Tempt me to the Tropics! (Lush Tropical Showers)

Member Name: sweetpea01

Product:	Lush Tropical Showers
Date:	17/06/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great gift with loads of goodies

Disadvantages: Not available in the UK

For whatever reason recently I have been driven to review Lush gifts. I was surprised to see in the extensive Lush catalogue on Dooyoo that there were only a handful of gifts that had been suggested and reviewed. Maybe my surprise is purely down to me being a complete Lush obsessive and the fact that I don't normally rave about receiving most toiletry gift sets but when I receive a Lush one or even buy it they tend to be pretty spectacular! Or maybe that is just me!!

Tropical Showers is not available in the UK for some reason but is generally available in a lot of stores in other countries such as Finland, Spain, Italy and Estonia etc. I bought mine in Germany last year when I was spending a few weeks in Munich with Mr Sweetpea at his sister's apartment. The only reason why I bought it was that I'd never seen it before and fancied trying it. Fortunately his sister is a huge fan of Lush so we bought it together and had a great girly weekend!

Tropical Showers comes in the most...well...tropical coloured cardboard box! The pattern reminds you of something you might see on a pair of Ripcurl shorts which will be destined for Hawaii! The wonderful colours of pink, yellow, green, blue and orange all create a very summery feel and is then finished off with a bow of course!

Tropical Showers contains:- I Should Coco, Sexy Peel, Sandstone, Happy Hippy, Lempslip, Squeaky Green, Buffy, Each Peach (and Two's a Pair) and Jungle Conditioner

I Should Coco:-

In the summer of 2001, Lush launched I Should Coco Soap, created with the same basic recipe as the Quinquereme, but now looking like a fancy coconut crème dessert found only at the finest French patisseries. I Should Coco not only shares the rich creaminess of Quinquereme of Ninevah, but it is additionally packed with pink desiccated coconut to give even the most sensitive of skin types the gentlest, richest, most moisturising of body exfoliations.

Even better, you're generally guaranteed to get quite a few scrubby showers from a single slice, making it one of the more cost effective exfoliating soaps on the market. Though its skin care properties are nothing short of awesome as coconut nourishes and orange oil tones the skin to extremes generally provided solely by luxury spas (at fifty times the cost), you'll likely note that something is awry with the fragrance.

While I Should Coco looks like a dessert, and while it has the potential of smelling like a dessert, Lush now adds coriander and vetivert to their traditional coconut soap recipe. Clearly, Lush added these ingredients for their healthful properties; coriander is a fabulous deodoriser and detoxifier, while vetivert tonifies the circulatory system and strengthens connective tissue. And both are also stimulants for the mind, banishing lethargy while promoting inner peace. One could credibly argue that these are wonderful supplemental benefits for any exfoliating soap! Problem is, these grassy, earthy scents lend a musty, damp top note to I Should Coco's otherwise
toothsome aroma.

Sexy Peel:-

Created by the great Wesley at Lush UK, Sexy Peel recaptures the fragrance of Lush's discontinued Back for Breakfast Shower Gel. Yet thanks to Wesley's brilliance, he somehow managed to vastly improve upon a classic! Topped with bits of lemon, grapefruit, and lime peel, Sexy Peel has a sweeter, "juicier" fragrance than Back for Breakfast. This is because Wesley subtracted quite a bit of Back For Breakfast's lip-puckeringly astringent grapefruit juice and oil, removed just a dash of equally sharp lemon juice and lemon oil, and to replace the subtractions, he upped the quantity of lime juice and lime oil, while also giving the sweet, secret perfume ingredient a bit more kick.

The result is a deep-cleansing soap that trades in a detox diet's recommended brekkie of half a grapefruit washed down with a glass of lemon juice for a far more decadent double dessert of lemon meringue and key lime pie. With this extra moisture comes quite a bit of extra fun to be had in smooshing Sexy Peel onto your skin, in effect showering in a sea of freshly squeezed juices and fruit cream, with peel taking on the appearance of pulp. Sadly, though, while Sexy Peel contains more moisture than most of Lush's soaps, it also somehow loses its moisture all the more quickly, though it does well to retain its scent, the wicked irony is that within a few weeks of its being made in Lush's kitchen, that which was once softer than soap can suddenly become harder than fossilised stone.

Sandstone:-

The soap itself looks like a hunk of lemony goodness with a thick layer of sand on it. It is a brick of mostly natural, handmade lemon soap with a thick topping of real hard packed sand to cleanse and exfoliate the skin. I love it although many would question why I would want to shower with sand! The scent is what got me. It is sublime. It is a pure lemon scent much like Lush Sexy Peel Soap but even stronger and purer. I love natural lemon scents so I immediately loved this soap even before I used it. I couldn't stop sniffing it. When I first unwrapped this soap I knew I was in for it ... It smelled like lemonade. Lush soaps can smell very unique, and they are nothing if not "scent worthy"

The sand side is very interesting as well. It's a fine grained sand, and actual, well, sand. It's sort of hard to describe - it stays together on the bar, and sort of rubs off in fine grains on the areas you rub it over. It rinses clean off my body and the areas feel softer. It doesn't come off in hunks or crumble (like I'd worried about) and it doesn't destroy or do anything to the bar - it sort of wears away over time as the soap portion would. The sand is an exfoliant so it is abrasive ... but I think that if you are used to using a scrub your skin would not be sensitive to this.

I love this scent. I think about this scent all the time now. I try and find ways to sneak in showers so I can smell the soap. It's that good to me. I get no earthy or other notes - all I can think about is fresh squeezed lemonade. So on scent alone I'd probably purchase this soap over and over again.

Happy Hippy:-

A delicious concoction of pink grapefruit juice and grapefruit water, the acidic, soured edge of this fruit is softened with bergamot oil from the fruit peel of Italian bergamia oranges (which are literally a cross between pear lemons and Seville oranges) and gently sweetened with astringent frankincense (also known as olibanum) which adds a rich balsamic air.

This combination of oils make Happy Hippy a scrumptious eye-opener of a morning use shower gel, far better than the lemon scented Back For Breakfast Shower Gel that it replaced, with a far more complex fragrance to boot. Meant to also double as a shampoo (as is the case with all of Lush's Shower Gels bar for Skinny Dip which is actually a specially categorised skin conditioning gel), it can be a bit drying for all but oily hair. Grapefruit is excellent for adding shine to dull locks, but it's also quite a hefty antiseptic, most commonly used in products for oily skin thanks to its potent enzymatic action.

And though Happy Hippy will leave its delicate perfume in your squeaky clean hair, the downside to is that it generally leaves little trace of itself on your skin, which is a real shame considering its tension relieving, rejuvenating, centering aroma therapeutic powers could otherwise have made a positive impact that lasted far longer than the stream of water from your shower head.

Lemslip:-

When you first smell Lemslip Buttercream (which smells exactly like Lemony Flutter cuticle butter), you want to love it. You hope you'll love it. Then your hands make contact with Lemslip in its room temperature state. Now you need to love it. Yes, they say you can freeze or refrigerate Lush's Buttercreams, but why do any such thing to Lemslip when it would alter its decadently rich, thick lemon cream texture, all in what appears to be a gorgeous slice of mousse cake complete with little bits of candied orange and lemon sprinkled on top?

Crafted of only 20% soap and 80% skin conditioning oils, Lemslip has a buttery consistency, intended to supply you with only the mildest lather. Yet while Lemslip both feels and smells wonderful in the shower, its lemon pie aroma leaves positively no scent on the skin. So enjoy its scrumptious fragrance while you can in the shower, because you can't take it with you.

Squeaky Green:-

A Lush innovation! Even though my scalp is not really sensitive nor do I have dandruff I had to try this new solid shampoo bar from Lush called Squeaky Green. Why? Because it's Lush, of course and the fact that it came in this wonderful gift set! So even though I needed another shampoo like a hole in the head, I had to try it out!

This wonderful economic, eco-friendly shampoo bar is 100% sodium lauryl sulfate-free (SLS) and is purely designed for sensitive scalps and for people who suffer with dandruff. It contains peppermint which stimulates growth while the added tea tree and rosemary help reduce the flakey dandruff. And it's fabulously fragranced with our refreshing Go Green scent As I don't have sensitive scalp or dandruff issues I cannot say whether Squeaky Green helps clear up those conditions, but it did cleanse my hair well and rinsed away easily. A separate conditioner is necessary though as it left my long hair squeaky clean and a bit tangly.

Each Peach:-

You find yourself looking for hidden fruits in this Massage Bar by way of its name alone. It doesn't smell like a peach. It doesn't smell like a pear. In fact, if you look closely, you'll find almost every fruit except peaches and pears! And as much as you might like peaches and pears, we won't hear you complaining, I can assure you. With skin restorative cocoa, shea, and avocado butters combined with mood and circulation restorative Persian lime, red grapefruit, sweet orange and mandarin, what you have here is a Massage Bar that also makes an excellent Body Butter treatment in the shower.

Packed with natural skin toners, you can either be a traditionalist and have someone butter you up (pun intended) or you can massage this bar onto your skin in the shower and follow it up with a blast of toning cold water to remove excess oils and leave your skin and brain in their perkiest state ever.

One of Lush's two best "mood" massage bars, it's packed with anti-depressant essential oils, their soft, sweet, fruit dessert fragrance (topped with an aromatic dollop of cream) guaranteed to gently open your eyes, clear your head, and banish lethargy and fatigue. All this and looks, too; the lemon crème coloured Each Peach & Two's A Pear bears a beautiful etching of fragile fruit flowers blossoming on sprawling tree branches.

Buffy:-

Lush decided to go for broke with this body scrub; where most of Lush's scrubs contain one exfoliating ingredient, Buffy contains three: ground rice, almonds, and aduki beans. And all of this is set off with the gorgeous fragrance of calming, rebalancing lavender and rejuvenating, toning lemon oil. After a scrub with this spa day in a bar, slackening skin is firmed, stretch marks and cellulite feel smoothed, the most horridly dry, hardened heels are softened, and all of these effects stay with you for several days as opposed to being a simple flash in the pan.

To use Buffy, shower with regular soap (remember that Buffy isn't a soap, it's a conditioning treatment), rinse, then rub this body butter all over, focusing on areas which are plagued by dryness, cellulite, or slackening. Rinse thoroughly to remove the exfoliating grains, pat dry with a fluffy towel, and don't even think about applying a body lotion, as Buffy already did the work for you (and then some).


Jungle Conditioner:-

This rectangular shaped block of sea green solid conditioner is meant to tame manes and leave it manageable and smooth all day long. What a promise! Would it actually live up to its description? Yep, the scent was a winner, but how did it work was the real question. The fact that its wonderful tropical scent is always a bonus, I cant stand conditioners which have a real chemical smell to them however this is...well...tropical!

Lush recommend that all you need to do is wet the hair and after shampooing to slide the bar down the length of your hair. Simple! Unfortunately readers nothing really happens and after applying it several times there was no moisturisation no tangle free soft hair, just green goo sticking to my hair. After rinsing you are left with knotty hair which worse of all feels unwashed and you will have to start all over again.

Why I thought a bar would work magic is beyond me, sometimes we make stupid choices; we all do, and the fact that Lush put this into a wonderful gift box is their stupid choice!

Overall this is a gift that if you can find it then buy it! Despite a number of dud products the general feel is that the rest of the items are great! Given as a gift the receiver is bound to enjoy it especially if it is there first Lush experience!

Summary: Some you like....some you dont!