Creamed Almond And Coconut Shower Smoothie

Creamed Almond and Coconut Shower Smoothie was one of the products I managed to acquire over a year ago, after trawling though the many pages of rare Lush goodies on eBay, seeking out new and exciting items. I must have just missed the official release of this through Lush as it was not long before I purchased this that Lush brought it out as a retro item on their website. Unfortunately, with more Lush products to review than you could shake a stick at, it was never one I got around to writing about on here. So when the opportunity came by to purchase a new tub from the Lush Kitchen, I was slightly glad I had waited - things are always best fresh.

My experience with shower smoothies has so far only branched as far out as Lush's Whitewash and Lush Lime editions; both of which were many months out of date when I received them. For this reason, I was rather intrigued to see how different, or perhaps how similar these two matched up with a new one. As it happened, I didn't notice a lot of difference - shower smoothies obviously last extremely well past their use-by date.

Almond and Coconut Smoothie is a beautiful concoction of butters and oils, all of which have been creamed together to produce a product that not only cleans your skin like a soap, but softens and moisturisers it like a body lotion. Almond oil, coconut oil and rapeseed oil are just some of the ingredients added in here to give the smoothie it's softening qualities, all of which also add to it's overall texture and scent.

As well as the above oils, this product contains jasmine, ylang ylang and vanilla. The combination of these three make up the overall scent of the smoothie - a sweet and gentle fragrance that lingers on your skin long after you have left the shower. It's surprising that this smell permeates your skin like it does as, in the tub, the scent is a very subtle one.

To me, this smoothie smells very similar to Sympathy For The Skin Body Lotion - a light vanilla fragrance with just a sprinkling of nuttiness from the almond oil. I can see why people would describe it as having a coconut element, but I couldn't really detect this strong enough to say it left an impression on me.

The smoothie is velvety-soft to touch and very easy to use; I found the most effective way was to simply scoop it out of the tub with my fingers and immediately rub it all over the area I wanted to lather. Unfortunately, despite it feeling soft and silky on my skin, it didn't lather up at all, meaning I had to keep returning to the pot for seconds and thirds and fourths etc.. However, given that it's both a soap and body lotion, I didn't expect it to be as effective as a shower gel - so in some ways, I was expecting this. 

For the above reason, you do tend to use more of the smoothie than you would a shower gel or jelly, as a single scoop doesn't tend to spread over that wide an area. This means that Almond and Coconut Smoothie is not a product you'd use daily; it's more of a weekly treat for your skin if you feel you need it.    

This smoothie did leave my skin velvety soft after I had exited the shower and it works wonders to smear over newly-shaved legs, to calm irritated skin. It's possesses a fragrance strong enough to leave an impression on you, but not so strong as to override any perfume you choose to put on over the top. In fact, this smoothie works well with most of my perfumes, particularly American Cream, Rose Jam, Calacas and Tuca Tuca.

At almost £10 a pot, this is a rather extravagant purchase, but one that is definitely worth it. I tend to use this on those days of the week, where I've overslept my alarm and don't have time to shower and moisturise. I can halve my regime by doing both in the shower and the effects of this maintain themselves throughout the entire day. I will definitely buy a second tub if this is brought back at any point. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Fair Trade Vanilla Pod Infusion, Almond Oil, Glycerine, Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Water (Aqua), Ylang Ylang Oil, Jasmine Absolute, Labdanum Resinoid, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Hydroxide, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Perfume, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Vegan?: Yes.