Makeup and Skincare

I’ve been drafting several make-up reviews that I will post as soon as I take pictures to go with them, and I thought that whilst I’m in review mode, I’d do a quick review of some of my current favourites from Lush.

5. Pied de Pepper

This is a lovely peppery cinnamony warming lotion intended for feet. I love the smell and it’s really strong too, which means I can mix it with olive oil to make it more moisturising and last longer. It actually mixes with olive oil really badly, I mix it up and then it separates again within a few minutes, but I put up with having to stir it every time I want to use it because it does the job so well. After working on my feet all day for a couple of months they were in a pretty bad state but have been recovering fast thanks to this. I always put some on if I’m chilly and it makes me feel better.

4. The Olive Branch

It smells beautiful, like oranges, lemons and olives, and is meant to be used as a shower gel, but at the moment I’ve been using this every other hair wash as shampoo. I wouldn’t use it all the time as it eventually makes my hair greasy but as I only use soap and Reincarnate on the other washes it makes up for the little bit of dryness I get and leaves me with smooth soft hair that is still light and styleable. It makes a great shower gel too and lasts ages as a little goes a long way. It’s not really a gel consistency, it’s very runny in fact, but a few splashes of this lather up really well.

3. Reincarnate

I’ve been using this solid shampoo for about three years now. It was the first product from Lush that I tried, and I still love it. The smell is very earthy and a lot of people don’t like it, though I do. It also takes hard work to get to lather and isn’t a brilliant cleanser on its own – living in a hard water area I find that I have to use conditioner after or wash my hair with soap and/or another shampoo first or I’ll get build up.  But it has made my brown hair more reddish, people actually compliment me on the colour of my hair quite often. If I flip the ends up onto the roots you can really see that they are completely different colours, the ends are lighter and redder, but when my hair is down it doesn’t show because it’s a natural, subtle gradient.

2. Vanishing Cream

This moisturiser is so light, I’ve definitely gotten less spots since I started using it (couple of years now). It’s expensive but a little goes a long way so I only have to buy about two pots a year. It also is perfect to wear under mineral foundation as it isn’t oily, it means that wearing a full face of make-up feels about the same as wearing none at all. It smells mostly of lavender in my opinion, which some people find offputting, but I’ve learned to like it.

1. Love Lettuce

If I was only allowed to buy one Lush product for the rest of my life, I’d probably choose this one. I had these really annoying tiny little spots on my temples for several month, too small to really do much with but they wouldn’t go. A couple of weeks using this mask and they were gone. I ran out, and they came back. Bought more Love Lettuce and a couple of uses later they were gone again. It exfoliates my skin really well without being harsh and drying and I don’t need to actually use it as a mask all the time, what I do is scoop a little bit out with my fingers whilst I’m in the shower and use it as a scrub. That way it lasts a lot longer. However, it still gets used up quite quickly, plus it is fresh so it has to go in the fridge, and is £6.45! If you have five empty black pots from Lush you can exchange them for a free fresh face mask, which I’ve done once, but I don’t use up the other products fast enough to get enough free Love Lettuces. I’ve run out again though, so I’m just going to have to fork out the cash.

Do you like Lush’s products? What are your current favourites? Other products I use regularly include: Enchanting Eye Cream, Lemony Flutter, Porridge soap, Angel’s Delight soap, Rub Rub Rub and Let Them Eat Cake. I’m trying out one of the sugar scrubs at the moment, I got it in a set, and I love the scent, but it is really quite scratchy so I don’t think I’ll buy one.

They’ve got some new products out for The Cursed Day (‘Cursed’ pronounced ‘Cer-SED’, natch), including a ballistic of a little blue man called The Ex Factor. It’s a shame that it’s vanilla, which I don’t really like, because the whole idea of dissolving it one body part at a time sounds fun, it reminds me of the way I used to eat Pom-Bear crisps or Jelly Babies as a kid, biting off the legs, then the arms, then the body, then the ears, then the head! I’m bad to the bone, obviously… I’ve been looking longingly at the Something Wicked bath melt (it’s purple) and at the new apple-scented Temptation soap. I love apple scents and use the Nina perfume by Nina Ricci, but £7.30 for a soap is a lot too much for me!