Shine, shine, shine on! (Lush Ultimate Shine Shampoo Bar)

Member Name: missixty

Product:	Lush Ultimate Shine Shampoo Bar
Date:	12/08/08 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ingredients boost hair growth, shine and keep it healthy, also boost mood, good value

Disadvantages: Not overly shiny or impressive, quite a boring option

Ultimate Shine is Lush's "most wanted" shampoo bar. From the title alone you can tell why. Who doesn't want ultimate shine for their hair? Shiny hair is something every girl wants, and for this reason it is the shampoo bar I had always been most interested in trying out from Lush.

After using Hybrid in France, I was happy enough with the results, but had used most of it up, and become a little averse to the scent, those of you who have read my review of it will know why, but for most people the scent would be lovely. I decided from using Hybrid, that the solid shampoos work really well, so I decided to opt for the Ultimate Shine one for my holiday to Mexico.

As the shampoos come in solid form, it means they're not going to leak all over your clothes, and they are also more compact and lighter for taking traveling, but out last several bottles of shampoo. They seriously just last and last and last. Also if you compare the ingredients of a shampoo bar, with a regular bottle of shampoo, they will win hands down. The thing I like behind Lush products is it doesn't just say "will make hair shiny" with nothing but a bit of marketing to back it up, there's actual reasoning behind every ingredient, if Lush say it will make your hair shiny, you best believe there will be a load of shine inducing ingredients working hard to do this.

Here the shampoo is working on two things - making your hair shine, and making you and your personality shine too. Elemi Oil tones, eases any irritations or cuts and rejuvenates the scalp. At the same time it also eases nervous tension and exhaustion, allowing you to feel at peace and stress free and therefore allowing your personality to shine through.

Ylang Yland Oil is particularly good for keeping the hair shiny and along with the Elemi Oil is also great at easing any stress or nervous tension and has a euphoric effect on you. It also has aphrodisiac qualities, so is great for hooking in that guy you're after, not only through you looking amazing, your personality have been given a boost, your nerves eased, but also through it working it's own magic spell on him when he gets close enough to smell it! It has a soothing effect on the scalp and is perfect at balancing sebum production, meaning you will end up with shiny hair yes, but not greasy hair, which is the last thing you want, but often the thing you are given with many shine promising products. It also has a stimulating effect on the scalp which encourages hair growth and leaves the hair looking and feeling luxurious, healthy, and yes, shiny.
Violet Leaf Oil works on decongesting the scalp, which in itself helps keep hair shiny. It also stimulates circulation in the scalp, which again can help promote healthy hair growth. On your personality it relieves anger and anxiety, again helping the more positive side of your personality shine away.

Gardenia Extract is also calming and mood uplifting, and can ease irritability and restlessness. So whilst initially you may have just been thinking this would make your hair shine, you also get the added benefit of a bit of a mood and personality boost whilst you're washing your hair, which will set you up nicely for whichever situation it is that you want your hair and personality to shine in!

The use of Ammonium Lauryl Suflate instead of soap cleanses the hair but without roughening the cuticles in the way that soap can, which leads toa dull appearance. If the cuticles are encouraged to lie flat, then the hair appears more shiny so this works well at creating that shiny look on the surface and keeping hair controlled.

Now in all honesty, Ultimate Shine is quite a boring choice when looking at the wide range of selection of goodies available in Lush. It's a small round block, the same as all the shampoo bars, that is cream in colour. It's said to have golden sparkles in, but they are very subtle, to the point where you wouldn't really notice any unless you are looking for them. Looks wise it's a bit boring.

Picking it up to smell it won't really make you anymore excited, as it smells of, well pretty much nothing. It's a very subtle smell, not nice, not offensive, almost a non smell. This was fine for me as I was using it in conjunction with American Cream Conditioner, and that meant the smell of that could have full power over my hair, without battling it out with another strong scent. On it's own though, it is a little disappointing, but I suppose no smell is better than a bad smell.

So we've established it's boring looking, and boring smelling, so the only reason we are going for this is for the "shine" benefits.

Even when using in the shower (these are really so easy to use just rub them over your head and them shampoo/massage as normal) there isn't really a detectable smell filling the air. This is strange for Lush things. There is a mild, non scent about it. I mean you can smell something, but it smells like it doesn't smell of anything, if that makes even the slightest bit of sense!

So the big question is did this make my hair shiny. Well, it didn't make it not shiny. I have to say I'm not astounded by the results. Even with American Cream, the results were good yes, but not completely amazing, I had expected more from using the two together. My hair looked fine, good even, but not completely "wow"!

After my American Cream running out (very quickly) my Ultimate Shine looks barely touched, in fact it will probably last a very long time, months I would say. You really just need to swish it around your head a few times, even with my long hair, so you are using hardly any of it each time, and it doesn't seem to even go down in size!

The hair is definitely well cleaned, and it doesn't tend to tangle up much after shampooing. I always find a good way of recognizing how good a shampoo is is how it is after shampooing but before conditioning. With rubbish shampoos, my long hair, get's really tangled and very hard to apply conditioner too. With great shampoos there are no tangles. This is somewhere in the middle, there are some tangles but nothing to bad.

The golden sparkles, which I struggle to see even in the bar, don't adorn your hair, which I think is a good thing. I like sparkles sometime, but not in my shampoo, if I want to add glitter to my hair I will do it another way. So it's a good thing that they don't end up in your hair.

All in all I felt this was okay. I mean my hair was cleaned, it was quite a good shampoo, it certainly wasn't a bad one. It didn't leave my hair dull, lank or flat. It in fact probably did what it promised - made it shiny. I guess Lush have spoilt me before with products such as Big shampoo, and now I expect to be utterly wowed, which I wasn't by this product. I can't really say any negatives about it, but I don't feel a need to rave about it either. It did do what it said, just not to an extreme oh my gosh my hair looks amazing extent.

At £4.50 for a 55g bar it is good value. It's slightly more than your average, do no good for your hair, bottles of shampoo, but not an extreme amount more. It's a lot cheaper than salon brands that are full of chemicals and again do more bad than good for your hair. Also worth remembering is that one bar of this will outlast I would say two or three bottles of shampoo, so in the long run it works out great value. I'm happy with the results of this shampoo bar, and as an every day shampoo I would continue to use it. It keeps my hair grease I would go for something that had more "wow" factor, there are some amazing shampoos out there, but this is definitely more than satisfactory for every day use.

Summary: Not a favourite but it does the job okay