When is chocolate good for your skin? When its in a Lush mask! (Lush Cupcake)

Member Name: LittleEwok

Product:	Lush Cupcake
Date:	05/05/05 (2305 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The smell, great for oily skin, The smell!

Disadvantages: A bit harsh for some skins, You may be tempted to eat it!

Cupcake is one of Lush’s finest products ever, I’ll wager. A cocoa butter, cocoa powder and mint mask than smells absolutely divine…like rich, dark mint chocolate, or those Options mint hot chocolate drink. The smell alone will probably make you want to eat the mask. Cupcake is designed for more oily skin, which is rather ironic! So, without further ado, here’s my guide to Cupcake…


Ingredients

Rhassoul Mud, Linseed Infusion (Linum usitatissimum), Glycerine, Talc, Cocoa Powder (Theobroma cacao), Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Fresh Mint (Mentha piperita), Sandalwood Oil (Santalum album), Vanilla Absolute (Vanilla planifolia), Spearmint Oil (Mentha viridis), Peppermint Oil (Mentha piperita), Pefume.

As is usual for Lush, most of the ingredients in this mask are of natural origin. The Rhassoul mud gives the mask its gritty texture, the cocoa butter sooths the skin, and the mint oils remove excess oil. Cupcake is suitable for vegans (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this review!).


What it looks like

Cupcake comes in a little plastic 100g tub, much like the kind you get from a deli, only stamped with Lush Fresh. Open the tub and you are confronted with a gunky, gritty looking mixture the colour of plain chocolate. It looks sort of like uncooked cake mixture with ground nuts in. It looks very edible, and when combined with the smell you may have to be physically prevented from scooping it out of the pot and eating it, but please refrain, it will do your skin much better when used correctly!

5/5


The smell

As I’ve already mentioned, Cupcake smells totally divine. It smells like rich, dark chocolate, and not the cheap Christmas tree chocolate smell that so many chocolate bath products have. It also has the strong whiff of mint, and just a touch of vanilla. All in all, it smells totally edible, so you might want to keep your children and pets away from it! Believe it or not, if you have a chocolate craving, slapping on a Cupcake mud mask for ten minutes does wonders for your willpower! Cupcake probably does smell a bit rich and sweet for certain people, and the smell can be overpowering as many Lush products are, but if you as big a chocoholic as me, you will love it!

5/5


Application

Like all Lush Fresh products, Cupcake has to be kept in the fridge (again, warn your kids that it is not edible), so its lovely and cold when applied to your skin. It has a gritty exfoliant texture from the rhassoul mud which is great for exfoliating the skin, and its fairly thick, although when left in the fridge the mask usually get a little layer of watery stuff that has to be poured off before you apply it. At first when you put the mask on you get that slight sting that tells your skin is being well and truly cleaned. I’m not used to this with Lush products, but its not TOO harsh. After letting the mask dry, leaving it from 5-10 minutes, wash it off, rubbing well to exfoliate the skin and watch as the bath water turns a disgusting shade of gritty brown. Then smell the delightful minty chocolate smell on your skin for the rest of the day!

5/5


The damage

At £4.50 for 100g, Cupcake is fairly good value as far as Lush products go. You will probably get 4-6 applications out of the tub, depending on how thickly you wear the mask, and as its more of an occasional use item than a once-a-week type mask, its fairly good value. However, like all Lush Fresh products, it does have quite a short shelf life, so make sure you use it up before it goes out of date!

The good bits

It bloody well works. Designed for younger, oilier skins, Cupcake balances and restores your skin without blasting the life out of it like synthetic products tend to do. The spearmint and peppermint remove excess oils from your face while the rhassoul mud exfoliates. The sandalwood and linseed oils soften your face to stop the oils being too harsh (as mint can be a bit tough on the skin). Your face feels beautifully clean and fresh afterwards, in the way only deep treating mud masks make them feel. If you use Cupcake every two or three days until the pot is finished, it sorts your skin out for a good while. And as already mentioned, the smell is another good selling point, it’s a chocoholics heaven! Everyone should have skin that smells like mint chocolate! The last great selling point is that Cupcake is great for oily skin, but doesn’t completely nuke it and leave it in a mess as harsher astringent masks might. Its great for occasional spot outbreaks, it both soothes them and prevents further ones. As my skin tends to be dry as opposed to oily, I just get a tub every few months to keep my skin balanced, but mostly I get it because it smells so bloody good.


The bad bits

Sadly, for us dry skinned gals, Cupcake is not the way to go. The mint in Cupcake is very drying on the skin, and thus we must be denied of our chocolatey mud mask goodness. For long term use Cupcake is also probably a bit on the harsh side, and is more aimed at teenage skins which are fairly spotty. For an occasional treat for dry skin Cupcake will do you no harm, but overuse it and you will pay the price. Sadly this means I may be reduced to buying tubs just so I can open them and smell them! Another minus point is you’ll smell so good you might have to stop people from licking your skin! And lastly, like many Lush products, it tends to leave its marks on the sink or bath if you aren’t careful to rinse after your bath!


Overall, Cupcake has become one of my fave Lush products, despite the fact that because of my skin type I’m not supposed to use it! It smells yummy and it does wonders for the skin, and its not too expensive either! Everyone should have skin that smells like chocolate!

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