Lush Bath Ballistics

“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine”
~St. Thomas Aquinas

I have always loved the smell wafting from the Lush stores. However I know this is not the opinion of everyone and many people just passing by the stores find the smell very overpowering. And this is not the only controversial aspect of the store. Recently Lush has been in the news in the UK through its active support for the ‘Hunt Saboteurs Association’.

Lush does an excellent job at marketing their brand which is a little quirky, green & natural (I will come back to just how natural shortly). I can happily spend an hour or so reading their newsletter (the current one is 39 pages long). It is bright, colourful & always makes me want to go back to the store & buy something I have read about. Unfortunately going into the store is not one of my favourite experiences because the very enthuastic staff members latch on to you as soon as you step inside the door making it very difficult to browse.

Anyway a few days ago I braced myself & went in to their store on Henry Street in search of some bath ballistics. There is an excellent range all with a clever names and all claiming relaxing/energising/sensual effects. Many are very beautiful. At the moment there is a Christmas range of ballistics & I was drawn to the Cinders one(€2.85). It is yellow with pink sparkles(apparently popping candy designed to sound like burning logs) & is scented with cinnamon and orange to smell like a warming yuletime drink. When I used it in the bath this ballistic turned my water bright yellow, did not smell very strong & I did not experience the ‘popping candies’ effect. When I got out of the bath I felt it left my skin with a funny yellow tinge & it actually turned my nails yellow. Also I had to scrub my bath for a few minutes to get rid of the yellow trace it left on it. Perhaps this is down to one of the ingredients -colour 18050 . This does not sound very natural to me!

The other bath ballistic I bought was ‘waving not drowning’ (€4.00). This contains lavender oil & ylang ylang oil(two of my favourite fragrances) & promises to aid sleep and fight restless nights. I was very disappointed with this one. Infact when I was in the bath I wondered had I put the ballistic in at all because the water was perfectly clear & I got absoutley no scent. At €4.00 I would not buy this again.

Overall I was not too impressed with the bath ballistics. I feel many are very expensive (the Geophyzz is €5.25) especially as you can only get one use from them. Also I am disappointed that they are not completely natural as most have at least 3 synthetic ingredients(the ingredients listings are clear and transparent showing natural ingredients in green type face and synthetic ingredients in black). For an extra euro or two I could purchase an all natural bath cream/oil which would give me 10/20 uses.

I do feel that the ballistics are a nice gift idea & I know that I will most probably be back to Lush again soon to try out a few other items I saw in their newsletter. Their marketing has worked its magic on me!