Ask Me Why I'm Naked.... (Lush Therapy Massage Bar)

Member Name: katestuartuk

Product:	Lush Therapy Massage Bar
Date:	12/08/07 (1141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smells fabulous, reasonably priced, from a shop with morals and principles.

Disadvantages: You partner in massage could end up with repetitive strain injury...

Ask Me Why I’m Naked…

Lush Therapy Massage Bar


The Guilty Shopping Trip

This afternoon Himself came back from a jaunt into town to find a new job, having become unemployed at approximately 17.10hrs yesterday afternoon. Perhaps to cheer my face up, or maybe because he’s a bit sick of all the citrusy scented products I’ve become addicted to during the past 8 months or so (a strange sort of aroma-craving!), he sat down on the bed next to me where I was having my pre-baby afternoon nap (I’ll miss those when they’re gone!) and put what felt like a small oval tin into my waiting palms. With my eyes closed I went into Braille mode to try to establish exactly what I’d been given by feel, but ended up cheating and opening said tin to see if it had anything in it. When the lid came off, this amazing smell that could only mean one thing attacked my nostrils. Lush. The shop, not the Geordie slang for something great and good. Though indeed, my present is both great and good, so we’ll not split hairs over descriptions!

Such is his love and affection for me, Himself had been and spent a whole £7.90 in my favourite shop, to bring me something to calm and soothe my frayed nerves, and possibly his conscience too for being the cause of said frayed nerves. The tin was free, he told me, if he bought two massage bars, so he picked Therapy, because The Helpful Lush Lady had told him it was great for pregnant ladies, and Each Peach and Twos a Pear, because we’ve had it before and know it to be utterly divine! (Review to follow on that one too, I think!)


The Bar Which Is For Massage and For Therapy

Lush Massage bars are truly amazing creations, and if you’ve never been within a half a metre of one before then you need to 1) ask yourself why, and 2) get yourself and your secret store of 50pz down to the nearest Lush establishment for the purposes of purchasing one.

Made to look a little like fancy bars of soap, these amazing things are solid oils, butters and smells, all mixed up together for our massaging pleasure. There are about 15 different types of bar to choose from, all smelling and looking quite different from one another, but all equally divine. The thing that is so magical about them is that they are solid, as I said, like soap, but once you hold them in your hot wee hands for a few minutes, they start to melt, just enough for the oils and butters and smells to transfer to your hands or your skin, ready for massage heaven!


At Which Point Himself Arrives with a Coffee, a Mr Kipling’s Bakewell Tart and His Magic Fingers…

Somehow it’s all about Himself…he wants to be in the review, and so he shall. Though it has to be said I’m making him work for it! Currently typing and having my shoulders lovingly and thoroughly massaged…rather a pleasant experience, though I’m finding it quite difficult to hit the right keys. The smell is utterly amazing – it has an understated citrus twang (or is that just my hormones?), a hint of lavender, neroli, cocoa butter and shea butter. It’s a smell that calms me down and sucks all the stress out of me so fast, and combined with the talented massaging hands of Himself, it’s the surest road to a calm me. Himself isn’t bothered about the smell, but loves the way the bar makes my skin look – shiny, but not greasy shiny, and, in his own words, like a baby-oiled-up 80’s porn star. (Allegedly – not sure if I should take it as a complement…!) The lady in the shop said it was good for pregnant ladies, and she was so right. My baby bump has already had a massage (apparently the oils help to reduce stretch marks) and now I’ve had my back pummelled – can’t wait for my regular evening foot massage! And who said pregnancy was hard work?!!!


At Which Point Himself Wanders Off And I Am Almost Too Relaxed to Type…

Blimey, it’s amazing what a bit of massage can do. Not sure how many typos I’ll have had in the last section, but spell-check will definitely be working for it’s living this evening! There are so many benefits to massage, and it’s such an easy way to relax and calm yourself after a long day or a period of particular stress. Sometimes I think it’s as calming to do the massaging as to be massaged – and I certainly think Himself could find employment in such a trade should he ever be stuck for a job…he’s very good at it! So, on with the rest of the review….


Ingredients

“Ingredients: Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Shea Butter (Butyrospermum parkii), Perfume, Lavender Oil (Lavandula hybrida), Neroli Oil (Citrus amara), *Citral, *Geraniol, *Farnesol, *Limonene, *Linalool.
*Occurs naturally in essential oils”
This information from the Lush website – www.lush.co.uk.

Cost

One bar of this lovely stuff will set you back £3.95, which seems like a lot, but you’re paying for quality stuff that will last you ages and that isn’t packaged up to the hilt, and that’s always a good thing…

If you want a tin to keep it in, and I can highly recommend this, as in my humble opinion, dust particles in your massage experience is always a bad thing…will cost you £2.50. Or absolutely nothing if you pop into your local Lush store first thing on Monday morning and buy two of these lovely bars of solid heaven!


Availability

Buy it in a shop on the high street and carry it home, scenting the bus with the sweet perfume of serenity, or order it online and calm the senses of your Local (and probably Very Stressed Out Due to Royal Mail Strikage) Postman as it’s delivered to your door in calm perfection. However you get it into your home doesn’t really matter, all you have to think about now is getting someone to apply it, regularly. Like maybe twice a day (*hoping Someone reads this later…*)...three times a day…? All day, every day? Maybe I should run an experiment to see if it’s possible to get bored of being calmed and soothed with massage. Or try to get into the Guinness book of records for the longest ever full body massage….Hmmm, worth thinking about!


A Bit About Lush

Lush make all their stuff by hand. Which in today’s modern world of Fast and Convenience and Computers and Machinery instead of People, sounds crazy. But it’s true. They try not to use preservatives, they use fresh ingredients, they only buy in from companies who are good to the animals, and they don’t go mad on fancy packaging. This is one of the aspects I like the most (aside from the glorious smell that I’m sure they pump into the street to lure you in…) because I can buy a bar of moisturising lotion without having to buy the plastic to contain it. Same goes for shampoo. A solid bar of shampoo will cost you about a pound more than a bottle, but it will last a good six months and you don’t have to stress about the plastic contribution to environmental damage in the process.

If you happen to buy a number of items at your local Lush store, and require a bag to carry them home in (which is probably every time you visit, if you’re anything like me or Himself…!) then you can do so safe in the knowledge that your bag can be recycled or even composted. The yellow bag that Himself’s free sample came in (did I tell you about the free samples?) asks “Is there life after Lush?” – and has a lovely picture of Yellow Bag asking to be composted in your own, or someone else’s compost heap (having asked permission from the owner first, of course!). I like their ethics, their approach to business and the smell of their shop. Might see if they have any jobs going for Himself – they’re bound to do staff discount!!!


My Final Thoughts

Well it’s a bar of gloriousness that smells amazing. It feels wonderful too, and though it takes a while to be absorbed (leading of course to a longer massage…!) it makes my skin feel soft and silky and scented for ages afterwards. It’s not that expensive – to compare, I bought a tub of Mediterranean body butter from Boots a wee while ago that cost me £6.00 and didn’t last half the time that this bar lasts. The bar also comes completely naked. No fancy packaging to help George Bush on his quest to silence the world on environmental know-how. If you log onto the Lush website, you’ll be presented by a number of naked bottoms, as Lush Members of Staff got photographed in the nuddy to highlight the policy of little or no packaging on their goods. Literally. What a fantastic marketing ploy, but somehow I know it’s not just about marketing for them, because there is real belief behind it all, and that’s what gets me back for more. If you’re a Lush virgin, get yourself down to a shop, have a chat with one of the lovely staff-type people, who try all the products and really know their stuff, and do a bit of aroma/retail therapy. It’ll do you good.

Right, having just devoured a beef slice adorned potato cake (yup, pregnancy is great, you can eat such unusual things and no-one seems to care!) I’m off for my pre-bed foot rub. Aaaah.

Thank you for reading, Kate x

Summary: Highly recommended and safe for use in pregnancy.