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Lush Boy

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:04 / 11.03.04

Those of you who know me can guess who was responsible for setting this off, but I have developed an obsession with Lush. Part of it is the way the range of varieties of products calls out to the geek in me - gotta catch 'em all!

The Bath Ballistics were the first things to get my attention, just cuz of the way they fizz and propel themselves around the bath - I have fallen in love with the Big Blue, which turns your water an amazing colour and leaves the bathroom, the towels and your skin smelling of the sea in the best possible way.

The other big selling point is just how tasty all their products look and smell. In particular, I cannot believe that the Ma Bar is not edible - it smells like food, like chocolate and toffee - and even though I know it's bubble bath, the temptation to take a bite is unspeakable:

(Props to missy from this very board on whose journal I first saw a picture of this wondrous item.)

And the soap! Huge slabs of the stuff, amazing colours and textures, so rough-hewn and chunky and rock. You get ones with weird bits of grassy moss or seaweed growing on them and they cut you off a chunk and wrap it up in crispy paper, like it was cheese or fudge...

So, anymore Lush boys or girls in here?

20:09 / 11.03.04

I like the stuff in individual blocks, but the smell of the shop makes me stop breathing. Which makes shopping there a very fast experience - if there's a queue, i'm going to die.

20:17 / 11.03.04

Oh, I totally agree with you Flyboy.

One of the things I love about Lush is that they tell you who made each product and when. I really like knowing that Josie made my bath bomb three days ago, it makes it feel really hand-made and natural. And the yellow kids bath block which is meant to make them wind down and go to sleep more easily is spectacularly excellent.

And I really like the fact that you can design a picture for a bath bomb tube and they use it. I haven't done one yet, but it's on my list...

20:21 / 11.03.04

Just looking at their site - I'm going to have to go there tomorrow! I do fancy the Big Blue, cheers for the recommendation.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

20:30 / 11.03.04

*snort*

Flyboy's like a .... girl!

20:45 / 11.03.04

Lush does indeed rock. Their stuff is just so good...it's like a small (depending on how big a piece you buy of course) slice of hedonism in your soap dish. *swoon*

20:52 / 11.03.04

I don't see this as feminine. This is what many guys have wanted all their lives - bath products that smell like food. That seems masculine enough to me. Maybe they'll introduce a soap that smells like pizza next.

20:55 / 11.03.04

I actually can't live my life without Lush. It is entirely ridiculous. If I don't have an emergency Floating Island on hand for panic attacks, and an emergency Softie for depression/PMT, I start fretting.

Have you had a Rainbow Worrier yet, Fly? And the new Bertie soap is gorgeous, though I have Figs and Leaves for everyday and Middle Earth Turns To Rock for squishiness and Rock Star for psyching myself up for teaching.

The scary thing with Lush, though, is that (as Naomi Klein points out), they are like the uberbrand. They have a genuine fandom, as well: the discussions on the Lush Forum are structurally similar to other fan boards.

And pish and tush. Using Lush doesn't make you girly at all. I call myself to the stand as first witness, freshly bathed in Prince Bubble Bar and Bertie soap and scented with Cosmetic Lad moisturizer/hair spiker.

20:57 / 11.03.04

On the downside, they have discontinued the three products that I used most regularly to regulate my moods and make my life livable: Psychodelic (for anxiety), Aura Suavis (for period pain/clumsiness/PMT etc) and Flying Saucers (for being really pissed off). Bastards.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:11 / 11.03.04

Cosmetic lad is the moisturiser of the gods - I only regret that I will have to stop using it soon, as the sun will return and for all its many virtues it has no SPF. Which sucks. Lush shampoo and conditioners are also godly. I've never really got the hang of their soap, although I do love it dearly in the shop, but I think that's just because I don't really get soap - always goes so thin and sad...

22:30 / 11.03.04

Likewise, I much prefer showel gel or anything thats bottled and you can be pretty sure someone else hasnt rubbed it on their arse and put it back.

I had some citrussy Lush showel gel a while ago, and it was oooh so yummy-tasting. Anything with pink grapefruitty smell is good- I took pink grapefruit shower gel to Lisbon last year, and this week, washing the dishes, I wondered why I was suddenly reminded of communal showers and blissful sunshine. Washing up liquid, alas.

00:13 / 12.03.04

Nope, they've lost me now. Shop listings from the website:

ENGLAND
ABERDEEN - 81 Union St Aberdeen, AB11 6BD T: 01224 59266

The Return Of Rothkoid

02:37 / 12.03.04

Yep, from way back. Their foot treatment is fabulous if you have crappy heels, and makes your socks smell like christmas.

Additionally, the soap they do that's lemony, and the one with big hunks of salt in it are both great.

04:31 / 12.03.04

As a lover of the bath ritual I can't believe I haven't got some of this lush stuff! It sounds marvellous. Me going to the shop on Brunswick St tomorrow!!!

Lilly Nowhere Late

06:12 / 12.03.04

Has anyone here applied yet for a job in the product description department? I have an on again/off again affair with Lush. I like it that you can smell their shops from at least a block away but I too get kind of sneezy and short of breath while waiting in till lines. Plus, I don't know anything about their ethics and so I wonder.... In my shop I stock M.O.P. which on the other hand are the only product line in the world with all certified organic ingredients and their fairtrade, eco friendly production, fair pay ethics are second to none. And that's with all the beautiful smells and stuff to boot. Their pear shampoo, detangler and body products smell like heaven and make people want to eat you. Which is admittedly a bit annoying in some situations.

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

07:55 / 12.03.04

Pretenders. I knew them back when they were still Cosmetics to Go...

But yes, have been rabid fan for the better part of a decade now. As an avowed floralscentphobic, the edible thang make me ver' ver' pleased. Personal favourites: Floating Island and The Sicilian (citrus ballistic) are guaranteed relaxed bath joy, their eye creams are one of the few I can use without turning into John Merrick, and the scrubbly soaps (Figs and Leaves, Sandstone)make me smoooooth. Also Skinny Dip - yum.

The only irritating thing is, as Deva said, that they discontinue lots of good stuff. Anyone remember Pleasure Dough? A big herbal bubble bath slice that smelt like rolling around in cut grass. And now its gone.

07:58 / 12.03.04

We can't have Lush in our house because Mrs Sax suffers from eczema and they just don't do for her. So it's just the ass's milk and rose petals, I'm afraid.

Ex

08:53 / 12.03.04

Pretenders. I knew them back when they were still Cosmetics to Go...

Ah yes, but did you visit the Cosmetics To Go bankruptcy warehouse sale? Ginger soap - 50p! Bath bombs - 5 for a pound! Chocolate Bath Sauce - £2 for a five litre bottle! I'm still working my way through my dusty stockpile; in the interrim, the creative team resurrected itself, created an international uberbrand and (I hear) have just bought back the rights to the old CTG products. Hurrah for the plucky underdog! Why is my soap so old!
It's so a fandom.
Discontinued products I look forward to enjoying if Lush have bought back the rights and recipes, or otherwise in the afterlife: fresh strawberry and ginger body scrub - so healthy! So abrasive!. Rose body mousse (plaster all over self and sink into bath making soft fizzing sound like exhaled gentle sigh - so decadent! So luxurious! (Don't you love how two almost-identical products that I slap on my pasty flanks to make them bendable can produce such a range of contradictory associations?). And supercaliformulisticexportalmondocious. It was an almond-based face cream which was full of relfective particles which made me look like positively translucent. I really don't know if anyone except goths bought it; it made most people look as though they'd wiped clay round their face.

Sax - Fresh Pharmacy soap, with calamine, is like bathing in asses milk, and is allegedly quite soothing.
And now I sound like an Avon Lady.

10:27 / 12.03.04

I am a manly user of Bodyshop's lovely olive soap. Smells of patchouli. Soft and creamy on skin that's toughened and hard worn from engaging in butch pursuits, like wot I do.

I am reminded of a line somewhere in Tales of the City about picking up the butchest man in the gay bar and taking him home, only to have the image crushed when you walk into his bathroom and find you're at Boots' Clinique counter. But that's so 1970's, that neanderthal thinking.

Ganesh did remark recently that we may be thrown out of The Hoist one time for turning up smelling of Boots' raspberry mousse soap.

Whisky Priestess

11:00 / 12.03.04

Lush is ... well, lush - I got a goodie box for valentine's and I'm a total convert. Only problem being that the purchaser now uses their lovely Dream Cream more than me ...

12:23 / 12.03.04

btw, anybody know where I can buy Neem soap?

I got a bar once at Kew in the Botanical Gardens but haven't seen any anywhere else. Neem tree is used for all sorts of medicinal purposes in Indochina, a bit like Tea Tree was by the aboriginal Australians.