Lushious: a Lush Haul, no duh.

As mentioned, I went to Lush in Covent Garden and bought an immense amount of stuff.  Immense for me because 1) as much as I love Lush, it's quite pricey and 2) I've seen loads of other girls who literally have baskets of the stuff strewn around their rooms at home.  One day, I will be able to buy tons of bubble bars and scatter them around my room.  For now, I'm content with a bunch of stuff that will probably last me a few months.

So, here's what I've got and I'll review the ones I've tried as I go.  (It is probably creepy to some of you that I don't even need to look up the names and ingredients in most of these things.)

Top row, left to right:

1)  Comforter Bubble Bar.

What:  A beautiful swirly blackcurrant and mint-scented Bubble Bar you can have at least three baths with.  I'm all about luxurious baths and so I usually use it up in two.

How it worked:  This is a repurchase because I love the soothing blackcurrant and minty smell of this bubble bar and how it made my water a hot pink with a fruity steam coming off of it.  It also made loads of bubbles (I've finally figured out how to make the best amount of bubbles, and I'll tell you how in the annexe below) and the smell lingered quite nicely.

Will I come back for more:  YES!

2)  Each Peach Massage Bar

What: A bar that melts and gets really oily with body heat so that you can use it as a moisturiser or a massage medium.

How it worked:  Each Peach melts BEAUTIFULLY.  It melts much better than a couple of the other bars that I've tried (one being Soft Coeur) and it just goes from solid to a wonderful golden mix of scented melting butters in seconds.  So it was perfect for when I gave Shriya and Anjuly massages.

The chunk I've cut off in the picture was well enough for a half hour back and hand massage and today I used it as a moisturiser to great effect.  My one quarrel with this bar is the scent.  It's not horrible smelling, in fact, it's quite nice.  But it doesn't smell of peaches (one of my favourite smells).  It smells very lemony, a bit medicinal, almost like detergent when you do dishes in hot water.  Luckily, I enjoy that smell and there's a pleasant undercurrent of cocoa butter.  But if you don't like citrus scents, then stay well away.

Will I come back for more:  Probably, but more as a massage tool than a moisturiser.

3)  King of Skin

What: A solid body butter that works the same way as a massage bar.

How it worked:  This is a repurchase.  You're supposed to slick this on and then shower it off, but my skin is so horrendously dry that I use it as a moisturiser after the shower.  It smells wonderful, all sort of herbal and buttery and warm and it works great.

However, it's about £5 and melts quite quickly, so probably not a great every day moisturiser.  Rather, you'd get great value for money if you used it as a once-a-week pick me up.

Will I come back for more:  Yes, when my skin is nastily dry, but I would save it very carefully and not use it every day.

Second row, left to right:

1)  Twilight.  This bath bomb's name is kind of disturbing.  (I have no intention of thinking about Edward Cullen in the tub and those of you who understand what I'm talking about, I'm very sorry that you do.)  But it smells very coyly of lavender, a smell that I love, and is supposed to help you sleep.  (Any fellow insomniacs out there?)  According to the shop guy, the inside is blue so your water goes from pink to blue in a very pretty explosion. 

I don't generally like bath bombs because I enjoy bubbles, but he told me this is the foamiest bath bomb they have and you can put body wash on it to make it more bubbly.  I'll let you know.

2)  Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds Bubble Bar

What:  A bubble bar with a lovely calming incense scent.

How it worked:  It's a repurchase, so that should tell you that I love it.  I gave Dhany half a bar to try and he loved the scent as well, so it's a nice manly gift.  The scent lingers as well, and unlike some of the other bars, it smells better and nicely modulated when it has dissolved in water instead of concentrated in the bar.

Will I come back for more:  Obvs.

Bottom row, left to right:

1)  Creamy Candy Bubble Bar

What: A bar that smells like Rock Star and contains cocoa butter (the white chunk in the bar above).

How it worked:  I have mixed feelings about the bar.  I didn't like the super sweet scent at first, but it's grown on me enormously and I couldn't stop smelling it obsessively.  It's literally a very sweet, girly, candy smell.  And the cocoa butter made the water quite silky.

But.  I used half the bar for one bath and while it made quite a few bubbles, it didn't turn the water any colour and most disappointingly, the scent really dissipated.  So I lay in the bath, catching occasional, very faint whiffs of it and bizarrely, after I got out, I couldn't smell it anymore, but now, an hour after my bath, I am catching really random, dreamlike whiffs again.  So I don't know.

It'll probably work much better if you use the entire bar at once, but that makes it a not very cost effective product.

Will I come back for more:  The scent has really grown on me, so I might purchase it in the form of the Rock Star soap instead. 

2)  Glorious Mud

A very odd product that I bought for fun more than for anything and which contains sodium bicarbonate and is supposed to act as a scrub and fizz all your dead skin cells off.  Hmm.  We'll see.

So that's all the products I bought this time round.  Here's a review of one which I bought ages ago and haven't got round to putting up, in case you're curious to know how it works.

What:  Karma Bubble Bar

How it works:  The scent of this bar is outstanding.  OUT-FREAKIN-STANDING.  It's orange with an undertone of incense and it filled my whole room when I had it.  Every time I opened my Lush drawer, that's all I would smell and even when the drawer was shut, it would come to me in beautiful waves.  The smell alone, is worth the purchase if you use it to scent your room for a long time, I think.

As a bubble bar, the performance was average.  Smell dissipated somewhat in the bath, and water colour was nothing special, as you can see, though it made a good amount of bubbles (about a 1/3rd more than in the picture when it was done).

Will I come back for more:  I'm torn.  I would probably buy it very very occasionally and keep it in my clothes cupboard for ages.  I might use it more as a scent ball and then crumble it into the bath when I'm desperate.

So, to summarise, my favourite products right now would probably be the Comforter Bubble Bar, the King of Skin body butter and Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds.  (I'm also partial to Pop In The Bath Bubble Bar though it's not reviewed here.  Nice colours and great scent.)

Finally, here's the annexe I've promised you, ahem:

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE BARS

The man in the shop explained to me that the bubbles are created by water pressure beating the bars into a froth.  So if you're crumbling the bars under running water as instructed, but not getting much of a result, it's probably because your water pressure is too weak.  It's not the trickle, but the sloshing about that gets them going.

So, he told me (and demonstrated, sploshing water alllll over the floor in the process) to crumble them dry onto the floor of the bathtub and then really turn the water up, whether through the shower head or the tap.

And look:

Under a pounding stream of water, 1/2 a bubble bar gives you clouds of bubbles and the bath is only 2/3 full!  (That part in the water was artificially created to show you the non-descript colour of Creamy Candy and filled up very quickly). 

What I do is then continuously move the thick clouds of bubbles away from under the tap and swish the water around so every last crumb gets the same treatment and you should get a lovely head of froth that looks like it's been whipped.  Good luck!

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, particularly because as a Lush junkie I love reading or viewing Lush hauls, so I'm reaching out to all my fellow fanatics out there.  Recommend a product if you like!