Monday, September 29, 2014

(Review) D'Fluff: Bigfoot Tested, Chewbacca Approved

If there's one thing I know to be true, it's that the simple things in life that give me the most joy.  Like waking up to silence and sunshine and not the drunk college students that inhabit my building slurring and shouting their way up the steps to nurse a massive hangover.  Or going through one conversation with my mother without her mentioning my singleness and ebbing fertility.  And of course, that amazing feeling of dropping trou once you set foot in your apartment after a hard day of work.  Throwing all caution to the wind.  And by caution I mean pants.

But in all seriousness, simple things really do give me the most joy.  Give me my bed, a good book, and a mug of hot chocolate and I'm in total bliss.  Or a nice hot bath with a book and a bowl of fresh fruit to sustain me in my efforts to become the first ever human prune.  With two retail jobs and not much free time, these simple things have become a luxury.  While I may not always have time for a luxurious bubble bath or a piping hot mug of hot chocolate (sprinkled liberally with cinnamon of course), I find luxury in my morning routine.  A nice hot shower, an abrasive yet skin softening scrub, and of course, the silky smooth feel of freshly shaven legs.


I won't lie to you dear readers.  I, your loyal blogger, am a hairy she-beast.  Thanks to my father's lovely genes, I have head full of thick, black hair that takes two hair stylists to blow dry whenever I go in for a trim.  That hair also migrated to my legs.  Just my luck of course.  While some women elect not to shave their body hair (which is totally cool.  I have a strange admiration for a woman who can rival a man's pit hair with her own) I elect to shave mine.  There's just something about leg hair and stubble rubbing together that gives me the same effect of nails on a chalkboard.  So when I saw Lush was coming out with a new shaving cream this summer, my curiosity was piqued, as I was looking for a replacement for the aerosol shaving creams that left my legs unbearably itchy.

Staff box version of D'Fluff
D'Fluff was actually on its way to being a shower smoothie, but co-founder Mark Constantine shaved with it one day and found it a fantastic shaving soap, so its development was changed into the pink fluffy cream we know and love today.  D'Fluff was also inspired by strawberry marshmallow fluff, which I find heartwarming as it reminds me of my mom, who would eat the stuff by the jar, spoon in hand and fixated on her latest TV obsession (right now it's the reboot of Dallas in case anyone was wondering).  And since this soap includes strawberries, sugar, and syrup, it sounds good enough to eat!  But one thing that attracted me to this soap was the inclusion of fair trade organic cocoa butter, which I hoped would cure my post-shave itchiness.  Other moisturizing properties in this soap include coconut oil, rapeseed oil (pronounced "wrap-seed"), and rosehip oil to leave you with buttery smooth legs.

I was really excited to use this, as straying from my *insert crappy drugstore brand of shaving cream here* was a big step for me.  So I spun open the pot, scooped out the amount of about a silver dollar, lathered strawberry milkshake suds in between my palms, and spread on my pale, stubbly legs.  The lather felt very creamy and soft to me.  Barely any bubbles or foam, just a nice, creamy surface to glide your razor over.  I did chuckle a bit as I remembered my last foray into shaving alternatives (it involved cold wax, my sister's cameraphone, and myself earning the nickname "Patches" from a dear friend.  It was an unfortunate and pain-filled day) and hoped this wouldn't end the same way.  But as I ran my hands over my freshly shaven leg to check for any bits I might've missed, I was surprised at how silky smooth my legs were, and even more surprised when I toweled off and found no desire to scratch them raw.  The next day, they were just as silky smooth as the day I shaved them (I shave every other day or so).  Maybe the smallest, microscopic bit of stubble, but I was still incredibly impressed with how well this stuff worked! 

Keeping with the theme of "fuzz" my making this pic blurry.  Or maybe I just suck at photography.  Artistic interpretation and all that...
One thing I learned from further use of this product is that I have to use the exact size I started with.  No more, no less.  Too much is too thick and won't give a close enough shave, too little and it doesn't cover your whole leg, which gives the soap no slip and warrants a patchy shave.  But overall, this is a fantastic shaving cream that has deterred me from aerosol cans for good.  It smells fantastic too, not overly fruity or floral, and can be used by both men and women alike (though I find men to be deterred from the fact that it's pink...the male ego can be so fragile...) on any shaveable part of the body. 

The fuzziness represents the fuzziness we all have on our bodies and in our hearts.  Or is just another unintentionally blurry picture...




**D'Fluff is certified Vegetarian
***Pick up D'Fluff at your local LUSH store, or order online here

**Also just wanted to add that my readers mean the world to me, and subscriptions brighten my day.  Please take the time to subscribe to me via Bloglovin, Google+, or any other way of subscribing, and of course, comments are open and very much welcome!  I love to hear what you guys think and what I could add to make this blog more enjoyable for you!**

Monday, September 22, 2014

(Review) Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds: Get Your Zen On



You ever notice how when you squirrel away a little money, everything that costs an arm and a leg to fix starts breaking?  Yeah...that's one of the reasons I haven't updated this blog lately.  A fried video card dampers the ability to edit pictures without the whole damn computer freezing.  It's also quite an expensive fix.  So I decided to take a break from dabbing my weepy eyes with my credit card statement to write a review after a very long dry spell.

I won't lie, the past few months have been stress upon stress frosted in a buttercream layer of stress.  I left the sprinkles of stress off because you know...wanna keep my figure and all.  I now have two jobs and have worked almost every single day since starting the second.  It's kept me on my toes and I do love running around like a rabid hamster, but sometimes I just want to sit down and stare at the walls for an hour or six.  So I took a vacation.  Took a really nice vacation back to my hometown to visit my family, got my computer fixed, squeezed my dog half to death because she's adorable and fuzzy, and came back last night.  Today's my only day off this week, so I'm making it count by taking a nice, frothy bubble bath.

 

I'll admit, at the beginning, I wasn't sure if I loved or hated this bubble bar.  When the store was slow, I would waltz on over to the bubble bar area, pick up a bar of Blue Skies, and sniff with a hand on my hip and a concentrated look on my face (which probably scared a lot of people since I was staring out a huge window into the mall...but whatever).  Part of me loved the way it had a very incensey sort of smell due to the frankincense and patchouli notes, the other part thought it smelled like the cedar I put in my hamster's cage as a kid.  But I concluded that I did like the smell, and picked one of these up to test out.  I'm an avid incense burner and lover of trance/ambient music, and that's what this bubble bar was inspired by.  Co-founder Mark Constantine loved listening to trance/ambient music, as it was big around the time of the bubble bar's creation, and he created this bubble bar after a track of the same name he was listening to.  The blue would be the water, and the bubbles would be the fluffy white clouds!  It's one of Lush's best selling bubble bars and given its size, it's big enough for two baths!

 

Since I have freak small hands for someone my age and height, I break the bubble bar into quarters and crumble two of the quarters under the running tap.  I read somewhere that letting the bubble bar sit under the water for a bit helps create more bubbles, so I did that for a while and crumbled the rest.  I found this is a fabulous technique that works and will be using it from now on.  I then swirl my hands in the bathtub like I'm scrubbing it clean, but this helps whip up more bubbles if you don't have jacuzzi jets and helps dissolve any little chunks that might not have crumbled.  And I'll admit, when I was finished I was pleasantly surprised with how much creamy lather this bubble bar kicked up.  It smelled positively divine, very earthy and grounding, and I lowered myself in with relish.  The smell was noticeable but not overwhelming.  I honestly feel like out of all the bubble bars I've used, this one kicked up the most bubbles and had the most long lasting bubbles as well.  I got out nearly 3 hours later and there was still quite a bit of bubbly in the tub.  I kind of laughed because I had to sit at a weird angle so my current book (2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson in case anyone was wondering) wouldn't get eaten by the bubbles.

 

I have to say, even though I've been a Lushie for a few years, I'm pretty new to the bath stuff, and every bath product that I thought was going to be "meh" or mediocre has blown me (not literally) out of the water with how fantastic they are.  Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds was visually stunning (I did no color correcting on these pictures whatsoever, just some lighting and that's it) delivered with "fluffy white clouds" of bubbles, and gave me a heady, aromatic soak that was thoroughly enjoyable.  It was also more moisturizing than I thought it would be too!  So overall, a clear winner for me.  If aromatic, incense and herbal scents are your thing, this is the bubble bar for you!

**This bubble bar is certified Vegan
***Purchase Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds at your local LUSH store or online HERE   
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12735845/?claim=8jmqybmemcv">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>