Lushious! (Lush)

Member Name: PyrettaBlaze

Product:	Lush
Date:	16/01/08 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Products smell great and work well, good value for money, reasonably ethical

Disadvantages: Could be more ethical, keep discontinuing my favourite products!

Lush have been one of my favourite "bath stuff" companies since I was still in school and completely unable to afford their gorgeous concoctions. Just the smell of the shop puts me in fits of delight, I love the mish mash of essential oily smells and the fizzy bath bomb smell. There are a few things the company has been doing of late that makes me a little disappointed in them (mostly discontinuing my favourite products and adding new ones with more chemicals), but overall they are still my favourite place to shop!


About Lush

Lush used to be a company called "Cosmetics to go" that I am too young to remember...they were much smaller then and operated principally with mail order, and were popular with the animal rights crowd due to their strict ethics. After CTG fell to bits, Lush rose from their ashes, and soon there were Lush shops appearing everywhere. Lush try to maintain an ethical image...they hate animal testing, try to stick to natural ingredients and sell a lot of their products "naked" i.e. with little packaging...this is why they make bubble bath in solid form instead of in a bottle. Lush's tubs are all recycleable and are also made of recycled materials, and they often do bag reusing schemes...if you reuse a bag they stamp it for you and after so many reuses you get a free gift. Lush are steadily becoming less natural as time goes on and I'm worried they're going to take the route that the Body Shop did, but they are still selling gorgeous and largely natural products.


Lush's range

Lush do bath and shower stuff, with a few additions, simple as. They do a range of round bath ballistics (or bath bombs) for chucking in the bath...they fizz away whilst smelling wonderful and softening the skin. They also do a range of bubble bars that are basically solid bath foam...some, such as the Comforter and Blue Skies, are large enough to be broken up to use in several baths...in addition, if you live in a soft water area, you will get tonnes more baths from your bubble bars. The great thing about the bubble bars is that they really, really foam, unlike the pathetic bubbles you get from some products. For the avid bath fan, Lush also do a range of gorgeous soaps to scrub you up and smooth you down, a few bath melts which leave your skin lovely and moisturised, and body bars to scrub away the rough bits. For those who prefer showers, Lush do a range of shower gels as well as shower jellies and butter creams (literally shower gel in a gel form and soapy stuff which is more like a moisturiser), and a couple of shower smoothies. Lush also do goodies for hair...besides the regular shampoo and conditioner (many of the shampoos come in solid form, which is a novel experience to use, but they really lather quite well), they also do hair mask like treatments, henna for dyeing the hair, and Snake Oil, which is rank smelling but apparently the best thing in the world for dandruff. They also have a fantastic new range of hair gels, two of which have amazing names..."Goth Juice" and "King of the Mods" (Mighty Boosh fans will love this). For your facial skin Lush also do cleansers, toners and moisturisers, face masks, hand and body creams and the indulgent body butters, which are really solid moisturising blocks. In the random section, Lush do solid massage bars of cocoa butter which are wonderfully softening on the skin, lip and temple balm, dusting powder (posh talc), fragrances, shaving cream, deoderant bars and even toothpastes! They also do gorgeous gift sets ranging from £5-100, for those of you feeling very, very generous.


The shops

Lush's shops are small and very cluttered, but they have a nice natural feel to them, lots of wood and product descriptions written on blackboards...these are great as they tell you the full ingredients and the effect the product has. The smell in the shops is overpowering for some, but I just love it...a heady, incensey, soapy mix of delight...there's so many smells in it its just an impossible smell to describe, but it is just gorgeous. The staff are generally friendly and usually very knowledgeable about the product, however the arty farty image of Lush does tend to attract some right prats who work there, but then you get that everywhere. Generally Lush stuff are great fans of the products, so they know all about them, and are great at recommending things for certain problems such as dry skin, or gifts for people. They tend to be very nice and chatty too. Of course this varies from shop to shop, I find the Edinburgh Princes street staff much more pleasant than the Ocean Terminal ones (we're lucky enough to have two Lushes in our city!).


The website

Lush have an exhaustive website which is clear and easy to navigate...it has the same detailed product descriptions and ingredients lists as you will find in the shops, and clear pictures of the products which is always helpful. The checkout process is quick and easy to use. Lush also has a very large online forum of its devotees, something which personally I'm not a part of, but I hear its very good.


The products

Lush's products are absolutely amazing. A Lush bath is a lovely indulgent one which makes you feel absolutely wonderful. Even if you arent into bubbley baths, the likes of their moisturisers are fragrances are unique and wonderful. Lush gives you beautiful smooth skin if you use their facial and body moisturisers, and the smells they have are usually just beautiful...there are a few very strange smelling one, the worst one of which was a grassy smelling soap which my friend delightfully said smelt of "man juice". As I say, there are a few bad apples among their stock...I have never got the hang of the shower jellies myself, especially seeing as Lush eradicated a perfectly good and much loved line of shower gels in order to make room for them (more on that later). Lush arent as good for doing a range of smells as they used to be, they used to use a lot more pungent fragrances like cinnamon and frankincense, now most of their stock smells like sweeties, but then I like sweeties!


My top six Lush products (because I couldn't just choose five)

1. Buffy: Now simply called Buffy, it was originally "Buffy the Backside Slayer". I'm going to assume the makers of Buffy threatened to sue them. Buffy is not the nicest smelling Lush product, although not unpleasant, nor the prettiest or most indulgent. But it IS one of the best. Its a scrubby moisturising bar made from shea and cocoa butter and ground up bits to scrub away all of your rough bits...brilliant for use around your bum and legs...as they feel like silk afterwards. It is presumably a good thing to use on cellulite and generally just helps to firm up wobbly bits and make them extra smooth and soft. Buffy can work out pricey, 1 90g bar is £4.50 and will do maybe three baths, and a big one is £8.75. I wish I could afford this one every week as it works wonders!

2. Brazened Honey face mask: A gorgeous mask for fairly delicate skin, I've found, and also dull or tired looking skin. It feels quite "hot" when you apply it, apparently because of the herbs and spices in it. It has ground almonds in to provide some gentle exfoliation, and honey in to moisturise. Other face masks probably smell and look better (there are chocolate and berry scented ones), but this is the most useful for my skin type, I've found. Its gentle enough to be used on most skin types too, yet you can really feel it working thanks to the fact that its a "heating" mask. Just lovely.

3. Gorgeous moisturiser: Trust me to pick the most expensive moisturiser in the place! For the princely sum of £35 you can take home the finest moisturiser in the shop, in my opinion. Gorgeous is great for all skin types and is a lovely light moisturiser. I find quite a few Lush moisturisers make my skin greasy, but Gorgeous doesnt contain cocoa butter and so isnt nearly as bad for this. It is made up with lots of organic oils, hence the price and has a gorgeous delicate fragrance to it, slightly floral but not overpowering like a few of Lush's floral products. It is, indeed, Gorgeous.

4. American cream solid perfume: The scent of American Cream conditioner is a Lush favourite, and after they made a limited edition liquid version that was snapped up by greedy people and hawked on Ebay, I'm so glad they made a solid version. It comes in a tiny metal tin like their lip balm tins, but lasts ages...just apply with your fingers, its a cocoa-buttery solid like a lot of their products. American Cream has a gorgeous sherbety vanilla smell, sweet but not too much and very individual, and it makes a wonderful perfume. At £4.95 for a little tin that lasts forever, this is a bargain!

5. The Comforter Bubble Bar: Another sherbet sweet fragrance, this one smelling like blackberries. Turns the bath a yummy pink, creates masses of bubbles and lasts for ages as it can be broken into bits...just as well cos it costs £3.75. Great for sugar cravings I find, a bath in this sweetie smelling stuff helpls to reduce cravings and is thoroughly relaxing.

6. Butterball bath ballistic: Butterball has been a Lush ballistic for as long as I can remember using Lush...which is a testament to how good it is. It is smaller than most of the Lush bombs, and costs £1.95. It has lumps of cocoa butter in, so when it fizzes away in the water it leaves the water full of cocoa buttery goodness, meaning you come out of the bath with skin like silk. It also smells heavenly, a mild and sweet vanilla and ylang ylang smell. Mmmm.


Price

Lush can be expensive but its products usually work out good value for money. The larger bath ballistics can be broken up to be used in several baths, as can the bubble bars...but even then it may be a few quid a bath, which is expensive compared to bottled bath foam. However you find Lush's products, except for the soaps which tend to melt away very quickly, last very well. The solid perfumes and lip balms will last ages, and the moisturisers tend to be quite rich because of the cocoa butter in them, so you only need small amounts. The solid face cleansers in particular last ages. So although Lush can initially seem expensive, it works out great value for money.


Any bad bits about Lush?

Lush in their earlier days were much more natural than they are now...you see many more "red" (or synthetic) ingredients in their lists now than you used to...and one of the Christmas shower gels, Snow Fairy, was almost entirely chemical based. This is similar to the Body Shop...they started out natural and as they got bigger and richer they started using more and more chemicals in their products. You can see this in the changes in their fragrances...Lush used to do a lot larger ranges of scent, that smelled different to much of the stuff now, which smells like sweets and chocolate. It is a shame for those attracted to Lush for their ethics, but of course it is the nature of businesses to sell out as they get bigger.

Some items can work out pricey...if you use Lush soap all the time you will probably go through quite a lot of money as they disappear so quickly, similarly if you cant have a bath without a bubble bar or ballistic you will find yourself skint!

Lush care very much about animal testing but hardly seem to care about fairtrade. There is one shower gel called "The Olive Branch" which is gorgeous and uses fair trade ingredients, and perhaps a couple of other products too, but by and large Lush uses standard ingredients. I think its a real shame when companies push no animal testing policies and forget that there are people in the world who could use our help as well, and I'd like to see Lush expanding more in the way of using fairtrade ingredients too.

My main bugbear when it comes to Lush is that they are always getting rid of products. Their excuse is that they have small shops and cant stock everything, which is fair enough, but they also have a mail order site, and I dont see why they couldnt discontinue products in the shop but make them still available through mail order. They used to do a beautiful yoghurty banana soap called Banana Moon which I adored...not only that, it had therapuetic value as it always cheered me up on cold winters nights. I've been a tad annoyed with them ever since they discontinued it. Even worse, this discontinuation seems to be a sly business strategy, as they regularly have online votes on the forum where the members vote for the discontinued products they want made up again for a limited edition period. Of course the people who adored the discontinued products end up spending a fortune stocking up on their old favourites. As I've said, I dont think there's any reason why they couldnt make smaller batches of these products and sell them through mail order only, instead of disappointing the people who aren't into Lush's new policy of "Make it smell like sweeties".


Having said all this, I still love Lush and never use anything else on my face, and when I can afford it, nothing else in the bath or shower. Their products smell gorgeous and work beautifully, and as mostly they last well tend to be good value for money. Add in their ethics and Lush are a very good company to be a regular consumer of. I always get comments on how yummy I smell when I use their stuff, and my skin is always beautifully soft. If you havent tried them yet, definitely give them a go!

Summary: I love living a Lush life!