Gentle cleansing for soft, smooth skin (Lush Ultrabland)

Member Name: PyrettaBlaze

Product:	Lush Ultrabland
Date:	22/01/08 (206 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gentle, mild ingredients, good value for money, leaves the skin very soft

Disadvantages: None!

Ultrabland may look and smell, well, fairly bland but it is one of Lush's finest cleansers as well being great value for money. A it's a gentle and thorough cleanser that doesnt strip the skin and makes it feel lovely and smooth. So without further ado, here's my ode to Lush's finest (or one of the finest) skincare products.


The ingredients

Peanut Oil (Arachis hypogaea) , Rose Water (Rosa centifolia) , Beeswax (Cera alba) , Honey (Mel) , Fresh Iris Extract (Iris florentina) , Glycerine , Rose Absolute (Rosa centifolia) , Tincture of Benzoin (Styrax benzoin) , Sodium Borate , Methylparaben , Propylparaben

Peanut oil and beeswax make this quite a rich moisturiser, perhaps one to avoid if your skin is quite oily already. Rose and benzoin are great for softening the skin, as is honey.


The packaging

Ultrabland comes in a simple black tub with a screw top lid. Lush's packaging is simplistic and attractive as well as functional...the little tubs stack neatly on top of one another in your bathroom. The writing is white which provides a nice contrast, and as usual Lush print a full ingredients list and a best before date on the tub. One of the things with Lush products in tubs however is that they all look the same...although the uniform look is very smart looking in the shop and your bathroom, it means that if you have a load of products you may have to do some label sifting before you find the one you want to use! The great thing about Lush packaging is that it is both recycled and recycleable, just wash it out and toss it in with your plastic recycleables!


How to use

Take a squidge Ultrabland, dot it over your face and massage in well. This is quite a rich moisturiser so you will need a damp cotton wool ball to take it off. Although I find if you use muslin cloths instead it makes the skin even smoother!


The product

Ultrabland is an inoffensive looking and smelling product, it looks much less like a mud bath than a lot of Lush facial products, being a simple off-white coloured cream with a smooth texture, although some batches seem to have a slightly grainy feel. I can barely detect a smell at all, its a mild slightly floral honey-ish scent. The product glides on smoothly. One word of warning is to go easy on the amount of Ultrabland you use, it is quite a rich waxy cleanser and if you apply loads you will have shiny-face all day! As long as you dont overapply, the product comes off well too.


The results

I have never used such a gentle cleanser on my face. People seem to have the idea that if they arent using a toxic chemical that strips the natural oils from the skin, their skin isn't being cleaned properly...Ultrabland disproves that. Just take a look at a cotton wool pad after using it to see how well it works...like strong chemical products, you will see black dirty stuff on the pad, only Ultrabland works just as well without the abrasive chemicals. The result is beautifully smooth and soft skin before you even touch the moisturiser! Your face wont sting, neither will it smell like a disinfectant factory, but it will be beautifully clean!

I have never been particularly prone to spots, so I cannot comment on how good it is for this, but I can tell you my skin looks beautifully fresh, bright and clean looking since I started using this product.

Because it is wax based, I suppose if you were prone to spots or oily skin in the first place, this probably wouldnt be your first port of call in a Lush product, but for normal or combination skin, or especially for dry skin, Ultrabland works a treat.


The damage

A 45g pot of Ultrabland costs £5.50, and there are new 100g pots for £8.95, which works out cheaper in the long run. This might seem quite a lot when you see the tiny size of the Lush pots, however this products lasts for ages, as you only need a tiny dollop twice a day...if you go overboard with the stuff obviously you will go through it quicker, but I probably go through a small pot of this in about three months, which means the large pot would last over six months...that would be me spending just under £18 a year on cleanser, which isn't bad at all, especially for such an effective product (they could charge twice as much and I'd still buy it!)


The chemicals and natural products included in cleansers now are baffling...fruit acids, butters and oils, exfoliants, blah blah blah. If you want to keep it simple, I can recommend nothing better than this beautifully effective and gentle cleanser from Lush. It might not be the most exciting product they sell, and it certainly has one of the most boring names, but the fact that it is one of their most popular skincare products speaks for itself...it doesnt need bells and whistle, because it works!

Summary: Bland it may be, but your skin certainly will not be after using it!