Start Of Summer Competition!

Summer's here and I only have one week to go before my five week vacation starts! To celebrate another school year coming to an end, I am giving one lucky reader a chance to win a whole helpful of Lush Kitchen goodies. 

I am touched by all of the comments and support that Lush fans have given this site over the last few months. So much so that I want to give something back to show my appreciation and make another Lush fan just that little bit happier!

Up for grabs is:

- A 250g bottle of Prince Shower Gel
- A 100g bottle of Vanilla Puff Dusting Powder 
- A 230g Tub of Bada Bing Bada Boom Shower Jelly
- A 100g Tub of Zest Hair Styling Gel
- A Mrs Whippy Bath Ballistic
- A Baby Face Solid Cleanser 
- A Tub of The Kiss Limited Edition Valentine's Day Lip Balm
- A 100g Bar of Red FUN
- A 100g Bar of Green FUN
- A 100g Chunk of Summer Pudding Soap
-2/3rds of a Bar of Solid SUNBLOCK


Most of these items are now no longer available and may not show themselves again for years to come!

To be in with a chance to win the lot, all you have to do is leave a message (and your contact details) underneath this blog post. Although I open it up for fans to enter as many times as they like, I ask that you are sensible about it.

The competition is open worldwide and will run until Thursday 24th July, 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector and will email you within 2 days of the competition closing. Please make sure you include an email for me to contact you with. Good luck!

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Celebratory Competition!

It's that time again folks and this is an extra special edition - full of amazing and now hard-to-get Lush Kitchen items that you may have missed out on!

I am touched by all of the comments and support that Lush fans have given this site over the last few months. So much so that I want to give something back to show my appreciation and make another Lush fan just that little bit happier!

Up for grabs is:

- A Bottle of Sesame Suntan Lotion
- A Bottle of Happy 4 SAD
- A Tub of the Self-Preserving Sympathy For The Skin Lotion
- A Block of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Soap
- A Block of Dear John Soap
- A Dear John Bubble Bar
- A Up You Gets Emotibomb
- A Error 404 Ballistic
- A Bar of Red FUN
- A Small Chunk of Ice Blue Soap




Most of these items are now no longer available and may not show themselves again for years to come!

To be in with a chance to win the lot, all you have to do is leave a message (and your contact details) underneath this blog post. Although I open it up for fans to enter as many times as they like, I ask that you are sensible about it.

The competition is open worldwide and will run until Friday 4th July, 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector and will email you within 3 days of the competition closing. Please make sure you include an email for me to contact you with. Good luck!

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Competition Winner Announced!

Thank you to everyone who entered my latest competition - some of the comments you guys left were amazing and I'm incredibly grateful of all of the support and love you give towards this blog. I don't comment on individual comments under the competition blog, just so that it's easier for me establish a winner at the end. However, your comments are very much appreciated!

Lush fans are so amazing, which is part of the reason why I strive to do these competitions! I've already picked an array of Kitchen products for my next competition and for those unlucky enough not to win this time around, you'll be hearing about my next one very soon!

As per usual, I have used a random number generator to select the lucky winner, and this time around it has chosen the number 39;

This means the winner is Tracy Lee - CONGRATULATIONS! An email will be arriving shortly.

Again, thank you to everyone else who entered and keep checking back because my biggest giveaway will be up and running in the next 7 days!

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Lush Competition!

Yes - it's that time again peeps! It's time for another Lush giveaway. I've chosen a selection of products that I've been using myself recently - some from the Lush kitchen and some that are no longer available, and would like one of you lucky people to win the lot. These are all brand new and vegan-friendly. 

This competition is open for Lush fans across the world so those of you outside of England that find it difficult to get your hands on the kitchen releases, this is a great opportunity for you to grab some of the much-wanted items for free!


Up for grabs is;

-1 large tub of Dream Cream Lotion
-1 250g bottle of Narcotic Shower Gel
-1 Dom Perignon Ballistic
-1 large slab of Queen of Hearts Soap
-1 box of Breath of God Toothy Tabs
-A slab of FUN With a Twist
-1 pot of New Charity Pot

plus...

-1 mystery Lush Kitchen item!

To be in with a chance to win the lot, all you have to do is leave a message (and your contact details) underneath this blog post. 

The competition will run until Friday 6th June, 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector so it is completely fair. Good luck!

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FUN With A Twist

As part of Lush's usual range, the company have a selection of five different scented FUN Bars that are available all year round. They are Pink FUN, which is a fruity candy smell, Yellow FUN, which has a vanilla scent, Red FUN, which is mandarin and orange, Green FUN, which possesses a lemon and lime scent, and Blue FUN, which offers a lavender scent.

Being one of the most versatile products they offer, as well as being good value for money, FUN is a wonderful concept that offers affordable cosmetics for those that aren't lucky enough to have their pockets lined with gold. Working as a shampoo, shower gel and bubble bar, a small 100g bar of FUN should be a steal at £5 a pop. But is it?

Recently, Lush extended it's family of FUN and released a limited edition Gold bar as part of their Christmas 2013 range, promising to release other uniquely scented variations in the near future. Two weeks ago, Lush kept their promise and released a brand new edition - FUN With A Twist. 

Initially, I was overwhelmed with excitement about this new product. Not only did it look beautiful - a decorative bright orange and deep purple dough, moulded and twisted together to make the most attractive FUN bar to date, but Lush described it as possessing both the Twilight and Dragon's Egg fragrances - two of my favourite smells to come from Lush. 

For those unfamiliar with these two smells (how is that possible?!), Twilight is a beautiful creamy, malty lavender aroma with elements of tonka to give it a sensual but vanillary note, while Dragon's egg offers a zesty, sherbet-y, playful burst of lemon and lime. Two completely different smells; two equally gorgeous aromas. 

When my FUN With A Twist arrived, I was immediately bowled over by it's scent - both of the different fragrances were clearly defined and they were equally potent in the wrapper. Up close, you could pick out the Twilight when sniffing the purple section, and the Dragon's Egg on the orange. Strangely, when smelling them together, it was the Twilight that shone through, yet it was the Dragon's Egg scent that came through more when being used in the bath. 

As with all of the FUN bars, I like to use mine as a replacement for more expensive bath ballistics, when I'm after a short bath as opposed to a longer soak. So I pulled off a generous sized chunk and crumbled it under the running tap. Immediately my bath tub began to fill with fluffy, zesty bubbles and the water merged into a lovely shade of orange. Unfortunately, both the colour of the water and the overall scent was lost quite a bit once my bath had been run, and I found that I could barely detect much of the fragrance at all within a matter of minutes. 

Secondly, whereas other Fun bars work almost as well as a bubble bar and leave my skin smooth to the touch, I found this one was very drying and the water felt rather rigid, almost as if I'd dissolved a piece of soap in the tub. Most of the bubbles stayed until the end of the experience, but the colour of the water turned a murky orange colour and my skin didn't seem to benefit from these aspects at all. 

On my second attempt at using this, I opted to use FUN With A Twist as a shower gel/soap and found that it lathered up quite well. I had to experiment with how much water to add to get a good lather going but it did seem to work very much like all of the other FUN bars I've tried. The lather is much thicker in consistency, and may need a little coaxing to spread across your skin, but the compressed format of the product means that a tiny piece will go a lot further than your usual splodge of shower gel and this makes it worthwhile. 

Using it in this way meant that I was able to see the specks of glitter that are distributed throughout the bar, and these tended to stay on my skin, although there was very little in the way of lustre and I couldn't find any on my skin once I'd rinsed myself off. 

Lavender, lemon and bergamot oils are just some of the ingredients used to try and help make FUN a moisturising, uplifting and refreshing product. While the scents are true to the original aromas, these smells were somewhat lost during use and I wouldn't say that this was the best product to use if you wanted to improve the condition of your skin.  

Overall, fans of these scents will no doubt be rather interested in trying out a new product, and if I was judging on smell and design alone, it would win many awards. However, I was a little disappointed with it's productivity and I feel the gimmick of FUN doesn't deter from the fact that I'd get a lot more out of a bubble bar, even if it works out more expensive.

Quantitative Ingredients: Talc, Cornflour, Glycerine, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Lemon Oil, Bergamot Oil, Jasmine Absolute, Benzoin Resinoid, Tonka Absolute, Ylang Ylang Oil, Perfume, Citral, Geraniol, Coumarin, Linalool, Gold Glimmer Lustre, Snowflake Lustre.

Vegan?: Yes.

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Lush Kitchen Competition + More!

When I first heard about Lush's new Kitchen Initiative, I was really excited about the prospect of all of the new products being made available for me to try. Unfortunately, it has become a very expensive habit for someone like me, who cannot resist purchasing every single vegan product that they off. Furthermore,  Lush have made it very difficult for people outside of the UK to get their hands on these wonderful products. 

So I've decided to offer one Lush fan the chance to own some of the items that Lush have released so far as well as some samples of many others not seen in these pictures.

Up for grabs is;

-1 Sakura Bath Bomb

-1 250g bottle of Supertramp Shower Gel

-1 Piece of Mangnificent Soap

-1 100g bottle of Ponche Shower Gel

-1 Snow Fairy Sparkle Massage Bar

-1 Midnight Massage Bar

-1 Bubblegum Lip Scrub

-1 100g tub of Blue Fun

Although not included in these pictures, you will also receive samples of Lemon Melt Shower Gel, Violet Nights Bath Oil and African Paradise Body Conditioner.

All of the above products are brand new, unused and aside from the Sakura Bath Bomb and Blue FUN, are limited edition products, most of which you can no longer obtain. 

To be in with a chance to win the lot, all you have to do is leave a message (and your contact details) underneath this blog post. 

The competition will run until Friday April 18th, 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector so it is completely fair. Good luck!

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Competition Winner Announcement!

Thank you to everyone who entered, via my blog or tumblr page. To make it fair, I have selected the winner using a random number generator. I also flip a coin to determine whether I start counting from my tumblr page or my blog.

Congratulations to Naeemah Ajam! You are the 8th entry in my competition! I'll be sending you an email to tonight.

Keep you eyes peeled, I have lots more exciting Lush giveaways to announce over the coming months :)

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...These are a few of my favourite things (Competition)

Thank you to everyone who entered my last competition - I was overwhelmed with the amount of interest in my blog! As the weather here in England gets colder and colder, I'm finding myself spending the evenings indulging in my favourite Lush products to keep my spirits high. Sometimes, the smell of a favourite perfume, or the promise of what a bath bomb can bring, is the only leverage between a mental break down and a peaceful night sleep. 

I want to share these magical moments with one lucky blog reader, and indulge one of you with some of my all-time favourite Lush products. I've selected a range of amazing products that'll cheer you up this miserable February and one lucky person will win the lot (over £50 worth of products!).

So, what's up for grabs?

One lucky person will win;

-A brand new (now discontinued) bottle of Calacas Perfume
-A brand new bottle of Vanilla Dee-Light
-A Shoot For the Stars bath ballistic
-A brand new tin of the now discontinued Eggsnog Lip Balm
-A brand new bar of Pink FUN

To be in with this amazing chance, you have to do one or more of the following;

1. Leave a comment underneath this blog post. (Please remember to leave an email address if you're an anonymous poster as I'll have no way of contacting you if you win!)

2. Repost my competition blog entry on Tumblr.

3. Like my competition blog on Tumblr.

This is a worldwide competition so anyone can enter. You can do any or all of the above, and as many times as you like, so get re-blogging!

The competition will run until Sunday, 16th February at 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector so it is completely fair. Good luck!

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Post-Christmas Competition!

Whether you didn't buy anything from Lush's Christmas range, missed out on getting those last few goodies during their Boxing Day sale, or simply want an opportunity to get a couple of discontinued goodies, this competition is for you!

I've selected a vast range of amazing products that'll cheer you up this miserable January and one lucky person will win the lot.

So, what's up for grabs?

One lucky person will win;

-A Party Time Goodies Gift set featuring Happy Hippy Shower Gel, Snow Globe soap and Green FUN
-A Snowman Ballistic
-A Shoot For The Stars Ballistic
-A Magic Wand Bubble Bar
-A Melting Snowman Bath Melt
-A Bombardino Bath Bomb
-A Tube of Gold FUN
-A Christmas Penguin Bubble Bar

To be in with this amazing chance, you have to do one or more of the following;

1. Leave a comment underneath this blog post. (Please remember to leave an email address if you're an anonymous poster as I'll have no way of contacting you if you win!)

2. Repost my competition blog entry on Tumblr.

3. Like my competition blog on Tumblr.

This is a worldwide competition so anyone can enter. You can do any or all of the above, and as many times as you like, so get re-blogging!

The competition will run until Friday January 24th, 9pm (English time). I will pick a winner using a random number selector so it is completely fair. Good luck!

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Lush Christmas 2013 Gifts Unwrapped

I wouldn't normally purchase gift sets for myself, unless I loved the packaging enough to spend money on it. However, there were a number of beautiful looking gifts in the Lush Boxing Day sale, so I couldn't resist picking up a few. Most of these products will be reviewed individually, if they have not been already, but I wanted to celebrate the excitement of opening these well-crafted gifts with those of you who weren't able to get your hands on these this year. Enjoy.

Fun

I'm not even that big a fan of Fun, and this isn't technically a Christmas gift box as Lush released this a few months before the Christmas range came out. However, it does feature a limited edition seasonal product. 

I bought this solely for the tin as it immediately grabbed my attention when it appeared online. I began thinking about all the wonder things I could store in here (yes, I am that person), but wasn't willing to pay the £26 price tag for a glorified box. However, when I saw it was half price in the sale, I just knew I had to get it. 

It comes with a nicely sized chunk of all six varieties of FUN, as well as some plastic 'cookie' cutters to aid your artistic endeavours; a perfect gift to keep children and adults entertained for hours! 

 Woweeee

This is a lovely gift set for people who like citrus smells. Although not technically vegan (the inclusion of Whoosh Shower Jelly), I again bought this for it's packaging and will give the jelly away to one of my flatmates. 

This is definitely a gift set for fans of citrus-scented shower products. Firstly, I got a nice big chunk of Snow Globe, which although I rated very lowly in my review, I found that this piece was a lot stronger in scent than the chunk I reviewed. I might give it a second chance.

Next up was a small sample of Red FUN and a small 100g bottle of Ponche Shower Gel (can never have too much of this!).

Santa's Grotto

I was really excited to get my hands on not one, but two Santa's Grotto gift sets, which were very reasonably priced at under £10 in the sale. This is the first time I have purchased Lush scarfs, which are super soft and beautifully decorated; I'll definitely reuse these later on in the summer to accessorise my outfits. 

This gift set is a fantastic present for those who love their baths, as it featured a Cinders bath bomb, a Father Christmas, a Snowman and a Secret Santa Ballistic.  

Sweet Christmas

Another non-vegan gift set but my flatmates were more than happy to help me 'dispose' of the product I couldn't use (how thoughtful of them!). This a beautiful, feminine-looking gift set, that also happens to be rather on the big size.

This is a set that would be best suited for someone who doesn't have a specific favourite sort of cosmetic and would enjoy being exposed to a range of different scents and products.  For the bath, you have Think Pink bath bomb, a Magic Wand Bubble Bar and a Candy Mountain Bubble Bar. For the shower, you have a rather lovely bottle of Rose Jam (although I feel this is slightly out of place with the scent-theme going on here - I would have expected Snow Fairy instead). You also have a Sweetie Pie Jelly and a rather large slab of Sultana of Soap, which you do have to be careful with as it's rather soft and does tend to rub off on other products. 

Finally, you have a lovely tub of Bubblegum Lip Scrub and a tin of Honey Trap Lip balm.

 Fun

This is a great little gift set to add to someone's stocking, or as a little extra surprise to go alongside a main gift. It features three sample-sized pieces of Red, Green and Gold FUN, wrapped in a cute little stripy box. I can imagine this being a great gift for children to fiddle and play around with Christmas Day evening, when they're winding down for bed. 

 Winter Garden

I was fascinated by Lush's 'bauble' gift sets this year, and rather gutted that I couldn't get my hands on their Shooting Stars edition. However, Winter Garden is still a lovely, sophisticated looking gift set with a selection of rich, floral scents for the more sensual audience. 

In this set you get; a small 100g bottle of Rose Jam Shower Gel, a large slab of Sultana of Soap, a small tub of Ro-Argan Body Conditioner and a sample pot of Helping Hands.

This year's gift set range was exciting, colourful and beautifully presented, and I think they'll find it hard to top it next year. Not to worry, they still have a good 350 days to outdo themselves. 

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Gold FUN

The Lush FUN line started out as five different coloured bars, each with a different unique scent. You have Pink FUN, which is a fruity candy smell, Yellow FUN, which has a vanilla scent, Red FUN, which is mandarin and orange, Green FUN, which possesses a lemon and lime scent, and Blue FUN, which offers a lavender scent.

Wrapped in a biodegradable wrapper, FUN encompasses everything I love about Lush;

1. It's completely ecologically friendly.

2. It's incredibly versatile and can be used as a shampoo, shower gel or bubble bar.

3. It's incredibly good value for money.

4. It comes in five beautiful and completely unique scents.

5. It encourages your inner child to indulge itself as you can actually play with FUN, much like you would plasticine.

So I was rather excited when I saw that Lush were releasing a sixth variety, the Gold FUN. Encompassing the popular scent of Honey I Washed The Kids, this royal version of the much loved bath bar smells divine. If anything, I think it's initial smell is far sweeter than it's soap counterpart, which gets a thumbs up from me.

Comprised of comforting sweet wild orange oil, uplifting bergamot, softening cornflour and plenty of gold lustre, Gold FUN is a fun-filled, feel-good product that brings out the child in even the stubbornness of adults. 

This bar, along with the other five varieties are multi-use products. They can be broken off and used on the body and hair, and crumbled under running water and used as an alternative to a bubble bar. However, out of the six colours, I found that Gold FUN was one of the least effective at making a lot of bubbles, which is a shame as that's the main reason I bought it in the first place.

Despite my initial pleasure, I was a little disappointed that the smell was rather weak in comparison to the other FUN bars, once it had been fully dissolved in the bath. I had to 'top up' the smell by using a Ma Bar alongside it, which made it's purpose almost redundant.

I did appreciate the golden lustre, which decorated the surface of the water throughout my entire bathing experience. However, this pleasure was soon dampened when I found that the gold stuck to sides of my bath, even after the water had been drained, and I had to use a cloth to wipe it away, taking the FUN out of the entire experience.

Overall, it's not a product I am interested in buying again, although I wonder whether Gold FUN has been slightly overshadowed by the variety of beautiful bath products that Lush have offered it's customers this Christmas. Perhaps if it didn't have Shoot For the Stars, Lord of Misrule and Luxury Lush Pud to contend with, I may have enjoyed it somewhat more. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Talc, Cornflour, Glycerine, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Lustre Radiant Gold, Sweet Wild Orange Oil, Bergamot Oil, *Limonene, *Linalool, Benzyl Benzoate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Perfume.

Vegan?: Yes

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