Lush Hits and Misses

Lush, the store we hate to love and love to hate. If it weren't for their lovely skincare and body care products, Lush and I might not get along that well. I hate baths. I hate everything about them. The idea of baths, all aesthetically pleasing and nice smelling with bubbles and the whole nine yards sounds really ideal until I remember that the whole point is to relax and sit still for god knows how long while the water starts to get cold. But while baths aren't my thing and I tend to skip over the bath bombs and bubble bars and whatever other b-name products they stock, there are quite a few other products that have my skin–both on my face and elsewhere–singing the loveliest of songs (which would probably be something by Carly Rae Jepsen).

On the other end of the spectrum though, just like with literally any other brand, there are a few products I've tried over the years that have been a little bit disappointing. My friend Hannah shared some Lush products back around Christmastime, which probably created the tiny note in my brain that told me to do something similar, just with regular products and not solely the Christmas range. So today, we have some Lush hits and some Lush shits, which I will appropriately call misses for the rest of the post to avoid this post becoming too obscene and laced with profanities. I'll leave that for my real life monologue and not my online persona.

Hits

• Snow Fairy Shower Gel: Look, I'm a sucker for the Snow Fairy scent. A sucker. It's so sickeningly sweet and pink and has silver glitter diffused in it for god's sake. How could you ever expect me not to love it? I love body washes that lather and this lathers, even with a small amount, and just makes my skin feel squeaky clean and smelling great without stripping it of its oils and making my skin super dry or grimy feeling. I usually use the St. Ives Soothing Oatmeal and Shea Butter Body Wash, but this one is a nice temporary replacement until I run out of my full size and adorable travel sized that Hannah got me for Christmas.
• Snow Fairy Body Conditioner: This was another gift from Hannah after she found out that the Snow Fairy scent was a personal favorite of mine. One thing to know about me is that I hate lotion. Body lotion, body butter, hand lotion, anything that is possibly meant to moisturize my skin is Public Enemy Number One in my book. If it's not the moisturizer for my face, I don't want any part of it. Every single one I've tried has made me feel sticky and dirty and I hate the feeling of it on my legs and hands. However, since this isn't your typical lotion, it works for me. Essentially, you just use it in the shower after you've done the whole shebang and apply it to wet skin only to rinse it right off. You get the benefits of its moisturizing without having to deal with sticky legs all night. Plus, again, IT'S SNOW FAIRY!!!! 
• Cupcake Mask: This mask smells straight up like brownies. That's all you need to know about it. Kidding, kidding. I used this mask about a year ago or so when my skin was especially oily and breaking out. This is one of their Fresh Face Masks, so they keep them in the little mini fridge and might not have it at all times. This mask is good for oily and acne-prone skin to mattify, cleanse, and calm redness. My acne was particularly bad during this time because of stress and hormones which I now have under control with medication, but this mask helped keep it from getting as worse as it could. I noticed it helped mostly with my oily skin and making it more matte. I noticed my skin was a lot less oily after I used it, which was mighty helpful when I was starting to shine through my matte foundations, concealers, and powders. Also, again, it smells like brownies. Come on, guys.
• Mask of Magnaminty: This is another mask meant to conquer acne. This one has a strong minty smell that is not quite as pleasant as the Cupcake mask, but still not too terrible. This mask is good for deep-cleansing to exfoliate, soothe, and clean out your pores. During this time I had pretty sore cystic acne and my face was constantly red if I even tried to wash it. I didn't notice the exfoliating so much as I noticed it just being a really good cleanser for my skin and calming down the mini welts on my face when they were at their worst. I didn't use this all of the time but saved it for special occasions when my face was feeling particularly painful. This was one of the more gentle masks I tried from Lush and it's one you can buy at all times on the shelves and not from the fridge.
• Tea Tree Water Toner: This is a product I used ages ago as a toner spray. I used it mainly during my first couple of years in college when I was really into tea tree. The toner is meant to be refreshing and cleansing that will make your skin luminous and fresh and also will tone down the oils in your skin. Can't say for sure whether it made me more oily, but it felt really refreshing and cooling on my skin during a time where my acne made my face really painful, and not only just to look at. 
• Mint Julips Lip Scrub: As much as I like to pretend I can just rely on the clean, damp bristles of my toothbrush to exfoliate and scrub the dead skin off of my lips, I need a little more help than that sometimes. I love the Lush Lip Scrubs because they taste good as hell and don't cost an arm and a leg. Could I make my own? Yeah, but I'm lazy, so you'll catch me at Lush every so often replacing my Mint Juleps or Bubblegum Lip Scrub so my lipstick doesn't look like a patchy mess.
• Sunnyside Bubble Bar: This is the only bath product that I will be discussing on my hit list solely because it smells incredible, makes really nice bubbles, and also leaves an entire sheet of gold glitter on the bottom of your bathtub that will remain for the rest of eternity. I cannot confirm whether or not it comes off because the first and last time I used it was in my dorm bath my sophomore year of college a few weeks before the semester ended and I was still not able to get the glitter out of the crevices on the ridged bottom of the tub. So, to anyone who lives in Fenn Tower suite 604, can you let me know if they finally got that glitter out?
• Charity Pot Lotion: Francesca, I thought you hate lotion? Well, I do. But I like charity and helping when I can, so I always purchase a Charity Pot. In the grand schemes of lotions, this one is light and not sticky, so it doesn't make me feel like a mess after I use it. The smell is a little strange, but forgivable for the smooth texture and thinness.

Misses

One thing I always like to note about products that I don't necessarily like is that just because they don't work for me or don't thrill me doesn't mean they're not a good product for you. If one of these is your favorite product, you do you! I am not the be all end all of beauty opinions. Quite frankly, none of these products are bad. They didn't do anything to wrong me and make me grudge them forever. They just aren't something I would necessarily repurchase because I liked other products better. And same for the hits portion of this. If I liked something and you hated it, that just confirms the fact that were are two different people who have differing opinions which is awesome! I don't usually talk about things I dislike on this blog besides like, negativity and relaxing, so I just wanted to throw in a disclaimer to ease my guilt.

• Ocean Salt Scrub: This actually smells really, really nice. I think this would be much better for your skin, just maybe not for your face. It's very coarse and stung a little on the face. I could probably use something abrasive like this for the bottom of my feet though. TMI, but they're nasty.
• Cup O' Coffee Mask: Again, this isn't a bad mask, it just wasn't my favorite. It's supposed to be good for exfoliating and brightening your skin. The smell was nice because, duh, coffee, but I just found it to be a bit thick and a little too much for my skin. I prefer using my Ole Henriksen Walnut Scrub when it comes to exfoliating my skin and ridding it of dead skin. It's much more gentle than this mask was.
• Dragon's Egg Bath Bomb: This just...didn't do anything for me. It smelled fine, but it didn't really give me any bubbles and was just kind of disappointing. Then again, I hate baths, so, I'm not really the expert here. It has a refreshing citrusy scent, which I guess is supposed to wake you up if you use it in the morning or before a night out according to the Lush website. I don't know guys, just not my favorite.
• Honey Trap Lip Balm: This didn't do anything bad to my lips, I would just rather use Carmex. Plus, this dried out really quickly. I'm not a huge lip balm person in general, so I just wasn't thrilled with this. It was a little waxier than I would have liked as well, but to each their own.

Whew, that was a mouthful. That's just about every Lush product I have ever tried split up into two sections. Nothing from Lush has actually been hated by me, but I can guarantee you won't catch me trying any of their makeup. I've seen one too many fail videos of that on YouTube and I'll happily save my money...

What's your favorite product from Lush?

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