars for the way it left my skin feeling. I suppose the biggest let down from Sakura for me personally, would be that as a 'bathing experience' it's nothing special. As you don't get any bubbles with the ballistics, it's nice to have something else to compensate, such as coloured water. Unfortunately this one was just a little bland in that respect, which is why I'm knocking a star off the overall rating, but on the whole if you like the smell, then it's definitely worth trying.

Summary: For a beautiful bath