A Little Bit About Lush's New Preservative Free Venture:
If there's one thing about Lush that has attracted most of it's loyal customers, it's the company's dedication to their moral and ethical standpoint. Not only do they support and encourage campaigns that educate society and promote improvement within the cosmetics industry, but they never settle for anything - they're always looking for ways to improve their practice and their products.
Not happy that all of their products only contain a tiny percentage of harmless preservatives, Lush want to raise the bar within the industry and produce not only preservative free products, but ones that actually preserve themselves using processes that occur naturally in certain fresh ingredients.
Lush explain that it's rather simple to opt out of using preservatives in solid products as 'bacteria require water to grow and multiply', which is why most of their ballistics, bubble bars, solid shampoos etc.. have been able to make that transition quickly and effectively. However, lotions, smoothies and the few liquid hair-care products, have not been so easy to change.
After years of testing out their ideas, the company claim to have come up with 'an innovative way to rebalance formulations', enabling other products in their range to be sold preservative free whilst still retaining most of their previous features, not to mention their long shelf lives.
Although I have tried and tested all three of the body lotions that Lush have released as part of the first wave of preservative-free goodies, I was still intrigued to sample and compare all three items next to their original counterparts.
Review of Dream Cream:
New Charity Pot Self-Preserving Body Lotion is one of three lotions that are part of the first preservative-free overhaul. Given that I only recently used up a large pot of the original Charity Pot, it's scent and utility was fresh in my mind, so I was confident I'd be able to pick up on any differences, no matter how small. Renamed as 'New', I was at first a little worried that Lush had gone ahead and changed the fragrance of this product completely. Despite initial concerns, I was relieved to discover that the 'new' part is only reference to the altered ingredients list featured in the new lotion. However, that's not to say that I didn't notice a slight difference to it's scent.
To me, the self-preserving lotion has a fresher, lighter and rather more floral smell to it. Whereas before, this body lotion had a distinct chocolately smell that interlaced with the rose and geranium,now, the removal of both the almond and tagetes oils seems to have made the sweet cocoa scent somewhat disappear.
Instead, what you find with the New Charity Pot Lotion, is that it's very dominated by the floral element, and although it still carries a rich, indulgent scent to it, it's far lighter, crisper and more natural smelling than it used to be. As fragrances go, it makes a lovely smell for a lotion and I enjoyed using it very much. However, I am really glad that, as it stands right now, Lush are still producing their older Charity Pot Lotion as I definitely prefer the older scent.
Other differences I've noticed with this lotion is that the consistency is slightly thicker, and in the pot it appears to be a pale maize yellow in colour. Despite this, the lotion works in the same way when applied to the skin. After rubbing it across my body, I was surprised to find that my skin actually absorbed it very quickly and I wasn't left with any oily smears or stickiness.
Much like it's counterpart, the new lotion's scent lingered for hours on my skin, and whereas before it was a comforting, warm winter smell, now it's more of an uplifting, summery scent.
If Lush continue to sell the lotion in this format, I only hope that they don't try and phase out the regular Charity Pot. I say this because, although I really enjoyed the experience of this product, it's definitely not an exact replica, and for this reason, I would still want to be able to buy both lotions.
As with all three of the self-preserving lotions, and the face and body scrub, it is early days at the moment and it's hard to say how well these products will sit with other Lush consumers. I for one, am happy that Lush have released these products because it not only shows that they're still working towards improving the cosmetics industry, but also because my experience so far has been mostly very positive.
As with my other body lotions, I am currently unable to comment on whether the shelf life of New Charity Pot Self-Preserving Lotion has the same longevity as it's older brother. However, if my experiences so far have taught me anything, it's that Lush very seldomly offer consumers products that don't live up to expectations.
Original Charity Pot Body Lotion Review
Quantitative Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Fair Trade Olive Oil, Glycerine, Organic Jojoba Oil, Moringa Oil, Fair Trade Organic Colombian Cocoa Butter, Stearic Acid, Fresh Aloe Gel, Fair Trade Shea Butter, Triethanolamine, Geranium Oil, Rosewood Oil, Ylang Ylang Oil, Fair Trade Vanilla Absolute, Cetearyl Alcohol, Benzyl Benzoate, Citronellol, Coumarin, Geraniol, Linalool, Limonene, Perfume.
Vegan?: Yes.
