(Review) Fluffy Egg: Sweet Sugary Goodness

And so another Easter has come and gone.  Between violently competitive Easter egg hunts with my sister (even though we're both twenty somethings), baskets full of chocolate, a snappy pair of Simon Pegg earrings, and a stand still traffic jam in which you put your car in park and devour the plate of cupcakes Mama Llama packed for you on your way home, this years Easter was eventful and slightly exhausting.  Upon coming home from my nearly 4 hour commute to my parents' house, I unpacked everything I needed for the next day and went straight to bed, face full of makeup and all, snoring the night away until my alarm blasted me awake at 6 in the morning for inventory.  

Easter's never been a big holiday for my family, but it's always been fun.  Memories of shiny black buckled shoes, white tights, floral dresses and straw hats always come to mind when I think of Easter as a kid.  Papa Bear would always hide the Easter eggs we colored the night before while Mama Llama filled our Easter baskets with sidewalk chalk and bubbles.  Dark chocolate for my sister and milk chocolate for me.  But after a few days of gorging on the stuff, you kind of get sick of it after a while.  Therefore I decided to indulge my infamous sweet tooth in a different way.  With a sweet pink bath!

 

 

If you're still heartbroken over the fact that Christmas has come and gone, along with every Snow Fairy scented product on the planet, have no fear!  Fluffy Egg has the same fragrance!  Invented in the days of Cosmetics to Go, Fluffy Egg was originally created because customers were requesting an Easter egg shaped bath bomb.  Mo Constantine, one of Lush's cofounders, refused to do it, but as the requests kept pouring in, she caved and created Fluffy Egg.  It was a huge hit and has been an Easter classic ever since, coming back year after year!  Despite getting many a box of Fluffy Egg, my store was barely able to hold onto it, selling out of the sweet pink bomb within days of receiving it and facing the wrath (well not wrath...more like minor annoyance) of customers wanting one of their own but coming in to find them gone.  Lucky me, I happened to snag two before they were cleaned off the shelves!

 

Fluffy Egg is quite a decent fizzer.  Not too fast, but not painfully slow to the point where your water is cold when you finally dip your tootsies in.  The Snow Fairy scent to me is one I've had a turbulent relationship with.  While the scent is similar from product to product, I find some variations to be more sweet and others to be more tart.  Fluffy Egg is one of those tart variations.  Anything too sweet and I start to get a headache. 

 

Bathing in Fluffy Egg is a nice and sweet experience.  With the vibrant pink color, I reveled in my girly side and the bright color and fragrance overall boosted my mood.  The fragrance, aptly named Candy Fluff, sat nicely on my skin and didn't smell like a box full of marshmallow peeps, which are the one Easter candy I truly despise.  And when I got out of my bath I felt refreshed, revitalized, soft as a fresh spring flower petal and as sweet as a freshly frosted cupcake (with rainbow sprinkles...otherwise it's not a true cupcake).  And if you didn't manage to snag a Fluffy Egg bath bomb, dry your tears!  MMM Melting Marshmallow Moment bath melt and Godmother bar soap have the same exact scent AND are sold year round! 

Overall, Fluffy Egg was a nice, simple and sweet smelling bath bomb.  It's a good one to crack out when I'm feeling extra girly and in the mood for something bright and sweet to soak in.  It's one of those scents I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy, but when I'm in that mood, I make sure to bask in its sugary sweet glory.  Though the turnout is a gorgeously vibrant spring pink, it's an easy bath bomb to cocktail with, and one I will definitely pick up again if it comes out for Easter next year!

***Fluffy Egg is certified Vegan

(Review) Lonely Hearts: They All Beat the Same

Valentine's Day.  Single Awareness Day.  Or my personal favorite, Robyntine's Day (because self love is important children!).  Whatever you decide to call today, whether you look forward to flowers, chocolates, possibly a little nookie from your sweetheart, or spend a night curled up on the couch with your dog, Netflix, and a bowl of cereal as a companion, it's hard to ignore that today is the one day of the year where a sickening amount of romance fills the air.  Now me?  I worked a 9 hour shift today.

I've always been indifferent towards Valentine's Day, mainly because my love life has been dead in the water since my last relationship ended in 2009 and I've never kept a relationship around long enough for Valentine's Day anyways.  But this year I've been strangely reflective, especially with all of the pink and red products donning the refurnished wooden tables at my Lush shop.  As I stood behind the register, ringing up customers buying last minute gifts for their sweeties, hunger gnawing at my belly (I treated myself to a romantic breakfast of potato chips from yesterday's Panera Bread lunch), I noticed a lot of couples in line, smiling, kissing, snuggling each other close on what was arguably one of the coldest days of the year, and instead of wrinkling my nose and being the bitter pill that I am, it got me thinking about my own dead love life...and my own loneliness.

 

 

I don't really consider myself a lonely person by any means.  I have a loving family, great friends and coworkers, and am a very social, talkative person.  If you watch my Youtube videos, you know I never shut up.  But I guess sometimes, when I come home after working an 8 hour shift, my apartment complex is quiet, and it's dark and still outside, that I feel some loneliness stealthily gnawing away at my consciousness. 

There have only been two times in my life where I've felt crippling, depressing loneliness.  Once when I was a stupid teenager, hormonal and angry and taking it out on the person I cared about the most, driving him and most of my friends away, and when I first moved away from home.  I remember during that time thinking that if someone hugged me, I would probably burst into tears.  Talking to your friends and family on the phone isn't the same as seeing them in person, and being able to hug them.  I remember my limbs feeling heavy, and just wanting someone, anyone to look at me and pay attention to me.  Now, a few years later and a few years wiser (and a lot more gray hair and student loan debt), I've sworn to never let myself feel that horrible again.  Because I don't deserve that.  So one night, when I felt myself inching closer to that edge and feeling like I was in a crowded room screaming bloody murder without nary a glance, I decided to take a nice, soothing soak.

I almost had to laugh at the irony of Lonely Heart bubble bar being my favorite product in the Valentine's Day range.  It was inspired by the song "Lonely Hearts Still Beat the Same" by a band called The Research, which I think is an absolutely beautiful song title.  The fragrance is from the B-Side rarities of the Gorilla Perfume range, scented with the Love perfume.  Its notes are composed of Bergamot, Lemongrass, Jasmine, and Rose, which made for a refreshing and slightly floral scent.  It's a scent I immediately fell for!  So after a contemplative day about a side of my life I like to ignore, a 60 hour work week (oye!) and a roommate who is out of town for the weekend, I filled up my tub and crumbled this baby in.  It took a lot of work (this bubble bar is surprisingly sturdy!) to crumble it under the tepid tap water.

...wait...tepid?  That's not right...baths are supposed to be hot!  So to my annoyance, my apartment's water heater was crapping out, so back and forth from the kitchen to the bathroom I scuttled with a boiling kettle of water to further heat my lukewarm soak.  After four kettlefuls, my water was nice and pleasantly warm without being scalding hot, and I sank into my fruit punch colored, gold flecked bath, and forgot all of my troubles with a box of truffles and a good book.  The scent was HEAVENLY.  The combination is something I would've never thought of, and I can only hope that Lush releases the Love perfume one day again (well, one can only hope!).

 

Overall, Lonely Heart bubble bar was fantastic.  My only gripe lies with my building's water heater, which crapped out and left me working hard for a relaxing bath.  But taking that moment to myself was nice, and it helped me relax and remember that I have many loving people in my life, and that I should be thankful for them, and maybe talk to them a little more.  But I guess we can all get a little lonely now and again, even surrounded by those we love.  I like to think loneliness like that is a journey to discovering what and who we have in our lives.  If you're lonely right now, that's okay!  We've all been there, and most likely we'll all be there again!  But there's one thing I like to keep in mind, especially with this bubble bar's name.

When he left me heartbroken and crying in the driveway of that house almost ten years ago, my heart beat the same.  When I moved away from home for the first time and cried on the elevator ride all the way up to my first apartment, my heart beat the same.  In moments of doubt, sadness, and stress, my heart beat the same.  And now, surrounded by loved ones, friends, coworkers, and over 2500 blog followers, my heart beat the same as it did all those years ago.  Even in rare moments of loneliness and insecurity, it beats the same.  Every heart, lonely or lovestricken beats the same.  It's what keeps us connected, it's what makes us human, and it's what makes us wonder if we're ever truly alone in the way we feel in the first place.  And that, my darlings, is a very reassuring thought.

**Lonely Hearts bubble bar is certified Vegan

(Review) Dashing Santa: Run Fat Boy Run!

And so there it was.  Sitting in front of me.  In all of its brown, box-like glory.  A plain brown box with my name and a hashtag written below it.  A list of all included stuck to the side.  A plain thing with sharpie written all over it, but by Odin's eye it was a thing of beauty.  I'm talking about my staff box.  My Christmas gift from Lush to myself and the rest of my coworkers. 

It's no secret that Lush employees occasionally receive boxes of product from the big guys, and this would be my first Christmas at Lush as an employee and as a very dedicated Lushie.  Needless to say I was beyond ecstatic.  Bossman handed it to me after my shift and I quickly scuttled to my car, leadfooted it home, plopped it on my bed, and spent a good ten minutes just staring at it in glee.  But I finally snapped out of my stupor and opened the box, eager to see the contents inside.  Amidst a cloud of glitter and bath bomb dust, the Dashing Santa bath bomb was the first thing I saw.

 

Dashing Santa was inspired by the Santa Dash in Liverpool, a race where runners dressed as Santa race around town, and its design was based off of the old Cosmetics to Go logo (of which I cannot find a picture of).  Scented with mandarin oranges, bergamot, and orange flower absolute, Dashing Santa smells almost exactly like the Celebrate fragrances (which I love!) and contains snowflake lustre for a touch of sparkle.  The more I read about this in my training manual, the more I fell in love with it and the more excited I became to use it.  I love my citrus and I love my bergamot, and the bomb itself was adorable.  So I quickly decided that this would be the first bath bomb of the Christmas season that I would use!

 

To me, Dashing Santa smelled almost like Pez candy, a sweet that always brings me back to my childhood.  I can't remember a time where I didn't have a Pez dispenser in my back pocket, popping the sweet chalky candies like a nervous date does breath mints.  His appearance reminded me of our favorite mustachioed plumber, as he appeared back in the old days of tube TV and Mama Llama's outrageously big hair (that she didn't get rid of until the early 2000s at the behest of Papa Bear finally convincing her that the 80s were over and done with and took the economy with it).

 

When I plunked Jolly Ol' Saint Nick in the tub, he immediately foamed up and released a pretty pink tint into the water.  His facial features and body were slowly melted away by a layer of foam, coloring the pink atop it with a steamed milk texture and a scant shimmer I could barely make out.  Honestly, I could feel my excitement draining as the bomb dissolved.  It was a slow fizzing bath bomb so I sat and watched.  And watched.  And then turned around to watch the movie "Gladiator" playing on my TV (and yes, Russell Crowe, I wasn't entertained.  Well, by the bath bomb at least).  When it was fully dissolved my bath water was the color of pink champagne with nary a bit of shimmer in sight.  I reluctantly sank in and realized something strange.  I couldn't smell a thing!  I sniffed and sniffed like my dog does when I hide her treats (which is frantic and panicked until she sneezes on your face and you're forced to give her the treat because she'll do it again in five seconds...) but nothing!  That slightly tart citrusy scent was gone!  It was the strangest thing, and very disappointing.  My Dashing Santa bath was quite short.

 

Overall I wasn't too pleased with this bath bomb, and it was a bit of a disappointing kickoff to my first holiday season at Lush.  Many of my coworkers loved it, so perhaps I got a bad one or my nose is becoming immune to citrus (oh god that'd be awful!  I love citrus!).  This though would be perfect for kids, since it's a smaller bomb and kids don't use much water in the tub.  But overall, great design, not so fantastic execution.  But there's plenty more bath bombs where that came from, so stay tuned for more Christmas reviews!

**Dashing Santa is certified Vegan
***Purchase Dashing Santa at your local LUSH store or online herel