Why didn't Princess Di get spots, then? (Lush Gorgeous Moisturiser)

Member Name: Charliewhippet

Product:	Lush Gorgeous Moisturiser
Date:	24/07/09 (268 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Uses "the finest of cold pressed natural oils," and is light for summer

Disadvantages: High price, doesn't FEEL as if it's doing anythng that amazing to your skin.

Ingredients: Orange Blossom Honey Water ,Extra Virgin Olive Oil , Stearic Acid, Cold Pressed Organic Evening Primrose Oil , Cold Pressed Organic Avocado Oil , Glycerine, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil Fresh Organic Lemon Juice Cold Pressed Wheatgerm Oil, Fresh Organic Orange Juice , Cold Pressed Grape seed Oil Fresh Pineapple Juice , Orange Flower Absolute , Neroli Oil Myrrh Resinoid , Triethanolamine,Cetearyl Alcohol, *Geraniol, *Farnesol, *Limonene,*Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Perfume, Methylparaben,Propylparaben


Price: £34.26 currently.

With my newfound love for all things Lush, I decided it was time to invest in a decent moisturiser. As I had a 10% discount voucher from one of their magazines, I figured if ever I was going to try this, their single most expensive product (except their gift boxes, obviously) it should be now.

The story is that one of the Lush recipe inventors met Princess Diana and bought the recipe for her own personal moisturiser, tweaking it slightly to use a Lushified substitute for petrolatum. Now, I have a journalist friend who once interviewed the lady herself and he (annoyingly) raved about how absolutely flawless her skin was. I would have liked to burst his bubble by pointing out that she probably also had hugely expensive makeup applied by her own personal makeup artist. But then again, your skin would have to be pretty good already to look completely perfect, so maybe there was something to this skin care lark?

So, I was somewhat surprised to get this home and find that the cream was actually watery, smelled funny and made my skin feel... rubbery? Very odd behaviour. But the smell was unusual rather than unpleasant (sort of orangey) and hey, Lush did say it was "light" and "perfect for daytime."

One annoying thing is the packaging - the little black tubs are very environmentally friendly and recycled and all that, but they are a devil to get into. My solution is to open them once and then simply rest the top on them, so they're not REALLY closed. Otherwise I would have to wrestle with it daily, at the peril of my fingernails. Obviously this renders the tub rather difficult to travel with. (And if you knock it down off the bathroom shelf, you'd better slide your face around on the floor to avoid losing £30!)

Also, perhaps there is an obvious answer to this that I am missing, but why isn't it in a pump dispenser? Another thing that has been drummed into me from reading beauty magazines is that bacteria from your fingers can breed in pots. Why design something which forces you to apply it like this?

So, my thoughts on the cream itself... I guess that when I pay through the nose for a face cream, I am USED to it being:
a) thick and creamy
b) having lots of fancy packaging and
c) being endorsed by a celebrity.

And thinking about it, what do any of those things actually mean? After all, the fact that Lush has not spent money on publicity etc means that every penny can go into buying the ingredients - unlike whichever cream is being hawked around by Hollywood's finest. (And resulting in the loss of several acres of rainforest for each boxful of meaningless paraphernalia.)

The fact that Lush is not paying anyone to publicise their products but are just letting the results speak for themselves is a pretty good sign, I think. Any time you read a glowing report in a magazine about the latest product from a big name, chances are pretty good that they are simply regurgitating a press release sent to them by said company. So, basically, if you're going to spent £35 on ANY moisturiser, it might as well be this one...

So, the results? Well, over the first few days I used it, I got spots. The big red sort that just lurk under the surface and ache when you touch them. Now, I have heard it said many times that when you change products and promptly break out, it's because your skin is detoxifying itself. Really? You mean, all these months when my skin has been fine, it's actually been breeding bacteria that were only able to break free when I used this super duper new product? I'm not sure I buy that theory... However, once this initial break out settled down, my skin did seem to actually improve, so maybe I'm just talking nonsense?

Anyway, I've been using this cream every night for about 3 weeks now. I tend not to use it in the day because it doesn't have any SPF - seriously, how can any self respecting skincare company say that a cream is "ideal for daytime" if it doesn't have SPF? They're the same ones who are always telling us to protect our skin!

And my skin is... pretty good, actually. It looks slightly more refined and has quite a nice glow about it. But isn't that what you expect from any face cream? I am in two minds about this moisturiser! I guess when a company bangs on about all the amazing essential oils, antioxidants etc, there is no way you can really test their claims without a time machine. I cannot look at my face 10 years in the future with the daily use of this and then whizz back and forth to see what I would have looked like without it. So, in conclusion... I don't know!

Summary: Probably the best ingredients you'll get for this price, without having shelled out for extra bumpf