Lush Cosmetics | I'm out of Lush! | A realistic review

The discovery
I discovered Lush Cosmetics last year (2015) around March by accident. I was walking through Ghent when a nice smell attracted my attention. I went in the shop in the Langemunt in Ghent, not really knowing what I was going for. When I saw the large range of bath bombs, I didn't know where to start. So I only took one home, the Sex bomb. Good way to start right? I was drawn to the colourful shop and the lovely product descriptions on the package. Talking to the nice girls in the shop, I also took a small Buffy body scrub bar. Let's try this stuff out!

Sex Bomb Bath Bomb - €4,95 / £3,5
Jasmine, Ylang Ylang and clary sage

First haul

Before I knew it, I was one of them... A dedicated Lushie! I roamed YouTube, Instagram and the blogging community for videos, reviews, recommandations... Only a week later, I did my first haul. I picked up another small Buffy, because I had no experience 'taking care' of a Lush product, on which I will get back to later in this post. So my first Buffy died a slow, painful dead in the shower, melting all over. Next up were three bath bombs a Dragon's Egg, Fluffy Egg (seasonal Easter) and Immaculate Eggception (seasonal Easter) Bath Bomb, a Honey I washed my hair solid shampoo bar and a piece of the Bohemain soap. A first try-out of these led to a second minus: the Eggception Bath Bomb left a HUGE bright yellow line all over our bath tub! All the color seemed to be sunken into the walls of the bath where the water ended, so off cleaning the bath I went (that's not what you want after a nice relaxing bath).

Up: Dragon's Egg Bath Bomb - €4,95 / £3,5
Lemon sherbet & a hint of Jasmine
Down: Honey I washed my hair shampoo bar €8,95 / £5,95
Toffee-scented, wild orange and bergamot oils for sofn

Buffy Body Butter €10,95 / £11,95

Bohemian Soap - €5,35 / £3,25 / 100g
Light citrus

Immaculate Eggception (yellow) & Fluffy Egg - Seasonal

Second haul

In May, I went back into Lush Ghent. I just had the urge to try more stuff + I needed a small gift for my parents. The bath bombs I picked up were: Tisty Tosty and another Dragon's Egg. The dragon's egg has been my favorite ever since, but the Tisty Tosty? Not so much. The smell was okay, but the dried flower pressed in it, became such disgusting balls of dewyness.

Tisty Tosty Bath Bomb - €4,95 / £3,5
Floral orris root rower, rose and lemon

Tisty Tosty & Dragon's Egg

I picked up two bath melts, You've got mangoed and Melted Marshmallow, which I both loved! You've got mangoed really smelled like a tropicana fruit juice, but if you have a large bath, you definitely need more than one in the bath. 

You've been Mangoed Bath Melt - €3,45 / £2
Butter of mango and avocado, oils of lemon, lemongrass & lime

The Melted Marshmallow had a sweet scent, but not like the comforter, it's more subtile, that's why I prefer it over the Comforter in the end. 

This product is replaced by the MMMelting Marshmallow Moment Bath Oil

For the hair part, I picked up I love juicy, a fluid shampoo for greasy hair and it smells like you're rubbing a banana smoothie in your hair. If it gets older, it does start to smell like overdue fruit, so better use this up quickly. 

I love Juicy Shampoo
Juiced pineapples, kiwi, mango & papaya for deeply cleasing and clarifying your hair

For the solid shampoo bars I got Jason and the Argan Oil and Brazilliant, which I both love! Jason does smell a bit like beer when you first smell in under water, but the smell gets better once you get used to it! The most important thing is that they are effective!

Jason and the Argan Oil Shampoo Bar - €8,95 / £5,95
Rose jam scented with argan oil for stronger, shinier and softer hair

Braziliant Shampoo Bar - €8,95 / £5,95
Andiroba oil and organes for shine and moisturing

Final to this haul was the Lush Spa gift set. The retro packaging immediately spoke to me and as we have some kind of small welness centre going on in our bathroom, I decided to get this for my parents. It contained some nice postcards, and five products. The products inside have changed in the meantime, but when I got it it had the Dreamtime Temple Balm, Golden Slumbers Bath Bomb, Stepping Stone Foot Scrub, Therapy Massage Bar and a solid Chocolate Scrub (I can't seem to remember the name). This box is really a hit and miss and maybe it's a good thing they changed the products inside. The box had my favorite product ever inside, the Temple Balm for ultimate snorry nights. I wish this was easier to get your hands on individually, because it's only available in the stores where they have a spa (aka nowhere in Belgium). The rest of the products inside was 'okay', not bad but not the most amazing ones either. The face mask I never even bothered to use it. Why? You have to take a pan, melt down the bar, let it cool and then put in on your face/body. Even for a hasslelover like me, this is too much.

Third haul

Yes peeps, more is to come! We're building up to an ultimate haul here! This haul was just a mix of everything I saw on the internet and that I really was drawn to to try. More Dragon's Eggs of course, because they're just my favorite ever! On the bath side of thing, I got the Comforter Bubble Bar for the first time! At this time I just got addicted, but things can turn can they? 

Bijschrift toevoegen

The Comforter Bubble Bar - €6,95 / £4,95
Cassis, blackcurrant & bergamot for an uplifting note

I got three more bubble bars the melting marshmallow (again!), the creamy candy Bubble Bar (no picture) and the Dorothy. Not really my favs, let's say I ain't missing them now they're discontinued. They really didn't make that many bubble, unlike the Comforter that takes you to foam heaven! 

Dorothy Bubble Bar has been discontinued

Two new Bath Bomns to try out: Sakura and Fizz Banger! And I love love love the Fizz Banger! The smell is so refreshing and it goes out with a BANG! 

Fizz Banger Bath Bomb - €4,95 / £3,50
Citrussy apple, cinnamon and ylang ylang for relaxation

Sakura? Not so much, just not fan of the smell I guess.

Sakura Bath Bomb - €4,95 / £3,50
Calming mimosa, jasmine oils, orange flower and lemon oil

Another one of my favourite products was the Marilyn hair mask. Yes, WAS because it's also discontinued by now. If you were living the blonde life or platinum or grey, they was the ultimate hair mask! It made your hair so nourished and the color really vibrant! But anyway, not anymore because it's gone in the puddle of discontinued lovely products. 

Also hairwise I got the Sea Spray for texturizing and volume. I love this product, but for my hairtype, it's a bit too strong. My dad on the other hand, he loves to use it as like a spraytype gel to style his hair.

The Dream Cream entered my life and I honestly do love it, but (hellow contradiction) I gave it away to a friend. The tub is just so big and I only use it when I have like redness or eczema, but my friend really loved it a an everyday whole body moisturizer, so I gave it to him. I was so much a fan of smelling like a Lavender plant all day.

Dream Cream Hand- & Body Lotion - €19,95 / £12,50
Oat milk, rose water, chamomile blue oil and lavender for calming down irritated skin

This trip I was surprised with a little gift. I was talking and discussing with the girls at Lush and in the end they gave me a large bottle It's Raining Men shower gel for free! It was such a sweet thing to do!

It's raining men - Price depending on size of the bottle
Honey, bergamot and wild orange oils

Fourth haul

This smallish haul was the last haul I did in Belgium (hint hint!). The result of another urge to try more new stuff. The Happy Hippy Shower Gel must be my favorite shower gel of the bunch! It's just so fresh and does what it says: wakes you up in the morning! I especially love it in the summer when it's hot outside, the freshness of the grapefruit inside helps cool down your body.

Happy Hippy - Price depending on bottle size
Pink grapefruit and frankincenze oil

My first two skincare items I intentionally picked up: the Vanishing Cream and the Tea Tree Water. Both of the products I loved when I just got them, but unfortunately, I got allergic to the Vanishing Cream. Also I most say that for me personally it's very hard to wear a face moisturiser that smells so strong. I'm really sensitive to smell and easily get headache when I smell something too strong or too long, so not the best choice for me. If you have dry skin, I wouldn't advice getting the Tea Tree Water either. I love the freshness of it in summer, but it really dried my skin out, which is not the best thing in autumn/winter. It really really supposed to be a toner, so I can't really pull it of just spraying it as a 'refresher'.

I picked up another solid shampoo bar, the Jumpy Juniper. And I also love it, I finished it in one go, but due to my change in hair color, I didn't pick it up again.

Last but not least, I picked up the Gay is OK amour soap. I love the smell and I loved the fact that the money went to charity, but due to glitter overload, it's still lying around untouched in the bathroom

The Ultimate Haul

Here it is the ultimate end to this list of hauls. In August, I went to London with my dad. And having turned into a major Lushie and following the grand opening of the big Oxford Street store and their exclusive products online, a visit was due. OMG, this shop is heaven, but OMG auwtsch my bank account. I spend so much money in there and I just finished the stuff now (4 months later). I tried to stick to just the exclusive products in this haul sooooooo... Let's jump in!

Bath Bombs & Bubble Bars
This is the main part of this haul! Stepping into Lush Oxford Street was bathing heaven! First I picked up the Frozen Bath Bomb, because I mean, IT'S FROZEN! I loved the smell of this one as a twinny to the Happy Hippy Shower Gel, but the bath after is a huge mess! There's a much glitter in this bath bomb the whole bath is covered in icey white powdered glitter.

The Ickle Baby Bot is actually a Bath Ballistic and is a little sleepinduced baby robot.. This is definitely one of the thing that if you have a big bath, you might better pop in two at the same time.

The Butter Ball. I love love love this little nourisishing ball of loveliness. Same goes as the ickle bot, big bath = use more than one 

The Milky Bath Bubble Bar smelled like orange oil and was very nourishing on the skin, but unfortunately not my fav. It did not create any bubbles, but it did turn the water silky and it really made you feel like you were bathing in milk.

Skydancer Bath Bomb, I mean fav fav fav! I wish we had this here in Belgium because I love love love it!

The Experimenter. Sigh. I mean, I'm not a negativity spreader, but this was the worst bath bomb ever! I do not get at all why this is so hyped on the internet. It turns your water a disgusting kind of grey and it does smell like cigarette ashes. This was really a no go for me! I would've rather emptied my bath again and get fresh water than stepping in this. NO NO NO!

Avobath Bath Ballistic. I kept this one till one of last ones, because I was not sure if I'd like it. Procrastination goals! In the end, I loved it, but do not use this one in an evening, because it really wakes you up and gives you loads of energy

Intergalactic Bath Bomb! Win! I loved this bath bomb! I felt like stepping into a galactic galaxy with the right amount of sparkles and deep blue/purple color.

Karma Bubble Bar. Yet again, not a favorite of mine. It seems that I do not like anything to do with patchoulli. The consistency is very soft too, so you can barely hold it, so you have to place it somewhere and never pick it up again before you use it. I did like the colors it made my bath.

Sacred Lotus Bath Bomb, Oops. Did really did not do anything! It was also already broken before I got home with it, so just NO

The next three reusable Bubble Bars are the bomb! All of these are amazing! You can put them in your bath in one go or as the name says reuse them, but the shape and smell doesn't stay the same in my opinion. So I'd say, be crazy and pop the whole thing in! Live a little!

Others
I picked up another two Massage Bars and I literally don't know why. The ones I already had I never used, because they are such a mess to use. They melt at body temperature, so they get all over your hands and places where you don't want them to go. I know, body lotion also gets on your hands, but it's not handy because you're still holding a solid thing in your hands while moisturising. Honestly, these are also still lying around untouched in the bathroom

The last four products were kinda skin care. One is my absolute fav, the other three not so much. Let's get the least favorites over with to stay positive. First the Cup O'Coffee Exfoliating Face Mask, which I loved at first. But after a few uses, it did not do it for me. It left my skin irritated and drier than ever before, also the chunks of coffee beans are just to big and very harsh on the skin. 

Second, the Comforter Shower Gel. No! The smell is sickly sweet and it's just too much. It's actually made me turn away from the smell complete and de-fanned me from the Bubble Bar unfortunately.

Third not so loved product, is the Life's a Beach body scrub. I got it in the retro cardboard (!) packaging. I do love the vanilla smell, which is amazing, but so many but's made it a no-go for me. The cardboard packaging is so hard to work with. You obviously cannot leave it in the shower because the water really sinks into it and turn the packaging just gross, same goes if you are in the bath, you can barely touch it with wet hands. Also packaging wise, the hole where the product comes out is very badly placed and the product spill everywhere. Talking about spilling everywhere, this is my last issue with this product. When trying to put it on your body, the sandy texture makes the product fall out everywhere! I feel you waste a lot of product by fall out and if you use it in the bath, it very uncomfortable as the sand stay on the bottom and scratches everywhere.

The product that I do fangirl all over is the D'Fluff Shaving Foam. The texture is amazing, the smell is great and it's very effective. Most shaving foams turn my skin red after a few days, but this is very gently on the skin!

The End
So finishing of most of these products, it made me decide to take a little break from Lush. I used so many products and tried so many that I have enough for now. I had so much stuff lying around that I almost felt forced to use them up, which was all my own fault for buying so much at once. So if I now want to treat myself, I will go and grab one or two and really enjoy using them!


Conclusions
Generally, I must say that the bath bomb are the best products from Lush (in my opinion). Second up are the shampoos and shampoo bars.

But the products also have a few downsides, which are bases on my own preferences

• The Shower Gels and Shampoos in bottles start to look a bit disgusting after a while. I feel like the components start seperating after a while and this made me not want to put this on my hair or body
• The Clean Up after using. I mean who wants to start cleaning the bath after you're all relaxed from having a bath? This goes along with the third point here: WHY SO MUCH GLITTER?! You can obviously not leave this lying in your bath, so you have to clean this up before it dries out, because once dry it's even harder to remove
• WHY SO MUCH GLITTER. Lately, I feel like Lush puts so much glitter in all bath bombs. It's cool and stuff, but sometimes it's just too much and make you want to take a shower to rince it all off. And all gets lets behind on the bottom on your bath.
• I like to keep my stuff where I can see it, so I keep my Lush stuff all spread out in our bathroom. And maybe it's my own fault again, but I feel like the smell fades and if you leave different things together, they start to smell the same.
• Hard the use consistencies. Especially the massage bars, because they melt at body temperature, they slide all around in your hand while moisturizing and fall out of your hand etc,
• Difficult packaging. Life's a beach Scrub, not doing the rant all over :D
• You cannot just keep the products where you need them, like the shower, because they need some kind of maintainance. For example the scrub and shampoo bars, you have to take them out of the shower (wet environment) everything you use them and let them dry EVERY TIME or they just melt.

Ultimate tip for bubble bars!
At first using bubble bars, I was complaining about not getting enough bubbles to my expectation. At Lush they usually say crumble it under a running tap, but this really didn't do it for me. So my favorite thing to do is to put the bubble bar or part of it in a strainer and keep it under the tap like that. I feel like the water gets into the product more that way and creates more bubbles.

Favourites (likey to go and pick up now!)
- Dragon's Egg Bath Bomb
- You've been mangoed Bath Melt
- Fizzbanger Bath Bomb
- Frozen Bath Bomb
- Butterball Bath Ballistic
- Intergalactic Bath Bomb
- Pink Flamingo - Little Dragon and Cherry Blossom reusable Bubble Bar
- D'Fluff
- Marilyn Hair Mask: bring it back please

Regrets / not buying again
- the Experimenter Bath Bomb
- Life's a Beach scrub
- Massage Bars
- Karma Bubble Bar

Click on the flamingo for more product photos
 

I hope you enjoyed this long review and please let me know in the comments which products are your most and least favorites!

Xx
Gaëtane

All opinions in this review are my own. Prices mentioned may have changed in the meantime or products might be discontinued.