Dear Mummy, a couple of weeks ago you were invited down to Southampton (your old haunt) to attend a LUSH event. Half your life was spent living in Southampton and studying there, so it was like returning home when you parked up in the city centre.

Southampton was the first time you had ever set eyes on LUSH, and the Southampton Branch opened its doors 15 years ago. You were one of the first to walk through its doors! You remember walking past MacDonald’s on the corner by the pedestrian precinct and towards the Bargate Centre and loved smelling the bath bombs and sweet scents coming from the LUSH store. Over a decade later the brand is still going strong and you get the same feeling walking into the shop as you did when you were a teenager. All giddy and happy.

This time you are here to be treated to demonstrations and to be shown all things great in the LUSH world. It’s the second time you’ve been invited to a LUSH blogging event (the last one was in the newer Basingstoke store) and you couldn’t resist the pull of Southampton and reminiscing about your student days. You were treated to nibbles (all healthy of course) and were amazed that everything you were eating made up the core ingredients of the LUSH products you were about to be shown! All super natural and yummy!

Over the course of the evening you were shown loads of new products but your all time favourites had to be the selection of Bath Bombs, Bubble Bars and anything bath related. You see, baths in this household are my mummy’s true joy. Her escapism from the daily grind, her haven and sanctuary. She loves her bath time and treating herself. It’s lovely that she can shut the door and melt all her worries along with a bubble bar under a hot bathroom tap. She loves walking into a bathroom and a beautiful scent hitting her in the face…POW!

So, without further a do…. here’s our top LUSH treats which we discovered (and rediscovered) on our latest expedition through the LUSH doors. It was like my mummy was let loose in a candy store, so many bright colours and fascinating shapes she didn’t know where to look first! Her eyes were drawn to an unusual bath bomb called the Experimenter.

The Experimenter £3.95 – The Experimenter was a bit of a show stopper during the event, it had a vibrant colour with the sound of popping candy. It contains fair trade vanilla absolute and has a really deep and sensual smell which is comforting and warming. My mummy could hardly believe the demonstration when this bath bomb was plonked in the water, as it produced a rainbow! Woweeeee – she’d never seen anything so beautiful. It would have been stunning if it just stayed like that, but eventually all the colours bled together and after 15 minutes the beautiful colours in the water had gone and been replaced with a dark greeny autumnal colour. The smell was dark, woody and sinister and reminded my mummy of a dusk-time trip outside to the woods. Still an intriguing bath bomb though.Afterwards my mummy was shown the Milky Bath Bubble Bar – £3.75 Contrasting to the Experimenter it was a very clean and simple milk-bottle bubble bar. It was filled with uplifting orange oil and skimmed milk to treat skin. My mummy liked the cocoa butter bottle top with silver natural glitter as it added a little bit of softness to her hand when she dipped them in the water. It’s easy to use as well, you simply crumble the milk bottle under running water, for a super bubbly treat of a bath. It home we tried one and my mummy was really impressed, not only was there an overabundance of bubbles, but the bubbles lasted a good 40 minutes. It smells amazing and you just melt in the water, it’s a bit like liquid hot milk. It also seemed to take the edge off our hard water, which we get in this area of Hampshire.

Yoga Bomb – £3.95 On first glance this looks like a rather boring Bath Bomb. It’s plain orange. However, don’t let looks deceive you. Once dipped in water it’s a gorgeous show of fizziness and goes on for about 10 minutes fizzing and exploding away! It leaves the water orange scented, oranges coloured and full of gold lustre. I love the sweet woody smell and the water looks like liquid gold. The smell lingers on my mummy’s skin and leaves her very relaxed. It dissolves much slower than any others she’s tried too which makes the whole bathing experience better value for money. It has a woody, frankincense-esque smell to it which is great for just relaxing. Would definitely buy this again next time we are in store!

Frozen Bath Bomb £3.95 I love the Disney film Frozen so imagine my delight when I found out LUSH had created a bath bomb in its honour!

Do you want to have a bath bomb? Do you want to splash and play? Step in, take a deep breath and let it go. 

The Frozen bath bomb dissolving in the water is fun to watch with two shades of blue coming out of it and the result is perfect. It turned the bath water a deep blue colour with loads of silver glitter in it. The delicate aroma of neroli is really sensual and beautiful glittery turquoise bath water looked just like Elsa’s dress, all floaty and sparkly.

Ickle Baby Bot – £1.95 We couldn’t resist picking up one of these. Mainly for me to use at home. I’m only 2.5 yrs old and it a great gentle lavender bath bomb to help me relax before bedtime. This is a bath bomb designed to look after young children’s delicate skin, and is so gentle it’s suitable for babies over six months. Its aromatherapy oils also work to soothe irritable angels (or demons) before bedtime. Lavender is a calming aromatherapy oil and used in traditional medicine to treat skin irritations. You can’t argue with the price either it’s only £1.95 and would make a great once a week bath time treat for little ones.

Pink Flamingo Reusable Bubble Bar £5.95 – What a fun item! So kitsch. It’s a fruity cocktail-inspired reusable bubble bar, filled with fragrant rosewood and sexy ylang ylang. Normally our bath water from the tap is always too hot for my mummy to use my bubble bars without scorching her fingers occasionally. However, this bubble bar on a stick is genius. All you need to do is swirl it around and it turns the bath water pink. She got about 5 baths out of this bath bar before it finally dissolved. Well worth the price tag.

Devil’s Nightcap Soap – £5.50 / 100g
My mummy walked straight past this one originally and just picked it up in store because it looked strange. It’s a brown soap with a bit of moss on it. However when my mummy smelled it she was hooked. It smells amazing. Almost indulgence. Seductively scented this soap will leave your skin feeling gently exfoliated and leaves your skin feeling silky to the touch with an enchanting fragrance of woody oakmoss, oakwood and orange flower. My mummy has been completely seduced by this amazing smelling soap! Don’t be mistaken with its appearance its a really gentle and wonderful soap.

(One of my mummy’s old favourites and a best seller at LUSH) Creamy Candy Bubble bars – £2.75  My mummy had fun making her own version on her trip into the Southampton Store. She  put a new spin on it by designing it into a heart! If you’d normally reach for a sweet treat to lift your mood, this bubble bar does just the job. Its sweet candy floss smell raises your energy levels and perks you up. Creamy Candy offers extra moisturisation as it contains almond oil and butter chunks that melt onto the surface of the water, giving skin a velvety texture. It was nice to see the ingredients laid out for this bubble bar in store and my mummy enjoyed mixing and molding her own version. Creamy Candy is an old favourite. However she noticed a slight change when she got home to test it in the bath. It was pinker, bubblier and more moisturising than ever. A new formula that actually improved on perfection.

All the bloggers at the event had fun making their own creations! It almost got competitive with the shapes and attention detail! However, I don’t think any of us will be working for LUSH anytime soon!!

 

My mummy was treated so well by the LUSH Southampton crew and she would like to give them a big thank you! They were all very knowledgable and friendly and made my mummy feel like a VIP for the night! 🙂 It has just reaffirmed why she loves LUSH so much and we are continually surprised by the new products that they bring out every season. We can’t wait to see what they have in store for Christmas! Hopefully more treats for toddlers!

Love Bella x