Lush Drives Me Wild! (Lush)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Lush
Date:	05/08/02 (370 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: wide variety of products, lots of different smells and colours, items cost from 95p

Disadvantages: some items are expensive, the smell in the shop might be too strong for some people

The other day, we drove from Bristol to Bath with the express purpose of spending lots of dosh at Lush! It was only the second time I had been to the shop, but I have ordered from the website several times too. I am a big fan of the Lush range, so wanted to explain to any non-converts out there all about this wonderful place and its products.

When you walk into the shop (and even before!), you are hit by a marvellous mixture of superb smells. It’s hard to define but is a heady combination of perfumes, fruity smells, herbs and spices. It can be quite over-powering if you don’t like this kind of thing, but I love it.

The shop in Bath is large and spacious, with little delights to be found in every corner and adorning every wall. It is set out in a very organised way, with soaps together, shampoo bars together and so on.

There are wicker baskets to take round with you to put your shopping in and very helpful assistants, who are friendly, very helpful but not pushy. I had a list of things I was looking for and she took me to each one. When I said I fancied trying some frozen shower gel, she opened each bottle for me to smell and described them to me. She never tried to sell me other products that weren’t on my list and answered my questions honestly.

The shop is unusual with its slabs of cheese-like delicacies, which turn out to be soaps or solid shampoos. There is a refrigerated section of tubs of strange looking goo, which are the fresh face masks and body scrubs. Then the back wall is filled with the round bath ballistics with their varied colours and bits of flowers or glitter in them. Another part of the shop shows off the bubble bar range in its beautiful colours and wonderful aromas.

Lush has a reputation of being a bit of a women’s thing, but it doesn’t need to be. Men use soaps, have baths and showers (hopefully!) and wash their hair. Admittedly, some of the products sold are pink, glit
tery and girlie and most blokes wouldn’t be impressed. But most are unisex and some are even created for men – shaving cream, King of Skin (skin conditioner) and Cosmetic lad (moisturiser) for example.

Lush is original and it works. It has a modern feel about it – it screams young and trendy, but is loved by all ages. They don’t test anything on animals, their products are vegetarian (often vegan) and they are environmentally friendly. They use natural ingredients and don’t mass-produce identical items. Chances are, your soap will be slightly different to the next one cut from the chunk.

They also have wonderful names that make you smile – Buffy the Backside Slayer (exfoliator), Angels on Bare Skin (facial cleanser), I Should Coco (coconut soap), Jumping Juniper (shampoo bar), Creamed Coconut and Almond Smoothie (skin conditioner) or the very descriptive Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds (bubble bar). Many sound good enough to eat – and smell it too!

They produce a newspaper called Lush Times, which is available in the shops or sent out to customers in the post. It is bright with lots of lovely drawings and cute photos in. This is probably the least boring catalogue you’ll ever find! When one arrives, even the kids take it off and look through it, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at all the pretty pictures.

Lush also make great gifts. In fact, that was how I became hooked as my friend, Kathryn (KathrynPenguin on Dooyoo) bought me some Lush products for my birthday. Since then, I bought her some too and have sent gifts from Lush to my Dad, Step-mum and best friend.

Everyone is bound to use something that’s available at Lush and what’s more, most of the products look gorgeous, so they make great gifts. It is probably advisable to avoid giving a novice one of the most revolting looking soaps though (Demon in the Dark or Red Rice, for example), pick the pretty ones instead.


You can easily buy a few bath ballistics and arrange them nicely in a basket to make a good present. Maybe you could buy a few soaps and place them in a box with several flannels or body puffs. The possibilities are endless really.

If you want to buy one of the Gifts sold by Lush, you will pay more but they do look nice and you can order from the website and get it sent straight to the lucky recipient. Gift packs range from a single wrapped soap for £2.45 (Red Rooster or Sea Vegetable) or a bath ballistic for £3.25 (Feel Good Flower) up to a Super Deluxe Box for £24.95 (contains dusting powder, three bath ballistics, bath melt, two bubble bars, three soaps and a massage bar).

If you are feeling especially rich, try a Big Spender at £77.45, which can be split into separate parcels to cover friends and family for Christmas, birthdays or Valentine’s Day. There is a gift-wrapping service both in the shop and online.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the individual products as you can find that out from other opinions, but I will briefly mention a few I have tried, with some comments on my experiences with them.

My favourite products are the soaps. I have bought eight different ones so far. These range from the beautiful (I Should Coco) to the ugly (Sea Vegetable). My favourite is I Should Coco which smells delightfully of coconut. I would also recommend Red Rooster (orange and cinnamon) and Bohemian (lemon), but go into the shop and choose, then you can see them, smell them and decide for yourselves!

I have tried quite a few of the hair products – Coolaulin conditioner (very effective, but expensive), Featherweight Fruit bar (very good), Ultimate Shine (disappointing), Gentle Lentil (dried my hair out a bit, but great for the kids’ hair) and my usual shampoo of choice – the brilliant, coconut-smelling Trichomania for dry hair. I have also just bought some H’Suan Wen H
ua pre-wash conditioner, but haven’t had the chance to try it yet.

The bath ballistics are rather a hit and miss affair. Many people love them and I have enjoyed most of my baths, with the Fairy Jasmine a particular favourite. But overall, thy can only be used for one bath so paying around £1-£2 a bath seems rather extravagant to me and I don’t like the dead leaves and brown petals floating in my bath. But others love them.

I prefer the bubble bar slices and have tried three or four of these, with the Blue Skies and White Fluffy Skies (patchouli) being my favourite. You crumble off a piece of these and run it under the tap for lots of silky bubbles and as they last for at least four baths each, they are good value.

I would also recommend the deodorants and have used both the Aromaco (patchouli) and T’Eo (lemon) ones with good results. The lip balms are very good too and although they cost almost £3 for 12g, the tubs last ages. Other products I have recently bought, but haven’t yet had a chance to try are the Buffy the Backside exfoliator, frozen shower gel and I have only used the Fresh Farmacy facial cleanser once so far.

Visiting the shop itself means you get to sniff the products before you buy them and in the case of many of the creams and moisturisers, you can try a sample from the open pots. I had been planning to buy some Skin Drink for my dry skin, but couldn’t justify spending £6.25 on a tiny (45g) tub! I tried a sample of the Sympathy For The Skin cream though and it made my skin really soft, so this is on my ‘to buy’ list. Selling for £6.45 but for a much more generous 240g, this is better value.

Although ordering online is easy and convenient, I would recommend you visit a Lush shop if you can. You might well change your mind about what you want, once you can actually see and smell the products in the shop.

There are some things only available in the shop (su
ch as the refrigerated fresh products and the frozen shower gel) and you can talk to the shop workers to ask them advice about the products that are best for your individual skin and hair type.

However, if you can't get to a store, then shopping online is a very good alternative. If you spend £30 or over, you don't have to pay postage and packaging either, so it's worth bulk buying once every few months or sharing an order with a friend or two.

Well, I have gone on long enough, I’m sure, so I will finish writing now. I hope I have persuaded some of you to give Lush a try. If there isn’t a shop near you, have a look at the website at www.lush.co.uk and see if there’s anything to tempt you. Believe me, the bathroom will never be dull again ;-)

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