(Review) Lord of Misrule: Wino's Delight

Did you know that if you turn around in front of your bathroom mirror and say "pumpkin spice latte" three times, a basic white girl appears and tells you everything she loves about fall?  It's true!  One of my favorite Halloween games to play next to light as a feather, stiff as a board.  Just remember to make it out of the bathroom before she strangles you with her north face jacket!

But in all seriousness, those basic girls are onto something when they bray about fall being their favorite time of year.  Leaves changing color, that cool crispness in the air, getting up from a leather couch without sticking to it from the humidity.  That and I can drink a nice, hot cup of tea without sweating bullets.  Oh yes...fall is a beautiful time of year, the last colorful hurrah before Mother Nature dumps a bunch of snow on us.  So I'm taking it all in while I still can.

 

This fall also happens to be my first fall as a hardcore Lushie.  I've been shopping at Lush for a good few years, but I've never really experienced the bath bombs until I started working at the store.  My first was Avobath and it's been all downhill ever since.  But I've been hearing about Lord of Misrule for quite a while, and when I heard it turned your bath the color of a fine red wine, I was intrigued.  So after a chilly day full of scrubbing and cleaning (with no help from my magical animal friends...lazy hibernators...), I decided to reward myself with a little bath.

 

Lord of Misrule was inspired by the Pagen Feast of Fools, a medieval feast where everything would be flipped around.  Commoners were royalty, dirt was gold, and there was lots and lots of wine for all.  If you've ever seen "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," that was the feast they were celebrating.  Probably with a lot less singing and a lot less hunchbacks.  Gorilla perfumer and son of co-founder Mark Constantine, Simon Constantine created Lord of Misrule's fragrance with patchouli, black pepper oil, and vanilla.  The scent is absolutely beautiful to me.  If they put this in a perfume I would buy it by the gallon.  The vanilla cuts through the patchouli and black pepper, giving each fragrance a nice, but not overpowerful sweetness.  You can still make out the patchouli and black pepper, but they're not too spicy or earthy.

 

After eying this baby since the Halloween collection launched, I caved and bought two.  One I kept in my bathroom and the other I kept in my room.  It was the first thing I could smell when I woke up, which made waking up a lot more pleasant.  But I decided to sacrifice one to the bath gods today, as a day of what can only be described as an "80s cleaning montage" left me sweaty and gross.  So into the bathtub this went, foaming a beautiful light green similar to Avobath, but then started to "bleed" a purple red.  The bomb spun round and round like a top, bleeding more wine colored froth into the tub, turning it an ugly brown at first, but gradually morphing into a deep merlot color.  The scent filled the bathroom and I soaked in absolute bliss.  It'd be the perfect bath bomb to have a glass of wine with, but seeing as wine gives me a bangin' headache and tastes awful, I stuck with iced tea and candied almonds.  When I got out I smelled earthy and sweet, and was surprised at how moisturized my skin was.

 

This bath bomb was the first Halloween product (that will be sticking around until Christmas!) of Lush's I've used and it definitely won't be the last.  This is a clear winner in my book, with a beautiful scent, a deep rich color, and a surprisingly great moisturizing quality.  And don't be scared of the color!  My tub was completely unstained after I got out of the tub.  Not a stain or drop of burgundy remained.  So overall, a perfect start off to what's going to be a fantastic and fun filled LUSHoween!   

So tell me Lushies...what Lush Halloween product are you loving so far?  Leave your answers in the comments below!!

**This product is certified Vegan
***Purchase Lord of Misrule at your local LUSH store or online HERE

(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!**

(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   

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(Review) Dorothy: In the Merry Old Land of My Bathroom

A miracle happened this week.  I had to check my email multiple times to make sure it was accurate.  When checking my work schedule for the week, I found that I not only had one, not two, but THREE days off.  Three in a row!  In retail, that's pretty much unheard of.  Much more rare than no work on the day called Saturday, which is whispered about in myth and legend in the retail world (also like the mythical word "weekend."  I know not what it means anymore).  Needless to say my heart swelled with a happy song fit for a doe eyed Disney princess, the world seemed a little brighter, and everyone had a smile on their face.

...well not really.  I love my job very much, but I was looking forward to three days of not wearing pants.  Because pants are for squares.  And I celebrated this fact by drawing myself a nice, soothing bubble bath!

Enter Dorothy, whom I'm now deeming one of LUSH's most underrated bubble bars.  Dorothy initially had me worried, being a beautiful cerulean blue with a fiery rainbow atop it.  Being an art major, I knew right away these colors would not match up very well, as blue and orange are opposites and tend to "brown out" (aka turn brown when mixed...duh) so I was expecting kind of cruddy looking bath water.  But despite the color combo, this had me at first whiff. 

 

If you like LUSH's Figs and Leaves soap, you'll love this bubble bar, as they share the same scent.  It's full of orange blossom absolute, a very thick oil that ironically smells highly floral rather than citrusy as the name "orange" would suggest.  Gardenia and ylang ylang oils also help to balance out the scent.  To me it smells beautiful and powdery, very very light and perfect for someone who's sensitive to perfumes or scents in general.

So when I first bought this, it was a deep, ocean blue.  I love deep blue colors (think heart of the ocean-esque blue, tucked safely away in my bathroom and not thrown into the ocean by an old Kate Winslet).  After having for about a week or so, it started to gradually fade into a light, pastel powder blue.  I was kind of disappointed that the blue faded so quickly so that kind of stunk, but life goes on and I used it anyways.

 

When I use bubble bars, I always use half.  So I cracked this baby in half and crumbled it under my running tap water.  I strangely love the feeling of crumbling bubble bars.  It just feels so nice and melty, like a cake or sweet melting in the palm of your hand.  Immediately the bubbles began to form and I swished my hands around in the water to give the water more bubble fluff.  The bubbles I felt were light and silky, literally feeling creamy smooth in the palms of my hands.  The bubbles didn't look like a bunch of tiny bubbles wedged together like a lot of bubble baths do, but more of a creamy froth you get on top of a cappuccino.  I let the tub fill and parted the bubble sea to see what color the water was underneath.  To my surprise, it was a beautiful stormcloud gray that smelled like powder with an ever so slightly floral note.

I sank into the tub and immediately my limbs turned to jelly.  I was so unbelievably relaxed I just melted in, finding it hard to concentrate on my book and music and just lay there in my bubbly heaven.  The smell was amplified a lot in the bath, but not cloyingly so.  It was just a nice light fragrance perfect for a late, summer night bath.  When I got out of the tub, the fragrance lingered on my skin quite nicely and I felt super soft and moisturized.

Beautiful, stormy gray bathwater

Dorothy has to be one of my favorite bubble bars, taking second place behind my beloved Brightside.  I was pleasantly surprised by this bubble bar.  I bought it thinking I wouldn't like it because of the opposite colors and the fact that I wasn't the biggest Wizard of Oz fan (but I LOVE Wicked!) but I'm so glad I was mistaken!  Dorothy is a fantastic bubble bar with a light scent, great moisturizing properties, and will relax you to the point of zombification (seriously I got out of the bath not too long ago and I'm struggling to stay awake as I type this).  Highly recommended, fantastic product, verified by the Lollipop Guild, ruby slippers not included.

**This bubble bar is certified Vegan
***Purchase Dorothy at your local LUSH store or buy it online HERE

(Review) African Paradise: It Means No Worries!

I don't know about you darling readers, but I am NOT a morning person.  There's nothing I dread more than hearing the shrill, incessant beeping of my alarm clock in the morning, going to turn it off but end up slamming my palm into my glasses, letting out a stream of curse words and praying that my glasses aren't broken, then five minutes later find said alarm clock and press snooze.  This practice usually repeats 2-4 times until I realize I'll be late for work, in which I pretty much ooze out of my warm, cozy bed and slither into the shower like the abnormally pale, night-dwelling creature I am. 

So by myself (and I'm guessing most of you, because I'm convinced morning people aren't human) not being a morning person, I like to keep my morning routine simple and not too complicated.  Because until I get that first taste of sweet heart palpitating caffeine, I'm pretty much comatose in the morning.  And because I'm not so much a morning person, sometimes I run late, which means I sometimes need to speed up my already simplistic morning routine.  Needless to say, African Paradise, LUSH's newest body conditioner has been a total game changer.

It kind of baffles me when people come into my shop and are completely confused as to what a body conditioner is.  Part of me kind of understands, but the other part is like "it says right there...on the...on the pot...right there."  For those of you that don't get what a body conditioner is, it's a conditioner for your body!  But for those who still don't understand it (and I do get some people who still don't get it after I've told them that, but that's okay, because I'm here to save the day!) I describe it as an in shower body lotion.  You wash with your soap or body wash of choice, then you smooth this on, do whatever you do in the shower (shave, wash your face, contemplate the meaning of life and existence as we know it) and rinse it off.  No need for lotion afterwards, because body conditioners do all the work that body lotion is supposed to!  And African Paradise is the newest to the body conditioner range, joining the classic Ro's Argan Body Conditioner (which smells DIVINE)!

LUSH staff box version of African Paradise

So when I bought my first full sized pot of African Paradise, I notice that it was a beautiful creamy cappuccino color as opposed to the slightly pastel white color of the one included in my staff box.  Still had the same scent though!  The scent is described as a "frangipani-scent"(which is a fancy word for Plumeria) and smells very light and powdery.  Honestly, it smells very similar to the new self preserving Charity Pot that should be out in September (which you can read all about here).  Among the frangipani (that's a fun word to say!  Just try it.  Say it out loud like, right now.  I'll know if you don't!) fragrance, there's also a smattering of fair trade, exotic ingredients from all over Africa!  For instance, the aloe, kalahari melon oil, and baobab oil included in African Paradise are from Kenya, completely fair trade, and very soothing if you had a long day out in the sun and have transformed into a human lobster hybrid.  Fair trade shea butter and fair trade moringa oil are both from Ghana and are super moisturizing.  It just blows my mind that everything in that little tub of goodness was once on a tree or harvested from somewhere in Africa.  Talk about an exotic bathing experience!  LUSH has also included fair trade vanilla into African Paradise, and we are the first company to EVER use fair trade vanilla!  But the best part about this new body conditioner.  It is totally and completely 100% self preserving, meaning no preservatives or parabens are included whatsoever.

Fun fact: LUSH includes hidden messages underneath the made by stickers!  Check some of yours out for a little message from the compounders!

So cut to a few days ago, to myself having my annual slapfest with my alarm clock's snooze button.  Realizing I hit it one too many times, I immediately rushed into the bathroom, obscenities streaming from my mouth like it was going out of style, leaving a trail of pajamas and underthings in my panic.  I hopped in the shower and furiously began scrubbing away, thankful that I'd washed my hair the night before.  In my sleep deprived haze, I remembered that I had bought my full sized tub not too long ago, and hastily rubbed every inch of skin down with the stuff.  I had previously used Ro's Argan and loved it, but I noticed how much lighter African Paradise felt on my skin than Ro's did (I still love Ro's though!).  After washing my face, I rinsed the conditioner off, patted myself dry, and marveled at how my skin felt, looked, and smelled.  The thing I still can't get over is how LIGHT it felt.  I was really surprised that something so light feeling could leave me so well moisturized.  And being that it was quite hot and humid out, the lightness was a welcome feeling as opposed to being sticky and gross.  I smelled very light and powdery, and my skin looked opalescent and even.  I was actually surprised I was awake enough to remember all of this!

Overall, I'm in love with African Paradise.  In my store amongst my coworkers, it's pretty much the universal favorite, and on the first day, we were selling it like CRAZY, and the customers are still coming back for more!  It's a fantastic product that feels so incredibly light, but moisturizing, and is made from quality, fair trade ingredients.  It's great if you don't like the feeling of lotion on your skin, or if you beat the snot out of your snooze button like I do.  I love demoing this on people and seeing their faces light up when they touch their arm.  It just makes me happy that I can love a product so much and show people why I love it, how it works, and why they'll love it too!

   
**This product is certified Vegan

**Pick up African Paradise at your local LUSH store, or buy it online HERE

(Review) Honey Bee: Bathtime Sweetness

I've been feeling just awful lately (hence no bathtime blog entry last week).  Allergies bite the big one.  All week I've been in a fog, with a clogged head, raw, itchy throat, dry eyes (as in dry enough that my coworker thought I was crying because they were so red) and a stuffy nose.  But on the positive, I get to experience the sweet satisfaction of having that one clogged nostril pop in the morning.  You know, that one clogged nostril you get when you're sick or have bad allergies.  Aww yeah, it's a great feeling!  So while I was feeling cruddy, I decided that I needed a nice, cleansing bath.  So I chose to have a sweet scented bath filled with soothing and cleansing clays!

 

Scented with the lovely Honey I Washed the Kids fragrance, Honey Bee is nice and sweet, but not too sweet!  HIWTK is one of my favorite scents from LUSH, and is my mother's all time favorite soap (I bought her a huge hunk of it for Mother's Day and I'm now convinced I'm the favorite child).  There's something about that salted caramel toffee scent that just makes my mouth water.  And I'm sure it made the inventor's mouth water too, as this was the whole point of the bath bomb!  Capturing HIWTK in a bath bomb!

Dragging my sorry butt to the bathroom, clutching my antihistamines and kleenex to my chest, I started up the bath tap and fished out the brown and yellow bomb.  Honey Bee may not be the prettiest bomb, but it's one of the sweetest smelling bombs!  The brown tone comes from the rhassoul mud, a rich clay that can only be mined from underground.  It's used to soften and cleanse the skin, and I needed a good deep clean.  Honey is also included (making this bomb vegetarian rather than vegan) to soften, and aloe vera to soothe.  It's fantastic if you have body acne or are just feeling like your skin is congested.

So into the tub Honey Bee plopped, immediately fizzing away.  The funniest complaint I hear about Honey Bee is that it makes the water yellow.  Well...DUH.  It's a yellow bath bomb, thus it will make your bath yellow.  Common sense really.  So I sat beside the tub, watching the bomb fizz as it sat rather close to the bottom.  It was quite a fast fizzer, gone within a few quick minutes.  It did turn my bath water a pale yellow, a color most people complained about as they found it looked like urine.  Well, if that looks like urine to you, some of you guys need to drink more water!  

Flakes of rhassoul mud clearly visible amongst the bath bomb froth

So I sank into the tub, sniffling away, massaging my temples with Vapo Rub in an effort to soothe my aching head.  The smell did fade a bit once dissolved.  I only caught occasional whiffs of it as I soaked.  And I didn't soak for long.  After about 30 minutes my legs started to get rather itchy.  Like I was wearing leggings full of sand.  I soaked for another 30 minutes, than clambered out, desperate for some body lotion.  I did find the scent clung to my newly cleansed skin quite well, smelling stronger on myself than it did in the bath, but I felt it did dry me out a bit.  I didn't like the itchy feeling it gave my legs.  It was very uncomfortable and I found I was hard pressed to even sit through the extra 30 minutes in the tub.  My skin can be a bit sensitive to the weirdest things, and I'm kind of glad I wasn't too fond of this bath bomb.  Because what didn't work for me might work for you and vise versa.  If your skin isn't as sensitive, or is head to toe oily, this bath bomb would be fantastic for you!  If you find you're more on the dry or sensitive side, I'd avoid it.  

Overall, this was a nice smelling bath bomb, but unfortunately made for an uncomfortable bathing experience. I loved how the smell stuck to my skin, but disliked how dry my legs felt afterward.  I still recommend you pick one up so you can try it for yourself!  The sweet toffee smell is hard to resist!

*This product is certified Vegetarian

*Purchase Honey Bee at your local LUSH store, or buy one online here

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