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!
***Purchase Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds at your local LUSH store or online HERE
