Karma Kream Body Lotion

Why, oh why, oh why, have I only just discovered this lotion? I feel as if I have been missing out for far too long!

It was purely by accident that I first got hold of a tub of Karma Kream. I had won a huge amount of Lush stuff on eBay, and one such listing had come with a 225g pot, which was part of a set. It wasn't until I opened it up and gave it a sniff, that my brain put two and two together, and I realised that Karma Kream possessed the same scent as the Karma Perfume and Bubble Bar. Duh!

Every since then, it has become a staple product that goes everywhere with me, and has worked its way up to become one of my top ten Lush products of all time. 

As I said in my review of the Karma Bubble Bar, the Karma scent is both sweet and citrusy, and reminds me of those old-fashioned cola bottle sweets you used to get when you were little. Yet it is somehow quite a mature smelling fragrance, and one that wouldn't go amiss on people of all ages.

This is a gentle almond oil and cocoa butter body lotion, designed to carry the Karma fragrance and hold it on your body, whilst mosturising and softening the skin. It’s a rich, almond oil based cream,  blended with the finest Fair Trade cocoa butter to soften and balance dry skin while orange oil helps to brighten your skin tone and revitalise your body.

Karma Kream is initially quite a thick lotion, when taken from the pot, which might put off some people for fear of it being quite restrictive on the skin. However, the second you begin to massage it onto your body, it's surprising just how light and creamy it is. It dissolves into the skin fairly quickly, leaving you feeling refreshed and fragrant.

If anything, Karma Kream is the epitome of all Karma scented products; it softens the skin, it gives off a beautiful fragrance that lasts for hours and hours, it enriches your pores and moisturises your entire body. It's everything you could possibly want in a lotion, and more. 

If I was only allowed to use one Lush product ever again, this would definitely be a high contender for that top spot.

Quantitative Ingredients; Orange Flower Absolute, Almond Oil, Glycerine, Cocoa Butter, Stearic Acid, Triethanolamine, Patchouli Oil, Sweet Orange Oil, Lavandin Oil, Pine Oil, Lemongrass Oil, Elemi Oil, Tincture of Benzoin, Cetearyl Alcohol, *Cinnamal, Citral, Geraniol, Citronellol, Limonene, Linalool, Perfume, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Vegan?: Yes

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Snowcake Liquid Perfume

When I first began buying Lush stuff, I vowed never to buy any of their perfumes. Even though they're not expensive for what they are, and they are much better quality than a lot of high street perfumes that get watered down and filled with synthetic ingredients, I still didn't want to even breach that aspect of Lush's rostrum. 

Lush stuff, although not ridiculously priced, is still a luxury item that a lot of people cannot afford. I'm lucky in that I have a job that pays enough for me to splash out on their products on a regular basis. However, you only have to put a handful of items in your basket before you've already racked up near enough £100. So if I start collecting the perfumes, I thought, that is going to double my monthly expenditure almost instantaneously.

However, fate took over, when one day I logged onto the Lush website and saw six limited edition perfumes staring me in the face. The Comforter Perfume? Creamy Candy Perfume? Snowcake Perfume? It was just too much. I had to buy them all. 

As it happened, I only bought the Snowcake perfume because I had smelt the soap a week or two before and the scent had stuck with me enough to help me part with £30 of my hard-earned money. Looking back now, I am so glad I did. 

Sharing the same scent as the limited edition christmas soap, Snowcake is a unique perfume that leaves a lasting impression on both the wearer and passer-by. It is made up of a warm and sophisticated sweet smell of marzipan, intertwined with a spicy, fruity after-scent of tangerine. The irresistible marzipan scent is a combination of rose, cassis and benzoin, with the nuttiness moulded from rose absolute and citronellol. 

It's a perfume designed to comfort and cuddle cold bodies during the winter months, but one that I feel would work equally well as a light happy fragrance suitable for both spring and summer.

The fragrance tends to last for about 3 hours on the skin, and much longer on clothes, although I will often get a sudden wave some 10 hours after the first appliance. Very little needs to be applied, so although this only comes in 30ml bottles, it will last quite a while if you use it sparingly. 

I've yet to determine any layers with this perfume, as I don't notice any change in scent as the day wears on. However, I don't necessarily think this is as a bad thing as the initial scent is gorgeous anyway. So why ruin it?

Fast becoming one of my favourite Lush scents, Snowcake is a must have for Lush fans. I only hope they bring it out as a limited edition again soon, so I can buy another bottle and stop worrying about running out.

Quantitative Ingredients: DRF Alcohol, Perfume, Benzoin Resinoid (Styrax Benzoin), Rose Absolute (Rosa damascena), Cassie Absolute (Acacia farnesiana), Benzyl Benzolate, Geraniol, Benzyl Cinnamate, Citronellol.  

Vegan?: Yes

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Competition Winner!

I apologise for taking ages to reveal the winner of the 500g bottle of Snow Fairy; I am a primary school teacher, teaching in Year 6, with only 3 weeks to go until the SATs. As you can imagine, I am so busy, it's crazy!

However, I can reveal that the winner was picked at random, using a number generator;

The 200th entry was actually a comment from this blog this time around.

So congratulations to Asha for being the lucky winner:

For those who didn't win this time around, please keep checking back. I have a new competition coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'll also be giving another 500g bottle of Snow Fairy away very soon.

Will the winner please send me their address and I'll get this shipped out in the post this weekend.

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Porridge Soap

I received a Lush gift set a couple of years ago, and after excitedly ripping away the packaging, I was greeted with a lump of what can only be described as camel-brown coloured mud. It didn't strike me as something I would be overly keen on. However, I was instantly converted from the very first sniff. 

I read somewhere once where someone had described the scent of Porridge as 'a vanilla caramel concoction, dripping with maple syrup & treacle.' And this is  exactly how I would describe it. It doesn't smell anything like porridge, but it does release a scent that reminds you of homely, winter breakfasts, baked muffins, oatmeal cookies and orange juice.

Oats are one of the most widely-used ingredients in homemade skin care products, as well as being used for hundreds of years for all sorts of skin complaints. So it was only natural for Lush to include this wonderful gift of nature in a handful of their products. In Porridge, the oatmeal has been left as small pieces, which is used to help exfoliate the skin. And from experience, this works quite well. 

The first few times I used Porridge, it created a nice, creamy lather and the oatmeal pinheads gently exfoliated my skin. However, as many people have noted, the more you use this the more the oatmeal pieces come out. This means that the exfoliation gets rougher, which may not be in the interest of those with super-sensitive skin. 

This soap can definitely be harsh, and for those looking for a more gentle experience, may find this too aggressive on their skin. But If you don't have sensitive skin, you might really appreciate scrubbing all those dead skin cells off. It is also very moisturising - it contains both coconut and rapeseed oil, which leaves your skin feeling soft and luxurious. So even though it can be a little rough on your skin at times, it also contains elements that heal and replenish your skin afterwards. 

One negative aspect about this soap, and one of the reasons why it didn't receive full marks from me, is the prominence of oatmeal at the bottom of the bathtub or clustered around the plughole after use. I found that the smaller the piece of soap got, the more bits of oat would decorate the insides of my bath, which is unforgivable for those who want a simple bathing experience without having to clean up afterwards. 

Overall, it's a gorgeous fragrant soap that lathers up wonderfully and creates an abundance of creamy suds that moisturise your skin. It's also a great alternative for vegans who love the homely scent of Honey I washed the Kids, but cannot use it for obvious reasons. I just wish Lush weren't so overzealous with their use of oatmeal.

Quantitative Ingredients: Water, Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Propylene Glycol, Pinhead Oatmeal, Fresh Organic Orange Juice, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Perfume, Labdanum Resinoid, Sweet Wild Orange Oil, Glycerine, Sodium Chloride, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, *Limonene.

Vegan?: Yes

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Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub

This product is a staple in my house, with both myself and three of my flatmates all having big jars of the stuff on the go at any one time. It's definitely a product that you either love or hate, and luckily I'm a proud member of the former group.  

Rub Rub Rub is packed full of mineral-rich sea salt and organic lemon juice, that both exfoliates the skin and cleanses the pores, leaving your skin feeling super soft and shiny. It's fragrance is a mixture of mimosa and orange flower absolutes, which leaves a unique, subtle smell on the skin all day.

Now I know what you're probably thinking - why would anyone rub salt and lemon on their body, when you've heard how much salt can dry out skin and hair, and the acidity of lemon can't be any better, surely? And let's not forget how excruciating it can be to put either ingredient anywhere near a cut or lesion.  

However, what is surprising about this product, is that it does the complete opposite of what you'd expect. My skin feels silky, smooth, and soft right out of the shower, every single time. It has a wonderful, immediate cooling effect, which is amazing in the summer when you're skin may be heated or irritable from the sun. 

Imagine coming off of the beach with dry, sea-damaged hair. The there's your dry pores caused by the sun taking that much-needed moisture that keeps your skin soft and supple. Slip into the shower and gently lather Rub Rub Rub all over and you'll feel instantly refreshed. Guaranteed.

Depending on the condition of your skin, there are lots of different ways you can use Rub Rub Rub. If, like me, you have fairly sensitive skin, you can rub this on your body under the shower and it gives gentle exfoliation without stripping your skin or irritating your body. 

If your skin is a little tougher, and you struggle with dry areas, you can scrub your body whilst it is dry and then pop in the shower to wash it off, reviving those tired pores and giving your skin a new lease of life. It’s also great as a scrub for tired feet.

All that salt also makes this perfect for washing your hair and adding volume as well. Much like Lush's Big shampoo, Rub Rub Rub absorbs any unwanted oils and gently exfoliates, giving your hair a natural wash.  

Some people dislike this product because they say it reminds them of toilet cleaner, and I can definitely see how and why they've reached this conclusion. However, please do not be put off. It may not possess the sugary-sweet nature of The Comforter, nor the elegant floral scent of Tisty Tosty. However it does contain lots of nature's natural cleansers, and this leaves the skin smooth and refreshed without any of that synthetic nastiness. Another Lush product that does not leave my bathroom. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Fine Sea Salt, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Fresh Organic Lemon Juice, Water, Sodium Cocoamphoacetate, Jasmine Flower Infusion, Mimosa Absolute, Orange Flower Absolute, Jasmine Absolute, Lemon Oil, Lactic Acid, Lauryl Betaine, *Limonene, Perfume, Colour 42090, Colour 45410.

Vegan?: Yes

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Badass Shower Gel

Rarely am I disappointed by a Lush product, and rarely do I disagree with their choice of name. However, there is always a first, and this is the case with their 'Badass Gel'. Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of the ginger scent, so perhaps I'm going a little overboard with the negativity here, when maybe it comes down to my simple dislike of the smell. However, I really feel this product does not live up to it's 'badass' name tag, and in fact, I would go as far as to say that this product is just plain ol' bad. 

First impressions were good. The name 'Badass Gel' appealed to the rockstar in me and the beautiful cherry blossom pink gel laid reminiscent to the colour of Snow Fairy Shower Gel, Creamy Candy Bubble Bars and Rose Bubbleroon.   

With both rose water and fresh ginger root being prominent ingredients, I imagined a sweet, sophisticated floral scent mixed with an undertone of nuttiness from the ginger. I thought perhaps the jasmine absolute, juniper berry oil and geranium oil would created a multi-layered floral fragrance that lingered on your skin after a shower. 

Instead what I got, was what smelt like rose petals mixed with stale, muddy water and a faint hint of ginger. To top it all off, the gel itself was as thin as water and didn't lather up at all. 

At first, I thought perhaps I had bought a product that had gone stale. It did have a label telling me that it should have been used by June 2010, and when you're buying rare Lush products, this is definitely something you have to watch out for. 

However, Lush currently offer a ginger body lotion in their retro range, which holds the exact same smell as Badass. So although I might account the consistency of the gel to that of it's sell-by-date, I'm certain that the smell is what it is supposed to be. Which in my mind, is disgusting.

Never have I wanted to throw a Lush product away before now, and the only reason I have stopped myself, is the price I paid for this 500g bottle in the first place. 

If anyone has any experience or opinion on this product, I'd love to hear from you as I feel getting a fresh perspective might help me to understand why Lush thought this was a good idea to release, or why perhaps it was only available for a short bracket of time. 

Remember that one person's rubbish is another person's gold; in other words, what this is to me, might be the most amazingly smelling product to someone else. However, this is not a product I will venture near again, and not one I would recommend to anyone.

Quantitative Ingredients: Fresh Ginger Root Infusion (Zingiber officinale), Rose Water (Rosa centifolia), Sodium Alkyl Sulfate, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Fine Sea Salt, Cocamide MEA, Glyceryl Stearate, Glycol Cetearate, White WIne Vinegar(lovey), Lauryl Betaine, Propylene Glycol, Organic Jojoba Oil (Simmondsia chinensis), Mimosa Absolute (Mimosa tenuiflora), Geranium Oil (Pelargonium graveolens), Jasmine Absolute (Jasminum grandiflorum), Rose Otto (Rosa damascena), Ylang Ylang Oil (Cananga odorata), Juniperberry Oil (Juniperus communis), Ginger Oil (Zingiber officinale), Tincture of Benzoin (Styrax benzoin), *Limonene, *Linalool, Perfume, Colour 18050, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Vegan?: Yes

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Video: My Bath Bomb Stash

Just like I promised - here's my first video blog, showing you all of the wonderful bath bombs I currently own.

If you own any others (which are vegan), and wish to sell/trade, please get it touch with me.

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