DAY #3 - LUSH CHRISTMAS WISHLIST

Who honestly doesn't love Lush's Christmas range? It may be one of the best things to happen each year. Since I haven't been able to go into Lush this year, and I don't have a Lush near me at home, this year's Lush Christmas post comes to you as a wishlist from the Lush website.

'Santasaurus' Bubble Bar
Like most (I assume), I base my product choices in  Lush on what they smell like. The Santasaurus bubble bar is so cute that I want it regardless of what it smells like.

'Snowie' Bubble Bar
As with the Santasaurus, I don't think I can resist a bubble bar that looks like a snowman David Bowie.

'Jester' Bubble Bar
Another adorable and orange-scented bubble bar. Basically, I want all the bubble bars.

'So White' Bath Bomb
A classic, I love apples.

'Shoot For The Stars' Bath Bomb
I can't resist any product with orange in it (as most of Lush's products seem to contain) and I also can't resist how stunning this bath bomb is.

'Golden Wonder' Bath Bomb
A classic Lush Christmas bath bomb.

'Butterbear' Bath Bomb
The Butterball is my absolute favourite Lush bathbomb, it smells beyond incredible, and every Chrismtas Lush rerelease it in the shape of an adorable bear.

'Snow Fairy' Shower Gel
The epitome of the Lush Christmas products and smells.

'Bubbly' Shower Gel
It's orange, I can't help myself.

'Reindeer Rock' Soap
It's blue, it looks like a reindeer carving on a cave wall, the reindeer is gold, it has a slightly different berry and floral scent, I want it.

'Santa's Postbox' Soap
It basically just smells really, really orangy.

'Shooting Stars' Soap
I couldn't decide between the orange scent of Santa's Postbox or the lemon and lime scent of Shooting Stars, so I've added both of them to the list.

'Sugar Plum Fairy' Lip Scrub and Lip Tint
Who doesn't love a Lush lip scrub? They always leave your lips feeling amazing, and I can't resist the gorgeous plum colour and orange scent of these two.

'Be Excellent To Each Other' Bag
I've been drooling over this tote bag with a quote from 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' on it ever since I saw it a few months ago, and I think it's something that I  genuinely need in my life.

Rosie

Might have to go and place a massive Lush order now

DAY #2 - BODY SHOP CHRISTMAS

As sad as it sounds, the times when the Body Shop and Costa Christmas ranges are released is something I look forward to every year form about October onwards. Every year I do a post talking through the Body Shop's new Christmas products, and this year is no exception.

Every year the Body Shop release three Christmas scents- there's always one related to vanilla and one related to cranberry, and the third one changes each year. This year's scents are winners. There's vanilla chai, frosted berries and spiced apple. Unsurprisingly, spiced apple is my favourite.

Unlike the apple scent of two Christmas's ago, which was an incredibly juicy, sweet and mouth-watering scent, spiced apple has a much more dark and stereotypically festive smell- you can definitely smell the cinnamon and I love it. All three scents this year have a much darker scent compared to the usual fresh and bright scents the Body Shop release- they've not shied away from the spices this year and I can't say that I'm complaining. There's not all that much I can say about vanilla chai, it's a lovely, wintry, spicy vanilla, and you all know what vanilla chai smells like. This year, the Body Shop have taken a different turn on their usual cranberry (or occasionally frosted cranberry) scent. As the name frosted berries suggests, the regular old cranberry has turned into a berry medley and, though you can still smell a hint of cranberry, it is very much a festive mix of winter berries. As loyal as I am to the traditional cranberry scent each year, I'm really liking the change and, so far, all the Body Shop presents I've bought this year have been from the frosted berries range.

Wish List: (The products available this Christmas that I love the most)
-Shower gel
-Foaming bath
-Lip balm
-Scented candle
-'Rosie Monkey' bath sponge (I wonder if you can guess why...)
-Individual bath fizzers (especially eyeing up 'candied plum')

Rosie

The Body Shop fanatic

A QUINTESSENTIAL LUSH CHRISTMAS POST

So my mother and I went Christmas shopping on Wednesday, and we got a little bit carried away (by our standards) in Lush. I never shop in Lush, it's a bit iffy for me, some of the things I love but quite a lot of the scents that everyone likes I absolutely hate, but I always like to go every Christmas and buy a couple of bits from their Christmas range. The only thing I didn't buy this year that I maybe should've done is a Snow Fairy shower gel, which really is the epitome of all Christmas.

Firstly, for myself, I bought the butter bear bath bomb. The butterball is my absolutely favourite Lush product, and for the last few Christmases Lush have released it in the form of an adorable little bear. There are no words to describe how good this smells, it contains cocoa butter, cocoa power and ylang ylang oil, and it has the most comforting vanillary-chocolately smell. For me, the butter bear is something that I could smell for the rest of my life and never get bored of. It's the most lovely, warming, comforting, delicious thing I've ever smelt ever.

The next bath bomb I bought myself is the yog nog bath bomb, a new one for this year. This bath bomb contains clove bud oil, shea butter, ylang ylang oil and soya milk powder; I do love a good bath bomb with shea butter and ylang ylang. This is definitely a Christmas-scented bath bomb, it smells like toffee and something else that's quite dark and heavy but definitely works. It's the polar opposite to the chocolatey-sweety-freshness of the butterbear, and I definitely think it's going to make me feel all lovely and festive when I come to use it.

The So White bath bomb is quite a popular one from the Christmas range and is one of the ones I bought as a gift. So White contains orange flower absolute, bergamot oil, rose absolute and neroli oil. I smelt this one for the first time last year (it's been around for quite a few years though), and I was pretty excited for it as I had heard it smelt like apples, which is one of my favourite scents. Last year, however, I was really disappointed with this scent, it just didn't smell good-or at all like apples- to me. This year, however, I thought I'd smell it again and give it enough go, as it seemed like a great bath bomb to give my aunt. This year, I'm much more pleased with the scent and I like it a lot more. It doesn't smell as good as the Body Shop apple products do, but it has a very nice, fresh scent that I think would appeal to a lot of people, and I've become more and more keen on the more I've smelt it.

The next two products are the reusable bubble wands. Like the bubble bars, these ones are designed to make bubbles in your bath, rather than being a bath bomb. With the bubble wands, you swirl them around in your bath to make bubbles, and you can reuse them multiple times.

The bubble wand I bought for myself is the Magic of Christmas bubble wand. This one is the epitome of all things Christmasy. Containing cinnamon leaf oil, almond essential oil and sweet orange oil, this bubble wand is studded with cloves and star anise, and the stick of the wand is a stick of cinnamon. As predicted, it smells incredible. It's fresh and orangey and spicy and I'm beyond excited to use it.

This next and final product, the Magic Wand bubble bar, is basically Snow Fairy in wand form. I quite like Snow Fairy, though it can be very sickly, but it smells fantastic in bubble wand form. I bought this one for my best friend for Christmas and it's really making me regret not buying one- or not buying actual Snow Fairy- for myself. For those out of the Lush loop, Snow Fairy smells like candy floss and sweets and all things sugary. It's not a scent for everyone, but it is the definition of all things Lush Christmas.

Rosie 

BATH JELLY

As a quick note, unfortunately I don't think this product is available from the Body Shop anymore as it was part of their Christmas range, which is only available for a limited time. To my knowledge, there are other products like this available from other brands, just not this specific one.

Every Christmas the Body Shop release three limited edition scents and a range of products in said scents, and every Christmas my mother and I go mad for a particular one. Last year it was the gingerbread, and this year was apple.

This Christmas, I was given a Body Shop limited edition 'Bath Jelly' in the scent Glazed Apple.

Starting with the scent, I mentioned countless times in Blogmas how good this smells. It's simultanelously fresh and fruity and sour and tangy. It's impossible to place exactly, but it's one of those scents that has you watering at the mouth as soon as you smell it. I literally can't get enough.

Onto the product itself, bath jelly is a weird, weird thing. I spent a fair amount of time debating how best to actually get it out of the tub and into my bath. I wondered about pouring, scooping with my hands, or even using a spoon; I went for the hands.
My main problem with how to get it in the bath stems from the fact that is seems quite runny and liquid-like when in the tub. This is not the case in reality. It was a confusing moment, sticking my hand in the tub expecting liquid, and instead finding a more solid, wobbly and distictly jelly-like product. It's difficult to describe, but what I'm trying to say is that it is literally a jelly, and not at all a lquid.

Anyway. The purpose of bath jelly is to create bubbles; you scoop it out of the tub and swirl it around your bath under running water. And it does work, bubbles are created, not as many as with a bubble bar, but there are a good number of incredible-smelling bubbles.
Saying that, and this may be due to not using enough product, I did find that the bubbles disappeared quite quickly. And, whilst there were a good number of bubbles, they were more of a thin layer than a big mound, as you would get with a bubble bar.

The consistency of the jelly means that it appears to be one of those miracle products, where you scoop out a massive bit and the rest of the product fills in the gap, making it look like you haven't touched it at all.

Overall I do like this product a lot. It smells incredible, you get a lot of product for your money and it lasts ages, and it does what it says on the tin. Though I haven't tried any others, as a general rule I would recommend bath jellies. They're a fun and unusual addition to your bath, and I think they would also make really great gifts.

BLOGMAS DAY 24- THE APTLY NAMED LUSH PRODUCT

Wednesday 24th December 2014

1 sleep till Christmas

I mentioned in my previous Lush post that there would be another one later in the month for certain reasons. And the time has now arrived. You can't write about a product called 'Christmas Eve' on any day other than Christmas Eve, can you? 

'Christmas Eve' is a bubble bar, and it has literally changed baths forever for me. I decided after using this once that bubble bars are my favourite Lush product and I'm not sure how I survived without them. Bubble bars are great as they have so many uses; you break off a small bit, crumble it under running water, and there's your bubbles. 

According to Lush, 'Christmas Eve' is scented with ylang ylang and jasmine absolute, and it smells incredible. Aside from 'Butterball', I think 'Christmas Eve' may be my favourite Lush scent. It smells like nothing I've ever smelt before and I can't describe it but I'm in love.

As a product, I would definitely recommend bubble bars.They're such a lovely product and you get a large amount of bubbles from the smallest bit of the bar. 'Christmas Eve' is 100% my favourite of all the Lush products I've bought this year. 

BLOGMAS DAY 12- A LUSHY CHRISTMAS

Friday 12th December 2014

13 sleeps till Christmas 

I missed out on Lush Christmas last year so I was geared up and ready this time round. However, I've got to say I was majorly disappointed. There was just nothing in there that appealed to me scent-wise and I ended up leaving with a third of the things I had originally wanted.
I'm also super disappointed as I'd really wanted the 'Melting Snowman' bath melt but they didn't have it in my nearest Lush, and the 'So White' bath ballistic was no where near as nice as I remembered it, the Body Shop Glazed Apple scent is way nicer.
Controversial: I didn't buy Snow Fairy. I had it last year (I did a review back in January) and whilst I ddi love it, I do think it is a slightly overrated products (but I went into more detail back in that post).

There are two products mentioned here, but look out for the last Lush Christmas post coming up later this month for reasons you will soon understand...

Butterbear:
The butterball is my all-time favourite bath bomb, it's one of the smaller ones which I much prefer and it smells absolutely incredible. The product contains cocoa butter and ylang ylang oil (does anyone in the world know how to pronounce that), and has a vanillary sort of scent. Lush claim that the cocoa butter is 'great for nourishing and protecting your skin'.

This Christmas Lush have both the normal butterball, and the Christmas version: the Butterbear. The butterbear is exactly the same as the butterball, except it's in a super cute bear version (and it's cheaper). I'm already regretting not getting two.

The butterbear is not the most attractive or 'wow' colour bath bomb, but it smells so incredible and makes your bathroom smell amazing. I would like to live in a room made entirely out of them so I could smell them forever.

Dashing Santa:
I didn't actually go into Lush with the intention of buying this one, but it smelt too good to let it pass. The Dashing Santa bath bomb contains bergamont and manadrin oils and has a beautiful citrus smell with a hint of something else.

This bath bomb makes your bath a beautiful, festive pinky-red colour that smells so good and gears you right up for the Christmas season.

LOSING MY VIRGINITY

Despite the slightly awkward title, this is not going to be some deep and intimate post about that sort of thing but instead is how I lost my Lush Snow Fairy virginity. I don't know how it's possible that I haven't used Snow Fairy before now as everyone raves about it so much but there is was under my tree on Christmas morning (I will be doing quite a few reviews on products I got for Christmas) and now I can go out with confidence and say that I have tried Snow Fairy instead of keeping quite that I hadn't...

Snow Fairy Shower Gel (100g bottle):
I was very excited to try this as everyone loves it so much and the colour and packaging makes for a very pretty product. My first impression was that it smelt very, very sugary and sickly and I was not sure how I felt about that as it's not the nicest smell in the world. After writing that sentence I checked the bottle and it claims to smell like candy floss and pear drops which would explain the sickly smell but my love of pear drops has got me wishing that Lush had made a separate product that smelt just like pear on its own.
On the actual product itself, it's just a nice shower gel really, and I smell nice throughout the day which is always good (I can confirm that the scent has currently lasted throughout a 10 hour day); the one thing I must say is that it works as an excellent bubble bath if you like lots of bubbles (who doesn't).
I would say this is more of a summer scent as it is sweet and fresh and I associate winter with more dark and heavier scents.

Snow Fairy Sparkle Massage Bar:
I actually couldn't remember how to use these as its been so long and they are slightly different from bath bombs which I normally use so I have to go to Youtube and watch other people describe how to use them. The great thing about this is that is a quite big and you can use it more than once (something you can't do with a big bath bomb).
The smell is exactly the same as the shower gel (obviously) but a bit subdued which I think makes for a better product. The bar itself starts to melt the minute you pick it up yet it also feels quite waxy.
I hate to say it but I actually really don't like this product, it leaves this weird neon pink residue all over you (luckily I only tried it out on my legs first) but due to the waxy consistency it is really hard to get off (I've actually stained a white flannel neon pink trying to do so). It also made my legs feel very waxy afterwards- luckily I had a moisturiser to hand. I am disappointed as I was looking forward to trying this and it had the potential to be really great. Plus now that I've used it and got it wet I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with it as it is melting everywhere.

My overall view of Snow Fairy is that it is highly overrated. It is a nice shower gel but I just don't think it is worthy of the mass hype it gets (saying this I will probably buy it again next Christmas). I think the scent is a little too artificial and overpowering and they could do with toning down the sickly-sweetness of it slightly. I will also definitely NOT be ever buying a massage bar again as I really do not like the waxy texture or the weird residue it leaves.
Much to my immense disappointment the Christmas sale must have ended around new years day but as I didn't get back from various visiting trips until January 2nd I missed out on getting the So White and Golden Wonder bath bombs which I was dying to try but will now have to wait for next Christmas to do so. Boo.