When Lush announced that they were bringing this soap back, my heart literally jumped into my throat; I was super excited. Despite it's strange taste, I adore olive oil and can eat it with almost anything (dipped bread, anyone?). So the idea of lathering something so beautiful on my skin, was an opportunity I was not going to pass up.
Extra Virgin soap is a strange, light Persian green colour with pieces of glycerine suspended throughout the entire block. To make it a little extra special, Lush have also added in chunks of fresh black olive, however you'll probably only find a small handful of these in each piece.
When I initially unwrapped my soap, I wasn't immediately bowled over with the scent that greeted me. This wasn't because I didn't think the smell was pleasant, but more because I was a little underwhelmed with how gentle the smell was. However, it wasn't long before I realised that the soap's subtle aroma was actually one of it's most alluring characteristics.
Extra Virgin is quite a strange product to describe - it's one of those fragrances where each ingredient has an equal standing, so I found that no one smell stood out more prominently than another. You can definitely pick out a light citrus smell, which owes itself to the addition of grapefruit oil; it also has that savoury and almost smokiness of the olive oil with a lingering aftertaste of fennel - both of which sit nicely with the fruity element. Finally, you can detect a little herbal offering from the bay and coriander - again, these intertwine with the other ingredients and help to create a very interesting, refreshing and rather unique aroma. I was really looking forward to using this in the shower, as with the addition of so many different oils, I was hoping for a really moisturising experience. As I expected, this soap offers more of a thick, oily foam and it is a little more stubborn than other soaps at producing a lather to wash with. For this reason, I would suggest applying it directly onto your skin as rubbing it between your palms can prove rather fruitless at times.
Unfortunately, despite it's claim to be a nourishing soap, I found that it dried out my skin a little and didn't leave it as silky-smooth as I was expecting. I couldn't detect the smell of this once I had left the shower, which is a shame as it's a lovely scent that a lot of people would enjoying wearing throughout the day. It did leave my skin feeling cleansed and refreshed but this is something that most soaps offer me anyway. Overall, Extra Virgin is definitely for fans of the more gentle scents and one that would work well as a massage bar, shower gel or perfume - I would definitely purchase a few if these were made available.
Having looked at the consistency of the bar, I can imagine this being a very long-lasting soap - a 100g bar would easily last you over a month, even if you used it 4-5 times a week. However, it's another soap that has not fared well with my skin and not one I would purchase again to use on myself. This is such a shame as I was expecting this to become one of my favourite all-time soaps.
Quantitative Ingredients: Glycerine, Water (Aqua), Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Perfume, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Fresh Olives, Grapefruit Oil, Fennel Oil, Black Pepper Oil, Bay Oil, Olibanum Resinoid, Rose Otto, Coriander Oil, Cassis Absolute, Sodium Chloride.
Vegan?: Yes.
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