(Review) Pearl: No Strings Attached

Brace yourselves readers.  The holidays are upon us.  And for retail workers like me, that means little to no sleep and a diet strictly composed of caffeine and the sheer will to live.  I'm more well rested now than I was last week and the week before, which chalked up to a whopping 60 hour work week for yours truly.  Why so many hours you ask?  Two words for you: Black Friday.

For my non-American readers (greetings from the land of McBeetus and baseball by the way) Black Friday is the equivalent of Boxing Day.  It takes place the day after Thanksgiving, sometimes even starting Thanksgiving night.  Was that the case for me?  Absolutely.  I've never much cared for Thanksgiving as a holiday.  There's just something unsettling about the dull brown and vomit orange decorations everywhere, and those pilgrim hats made out of cardboard paper are a total fashion faux pas.  So when I elected not to go home for Thanksgiving and visit my family, Bossman asked if I wanted to help work Thanksgiving night, to which I quickly agreed.  Thanksgiving/Black Friday are fun nights to work.  Seeing people go nuts for $5 off an iPad is always an entertaining thing to see.  I remember once the police were called at my local Walmart due to a four person brawl over tupperware.  TUPPERWARE.  I find more people come out to people watch rather than shop.  

So at a quarter to seven, I arrived in full Lush garb, a plate cookies in hand for my coworkers and I to snack on, braced for the inevitable chaos that was Black Friday.  Once I got into the store, I was startled by a loud banging behind me.  I saw people...customers, were banging on the gates asking why we weren't open!  BANGING!  Like zoo animals!  We explained that we were opening within a few minutes, and sure enough, the floodgates literally and figuratively opened when we drew back the gate at seven o'clock sharp.

That night was absolute chaos.  Loud techno music thumping (courtesy of yours truly and her phone), wall to wall people, laughing, smiling, having a great time and wishing each other a happy Thanksgiving.  It was the most beautiful type of chaos and I loved every second of it.  But by midnight, I was yawning and my shift was up, and knew a bath and a good massage were calling my name (because I'm rambling and need to get to the damn product okay?).

Enter Pearl, the much anticipated massage bar from the new range.  From what I'm told, it's the best seller in the U.K and, I can definitely see why!  I snagged this bar from the Kitchen a few months ago, back when I wasn't too sure what the Kitchen was until Bossman bought 8 (yes 8) pots of American Cream body lotion from them...just to smell...oh Bossman, we love you so.  I remember anxiously awaiting my parcel in the mail, worried that I would receive a puddle of cocoa butter and tapioca pearls, but both massage bars (I ordered Percup as well) showed up intact and not melty in the slightest.  Pearl is scented with the beautiful Rose Jam fragrance that everyone and their grandmother adores, and was inspired by bubble tea (a treat I've yet to try myself).  The fair trade organic cocoa butter (sidenote: ALL the cocoa butter used in Lush products is now fair trade and organic!  Yay!) is super moisturizing while the sago tapioca pearls massage and stimulate your skin, much like the adzuki beans in Wiccy Magic Muscles.

Being exhausted and craving a nice warm bath before I went off to dreamland, I filled the tub up with (what I thought was) nice hot water, dropped a bomb in, and soaked...for five minutes.  The hot water turned off halfway through and I was left with a hot pink, lukewarm bath.  I toweled off and stomped to my room, shivering, naked, and in desperate need of some sort of pampering.  Too tired to do a mask, foot treatment, or mani/pedi...hmmm...how about a massage?!  That's when I busted out Pearl and gave myself a nice, sweet scented rubdown.  

Because I'm tragically single (emphasis on the word tragically) my massage bars are used for the sole purpose of moisturizer.  Once in a while I apply a little extra and rub the stubborn knot in my left shoulder that always comes back no matter what, but that's about it.  Pearl is an intensive moisture treatment for the body, the oil slipping and sliding easily without being overly greasy.  My tired skin drank it in and was left with a beautiful sheen and that rose jam scent everyone knows and loves.  

Overall, Pearl is a fantastic massage bar that smells beautiful and works beautifully as well.  My only complaint is that the sago pearls can be scratchy when melted down a bit too much, and they don't taste nice (I popped one into my mouth one day and my roommate watched/cringed as I bit down and nearly cracked the permanent retainer off of my teeth).  This is definitely a massage bar I will be repurchasing and will continue to repurchase!

**Pearl is ceritified Vegan

***Pearl will be coming to a local LUSH North America store soon!

**Questions for the People:  The massage bars have been out for not too long now.  Which one are you positively LOVING?!  Let me know in the comments below!!**

(Review) Charity Pot: Something Old, Something New

As someone who has indulged in Mountain Dew for breakfast complimented by a Snickers, I can safely say that I have a slight sugar addiction.  Yeah...I'm not too proud of that.  Mind you, that was back in college, where sleep was a luxury and a meal besides ramen and Lean Cuisines was something whispered and spoken of in myth and legend.  Since then my eating habits have gotten substantially better, but I will still indulge in my favorite sugary treats...mainly Starbucks because it's right across from my shop.  Oh yes...the sweet, sugary slush of a vanilla bean frapp has me salivating, as does a piece of raspberry swirl pound cake.  Two things I've been eating a bit too much of as of late.  So I'm slowly starting to transition my way to sweet smelling things to quell my sugar addiction...one of these being Charity Pot.  One whiff of this stuff and it just makes my mouth water!

Charity Pot is a fantastic hand and body lotion chalk full of fairtrade certified organic cocoa butter, and smells nice and chocolately!  None of that fake chemical chocolate smell...it smells beautiful and natural, because it IS beautiful and natural!  Charity Pot was started in 2007, and every penny you spend on this silky sweet lotion goes to charity! *(minus taxes).  The charities in question are always on the lid of the product, and are grassroots charities that help animals, the environment, and of course, people.  Since its launch in 2007, Charity Pot has raised over $4.8 million dollars for these grassroots charities!  Pretty amazing right?  And starting in September of this year, Charity Pot is being reformulated into a beautiful new floral scent that is self preserving and will better aide LUSH's charitable efforts!  This entry will be comparing the two.

Original formula Charity Pot

The first time I tried Charity Pot, I pulled it out of my stocking at Christmas.  A nice little stocking stuffer from Ol' Saint Nick (a.k.a my mother).  I will admit, I didn't quite love it at first whiff.  The smell was something I found to be a bit odd, seeing as I was so used to heavily perfumed floral and fruity body lotions.  Usually anything that had some type of a food scent was an automatic no for me.  But while this smelled similar to chocolate...it was different somehow.  It didn't have that chemical overlay a lot of baked good scented products have, which was refreshing.  Over time, the scent grew on me, and I decided to put this lotion to good use! 

Fast forward a year or so later, and the news that Charity Pot is being reformulated surfaces.  Being a LUSH employee, I'm fortunate enough to be able to try things out before they are released to the public (a great example of how LUSH gives back to their employees!).  I had an original formula Charity Pot, a new formula Charity Pot, and a LUSH blog that desperately needed a comparison of these two fantastic lotions! 

New self-preserving Charity Pot

Original Charity Pot:  I mainly apply Charity Pot as a nighttime moisturizer, as I find it's a bit too heavy for day wear, especially in the summer where my town gets all muggy and humid.  So after one of my many late night baths, I applied my Charity Pot lotion to my entire body.  While I do love the scent, I find it to be a bit strong at times, and before this little experiment, mainly used it as a hand lotion.  But I was pleased at how the scent toned itself down after sinking in, leaving a pleasant cocoa scent with a hint of coffee on my skin.  It softened me up to the point where I didn't even need lotion the next morning after my shower!  This stuff really sinks in and softens you into a walking stick of butter!

Original Charity Pot contains not only fair trade organic cocoa butter, but almond oil, as well as ylang ylang, geranium, and tagetes oils that give a slight floral note.  I couldn't really pick up on it, but my roommate could.  Overall I was pleased at how Charity Pot held up as a body lotion.  I felt nice and soft all day and the cocoa/coffee scent smelled beautiful! 

New Self Preserving Charity Pot:  Upon cracking open the new Charity Pot, I instantly noticed how much thicker it is than the original formula.  I found the original formula to have a bit of a thinner consistency, and if I turned the pot upside down, it would splat to the floor.  New formula doesn't do that at all.  While the original has a chocolatey smell, the new formula has a beautiful floral smell that isn't stuffy or old ladyish.  It has a sugary sweet note buried beneath it as well that smells so wonderfully decadent I just want to lap it up like buttercream frosting.  But I won't...because it probably wouldn't taste too nice.  Once I slathered this on, I noticed that it felt much lighter than the original Charity Pot.  The cocoa butter in this formula is still there, but there isn't as much of it as the original formula.  Instead, this Charity Pot contains other butters and oils such as fair trade olive oil, organic jojoba oil, moringa oil, fair trade shea butter, and geranium, rosewood, and ylang ylang oils.  The touch of vanilla absolute gives it a hint of sweetness, and the aloe gel contained gives it a nice soothing sensation.  While Charity Pot in both forms is very rich, I found this sunk into my skin much faster than the original Charity Pot did.  The scent became a bit more sweet on my skin (essential oils change with your body chemistry) and left me feeling nice and soft without feeling greasy.  I still found it a bit too heavy for day wear though.  Also, because Charity Pot is self preserving, there are no parabens or preservatives in it whatsoever.  Original Charity Pot has them, but at such a low amount (less than 3%) that legally they don't have to be included on the label.

Overall, I have to say I love both Charity Pots.  But if I had to choose, I would choose the new formula.  I find I'm more drawn to the scent (even though I love both, I like the lighter, fresher scent this one provides) and I find it absorbs better and faster than the original.  I find the new Charity Pot to be a great new spin on an original bestselling lotion.  It takes all of the positives about the original and improves them drastically.  I often tell my customers that buying a pot of this lovely lotion is good for the mind, body, and soul.  You buy a pot of beautiful, natural lotion, you help charities and small businesses, you feel good about helping others, AND your skin is as soft as flower petals.  What more could you want?!



 * Both Charity Pots are certified Vegan
* Pick up the original Charity Pot at your local LUSH store, or purchase online here 
* New Self Preserving Charity Pot will be available worldwide September 2014