Lush Prince Of Darkness Fresh Face Mask – Review

Well I haven’t written a Lush review for quite a while now, have I? I don’t actually know why I went on some sort of hiatus with it, but I’m sure I have my reasons. When I think about it, I’m sure it’s because the majority of products I own at the moment are exclusives from Christmas… I can’t imagine how many Lushies are jealous of me right now.

I finally have a review for you all though today, one that is sadly an exclusive to Lush Oxford Street store, but I do hope deep down that it’ll be available all over the UK soon. Quite frankly this face mask is too damn good for just the Oxford Street store to keep away from so many people!

I recently went to London to pay my friend Sophi a visit, and do some shopping! One of the last places we went to was Lush and I knew from the moment I booked the train tickets for London that I would be going into the store and picking this up. I didn’t actually pay for this face mask, as it was free with my five black pots that I returned to the store! I’m already saving up my next lot of five to take back and get another face mask.

The face mask I picked up was the Prince Of Darkness, and over the month I’ve owned it, it has become my favourite face mask EVER. I didn’t know that I would like it so much, even after the member of staff tried it on the back of my hand in the store. It has just made such an improvement to my skin in so many ways. I noticed I didn’t have any blemishes a week after I started to use it, and due to it containing sea salt, it helped to give my skin a good scrub and left my skin feeling really soft.

As you can see from the image above it’s described as, “We’re on a crazy train, heading for scrubbed up skin with charcoal and sea salt packed into this mask”.

Like all the fresh face masks this only comes in one size, 75g which costs a shocking £6.95! I say shocking because for how much you get, both in size and shelf life it is a rip off to be honest. I did feel like I needed to use this mask more than I would do a normal face mask because I worried I wouldn’t get my monies worth! This being said, it is now over a week since it’s sell by date and I’m still using it. Due to it being a fresh face mask, you’re also meant to keep this in the fridge… Which I only did for a couple of days. Other than that I kept it on the side of my bath, and I didn’t find any issues came up with it. It didn’t cause my skin to break out, nor did it grow mold or change the product itself.

I know this is probably Lush covering their backs, or just suggesting to keep it in the fridge so it feels nice on the skin. I get that! But for anyone who worries that they don’t keep it in the fridge, or use it after the expiry date then don’t panic. If the product doesn’t seem right, then chances are it isn’t. I know from face mask samples I have had in the past Lush have told me they’ll be good for up to three weeks. Within a couple of days in the fridge they went moldy! GROSS!

Anyway, onto the product itself now! As the title (in my mind) suggests, this product wasn’t going to all pretty and pink, it was going to be dark. I thought it might be purple when I first heard about it last year when it was released, but alas it’s black. This is due to one of the ingredients being charcoal, which of course is black. I didn’t know until I tried it out in the shop that this also contained sea salt, which is good for scrubbing the skin. Due to this being s mask that helps to cleanse and scrub, it is great for all skin types, especially people who suffer with greasy skin… So teenagers. 😛

The first thing I noticed about this mask when I first applied it to my skin is the smell, it smells very much like Vicks VapoRub which has a strong eucalyptus scent to it. It doesn’t actually say that it contains this in the ingredients so God knows what I can smell! It also has a slight warming sensation to it, which I found to be nice, and reminded me of what you would get at a spa treatment. However, I know a lot of people who have commented on this factor, and stated how it put them off using the mask. Oh dear! One final thing that I really liked about this mask is how it doesn’t dry, it stays wet, even after 20 minutes of wearing it. This means it won’t flake and crumble everywhere if you decide to walk around the house wearing it.

The consistency of the mask itself isn’t thin, but it isn’t super thick either. It could be slightly in between but with a bit of a thicker side to it, which I really like as it feels like a little bit of this goes a really long way. Of course due to the sea salt it is grainy so don’t be alarmed when you apply this onto your face.

I like to wear this face mask either before or during a bath so that when it has had its 15 minutes on my face I can get a bit of water on my hands and start to exfoliate my skin with the mask before washing it off. It feels like a real treat when I do this, and leaves my skin feeling baby soft afterwards.

Not only have I used this as a face mask but also as a face scrub in the shower too. I grab a good chunk and just rub and scrub it all over my face. The mask itself is so thick that you can get away with doing this. I use it on dry skin so that it really does give my skin a good scrubbing. As well as my face I’ve also used this on the tops of my arms, thighs, and my bum to try and see how it works as a scrub. It didn’t quite have the same affect as it did on my face, but it did the job and was a nice treat.

I leave this on for 10-15 minutes, sometimes 20 if I fancy watching some YouTube videos in the bath for a while, or playing a game on my phone. It never feels like it’s burning my skin, and as someone who suffers from sensitive skin, this is a good thing!

So why is this face mask so good for you? Well charcoal is great for basically pulling out any muck and crap in your skin, especially blackheads. I have noticed mine have gotten smaller a tad since using this mask, which is good! Charcoal is also great for greasy skin, and as I suffer with an oily T-zone I have also found this section of my skin improve, which is amazing! The sea salt has helped to remove any dead skin, so this mask is great for all sorts really.

I didn’t actually expect to love this face mask as much as I have, and I really wish that Oxford Street was closer to home so I could pick this up every month or so to use in my weekly routine. Alas, this isn’t the case sadly… If you are lucky enough to be near that store (or at least traveling to London anytime soon), then I suggest that you go and try this out soon! Whether you buy it, or get a sample, I do suggest you give it a go.

Will I be attempting to get my hands on this again soon? OH HELL YEAH! It is worth every penny, and the next time I’m down in London I’ll be picking up enough to last me until the end of the year!

Have you tried Prince Of Darkness? Make sure to let me know what you think of it! Maybe you didn’t have a good experience with it like I did? Then please make sure to let me know about that too.

Until next time all, take care and have a great weekend!

Lush Big Bang Bubble Bar – Review

I’m back again this week with another Oxford Street exclusive, only this one is currently still an exclusive to the London store. Which sucks, because I LOVE this bubble bar! I’m excited to finally be using it, and talking about it today. Sadly as you can see, there was a chunk missing out of it so the pictures aren’t perfect, but oh well.

This isn’t the biggest bubble bar in the world, but that doesn’t bother me much to be honest. It’s a beautiful blue shade, with yellow dots around the sides, and two pink stars in the middle. The pink stars are actually bath melts, which are pretty cool. I didn’t realise that they were bath melts until it came to crumbling this into the bath. It’s pretty obvious really… But I think I was just being slow.

It is a very pretty bubble bar to look at, and I do wish they stocked this in all the stores. I hope it’ll come out for Spring 2016, as this is a gorgeous citrus scented bubble bar. It contains lemon, grapefruit, and tangerine, so it really does have a lovely refreshing scent to it! It’s said to share its scent with Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub (review here) and Mother Superior Bubble Bar from the Mother’s Day collection. With the bubble bar I could smell that same scent, but I just couldn’t smell it when it came to Rub Rub Rub, which has confused me!

I got two uses out of this bubble bar, which was good to me! I could have use the bath melt part of this bubble bar separately, and I regret not doing just that. When I used the bath melt part in the bath, I didn’t notice any moisturisation when in the bath which I was really disappointed about.

This produced lots of lovely bubbles in the bath, which I was really pleased about! It left behind a delicate light blue shade, which reminded me of something that Johnson’s baby bubble bath would leave behind. The scent of this in the bath wasn’t too strong, which I actually really liked and when I got out of the bath I found that it left a lovely gentle lemon scent on my skin which was relaxing but woke me up at the same time. It also left me feeling soft and smooth, which is always a plus!

This bubble bar was perfect for waking me up during one of my days off work and it was also lovely to use in the evening before bed.

I honestly don’t have much to say about this bubble bar as I didn’t feel it was anything special like some bubble bars out there, but this being said it was a lovely treat and it looked really pretty too.

I would love to pick up another one of these, but sadly this is still an Oxford Street exclusive, which I hope will come out in stores sometime soon.

Would you pick up Big Bang Bubble Bar? Hey, have you already tried it? Let me know in the comments!

Until next week, have a good weekend and go get some Lush Christmas goodies, they’re now out to buy.

Lush Intergalactic Bath Bomb – Review

Another week, another Lush review and I’ve been really excited to review this one since I first used it months ago. This used to be an Oxford Street exclusive, but like some of the most recent products I’ve been reviewing, this one is now a permanent member of the Lush family. Something I was really happy about, because now I can buy these as often, and at the plenty as my heart wants. I am of course talking about Intergalactic Bath Bomb, my new favourite, and also the first bath bomb I’ll be reviewing by Lush. Exciting times!

I just want to quickly add how there are two different baths in the images as I took some pictures of my usage of this both at home, as well as at my boyfriends.

I have heard nothing but praise and love for this bath bomb and when I finally got to try it, I could see why. It really is something unique from Lush and in turn, like nothing they’ve ever released before, both in scent and the way it works in the bath.

I love this bath bomb so much that I’m on my second one of it after already using up my first, the one I also bought from the Oxford Street store in July. Bath bombs last me a lot longer than they probably do for a lot of people, as due to the ingredient that causes the bath bombs to fizz in the water, it causes an allergic reaction on my skin if I come into contact with a lot of it. So if I divide my bath bombs into halves, and quarters then I can get away with it without getting an allergic rash, yay! However, with Intergalactic I can get away with using half without any worries, which I’m really happy about. But even with a quarter this bath bomb works just as well, but I’ll go more into that soon.

But onto how pretty this bath bomb is… Pretty is such a bad word for this, I think stunning, and breathtaking do the job just fine, don’t you say so? This is probably one of the prettiest bath bombs I’ve ever seen Lush create. It reminded me of the Christmas limited edition, Shoot For The Stars Bath Bomb when I first saw it, but alas it is nothing like that. The colour of the bath bomb is the colour it turns the bath water into, a gorgeous dark blue shade. It also has some pink and yellow colours around the middle of it, which don’t really show up in the bath… But I may have this issue due to not using a whole bath bomb. This is also said to contain popping candy, but once again I’ve never seen this myself.

Intergalactic contains peppermint oil, grapefruit oil, vetivert oil, and cedarwood oil. The peppermint oil is what stands out the most in this bath bomb to me and in turn gives it a fresh, clean, minty scent that lasts for ages on the skin, as well as in the bathroom after use.

It reminds me of toothpaste, or chewing gum. Unlike most menthol scents, this bath bomb doesn’t cause you to have a cooling sensation on the skin, which is something I was really worried about. I’m a huge fan of mint scents, but I hate the cooling feeling they leave behind, a discussion I had with two friends of mine whilst on a long weekend away with them (hello Becky and Dave!).

This is probably the darkest bath bomb I have ever used to be honest, and I love it! When popped into the bath it leaves behind a beautiful dark blue shade, something that can even be made possible from a quarter of a bath bomb, which is really good in my eyes. A flaw of only being able to use such a small amount means that I don’t get the same bold and gorgeous colours that everyone else gains from using a whole bomb. So this one has really made me happy.

As well as the beautiful colour, this is also packed full of shimmer. I am one of those who hates glittery baths, I hate how it sticks all over the skin and leaves me looking like something from the 80’s. However, Intergalactic doesn’t do this. I mean, it does leave a little shimmer behind but nothing heavy, just the odd twinkle here and there. It also leaves the gorgeous minty scent behind, something my mom noticed when I first used this, twinkles too. Of course it left me feeling lovely and soft, which is always a must have after using a bath bomb.

Due to the shimmer, it does leave it behind in the bath when it’s finished draining, but it’s nothing a quick go around with the shower won’t get rid of.

I honestly don’t know what else to say about this bath bomb other than how much I adore it. It’s definitely fast turned into my favourite, and I really do hope it sticks around for good and not just for summer… Or I may cry… A lot! Each time I come close to finishing one of these off, I’ll pick up another. I don’t think I can live without this bath bomb in my life now, as it really is a treat for me, and for £3.95 each, it doesn’t hurt!

Do you like the sound of Intergalactic? If you haven’t tried it yet, are you looking to? Hey, you may have already tried it, if so what do you think? Make sure to let me know your views on it in the comments.

Until next time however, take care all and have a great weekend!

Lush Cup O’ Coffee Face & Body Mask – Review

If there is a Lush product I have been super excited about, it’s this, Cup O’ Coffee Face And Body Mask. I was meant to pick this up in London when I visited the Oxford Street store, but I never got around to it. I never even picked up a sample! I had heard nothing but good about this, so I was pretty sad that I was missing out on such an amazing product. SO when Lush announced that this would be coming out for Lush’s summer collection in all stores in the UK, I visited my favourite Lush store and picked it up, the DAY it came out. So I couldn’t wait to review this for you guys.

I’ve been using this face mask for three to four weeks now and I can safely say that I really have seen a difference in my skin, and one I really love. This face mask comes in two sizes, 150g pot for £6.50 which is the one I picked up, or a larger 325g pot for £12.00. I wanted to pick up the larger of the two tubs so that it would last me ages, but I didn’t bother considering this only lasts three months, whether you open it or not. This also means it’s a longer lasting face mask than the usual Lush face masks which tend to only last a week to three weeks. I’m also glad I only picked up the smaller tub as this so far has lasted me ages, a little bit really does go a long way!

One thing I want to say about this face mask is, if you don’t like the smell of coffee, then I recommend you at least give this a sniff in store, and get a sample to try before you buy. I love the smell of coffee, and to be honest I have to at least love the smell of burnt coffee by now considering I smell it at my job everyday. That is exactly what this smells of, strong, burnt coffee. It isn’t the nicest smell in the world, but I rather like it.

The texture of this face mask is really odd, but somewhat nice too. It’s a thick sticky mask that you really need to dig your fingers into. As I mentioned before, a little goes a long way and due to how thick it is you don’t need to really apply much to get a nice layer of mask on the face.

I leave this on for 10 minutes, maybe 15 depending. This is a pretty messy face mask, and one I tend to use in the bath due to this. It rinses off better and you can lie back and relax with a good book, something on YouTube, or like me, South Park on my iPad, or Kardashian Hollywood on my iPhone… FYI I hold my phone over the bath! I’m not stupid. 😛

So onto what is in the face mask, other than coffee of course. Ground coffee is good for the skin as it evens out skin tone, and helps with cellulite, which is why this is also a body mask. You can use this on your thighs to get rid of any cellulite. Something I need to try myself! It also contains cocoa extract to help keep the skin soft and smooth.

When I rinse this off my skin looks bright, and feels soft and smooth. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a quick change in my skin after using a face mask until now. This is definitely a weekly staple for me, whilst also being a gorgeous weekly treat that I use midweek.

This sadly doesn’t share it’s scent with anything from Lush. I wish it did, as I love the smell of coffee… As I said previously.

I’m just so damn happy that this is now no longer an exclusive. It’s done really well so far sales wise, and on the day it was released on the website, the small tub sold out in hours! Amazing, huh?

What do you think of Cup O’ Coffee? Is it on your wish list, or have you already bought it? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

I’m currently on my way to the Lake District for August Bank Holiday. But until next time all, take care and make sure to have a good weekend too!

Lush Milky Bath Bubble Bar – Review

I know I said I would be doing this series once every two weeks, but I’ve just been itching to get something else written and up on my blog as soon as I wrote my Rub Rub Rub review. The second post in my series is a review I’ve been meaning to write since I bought said product from the London Oxford Street Store, that product being Milky Bath Bubble Bar.

This is an adorable little bubble bar, which is a creamy white shade, and has a glittery silver top to symbolise a bottle cap. The silver is also slightly glittery and shimmery, and is unlike the rest of the bubble bar as it has a bath melt style consistency. This cost me £3.75 which I found to be a decent price as I tend to get two or three baths out of one of these.

Before I smelt this bubble bar I imagined it would have a very Milky Bar style smell to it, like white chocolate but it’s nothing like that. It has a very gentle smell and it reminds me of something my mom would pop into the bath when I was little. It contains orange oil, cocoa butter (in the silver lid), and skimmed milk, which gives it that gentle scent. I was really expecting the skimmed milk and orange oil scent to come through but they really don’t, and they don’t settle on the skin either. I would say I was disappointed about this, but I actually really like the gentle scent myself. It’s a nice treat for mornings and evenings before bed.

If you have sensitive skin then this is a must have for you, and also for children too as it doesn’t smell strong, and is gentle on the skin.

When I put this under the hot tap I found it was really easy to crumble up, which I love in a Lush bubble bar. It left my bath filled with loads of soft bubbles which were spotted with little bits of shimmer, and the same can be said for the water too, which had little bits of shimmer in too.

When I got out of the bath I felt lovely and soft, and I could smell the gentle scent on my skin too, which I really liked. The silver lid I told you about is made out of cocoa butter, so when I put this half of the bubble bar into my bath my skin felt that little bit softer when I got out. This is a definite must have for me to use on days off work, and lazy weekends.

This of course was a Lush Oxford Street exclusive, but it has now come into stores all across the UK for summer, and I hope that it’ll be sticking around for a long time, as this has soon become one of my favourite bath products.

As far as I know there aren’t any Lush products that share the same scent as this, and if there are I want to know what they are!

Have you tried Milky Bath Bubble Bar yet? If so let me know what you think of it in the comments!

Lush Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub – Review

This is a series I have wanted to do for ages, and finally I am starting it! I’m inspired by my friend Mali over at maliberrymakeup who reviews various products from Lush, and has done for as long as I can remember. I’ve started to get more into Lush again since the start of the year, and I’m so pleased. I’ve loved Lush since 2008 and my long love of it’s products are still going strong.

My new series is being kicked off by a product I have wanted for a long time, and one that is probably now one of my favourites from Lush to date. That being Lush’s Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub.

I picked this scrub up a couple of weeks ago and since then I’ve used it quite a few times, in various different ways. When I bought this at the time it only came in one size, 330g for £8.75, but since the summer collection and a lot of the Oxford Street exclusives coming into stores all over the UK, so have the tub sizes. You can now get this baby in a huge 500g pot for £14.95 online, but I’m unsure if you can in store. Something I can see me picking up in the future!

The first thing I noticed about this product when I first looked at it, was how gorgeous it looked. I don’t know why but I’m always attracted to blue beauty products, probably because it’s such a strange colour. It’s a bright blue product and reminds me of a blue raspberry Slush Puppie. This is also said to share its scent with Sakura Bath Bomb, a Lush product I really want to try. This doesn’t have a thick consistency, which I really like as I feel it goes a little farther than a thicker product.

Lush say you can use this on either dry skin for a more harsher scrub, or wet skin for a more gentle scrub. I’ve tried both and the dry skin one does work that little better, but due to how sensitive my skin can be at times, I’ve found that I’m using it more on wet skin. Either way it works beautifully and to the same affect.

Rubbing in circular motions I apply this generously all over the body and then rinse off in the shower. I also use this in the bath but I don’t feel it works as well as it does in the shower. I find that after you rinse this off it leaves your skin feeling silky smooth, and like a babies bum! It has a sort of moisturising component inside which leaves a moistursing layer on the skin.

I find this is perfect for use on the tops of my arms, my thighs, my bum (TMI?), and my back. My boyfriend really likes the smell of this shower scrub and although he hasn’t used it himself, I can only imagine sometime soon he’ll ask if he can. It smells so fresh and yummy, it reminds me of a floral, yet sweet and uplifting scent. Perfect if you want a good scrub for in the mornings.

This is a product I’ll only have as a once a week treat, even though I have used it a little on other parts of the body as and when I need it. This works great on tired and achey feet too, which has been nice to use on mine after pole dancing classes.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Rub Rub Rub, infact it’s probably one of Lush’s best products that they sell! It’s so good it was turned into a body scrub bar, Rub Rub Rub Body Scrub, one of Oxford Street exclusives, as well as one of the new summer products. I would like to try this just for a change, but I can’t see it beating the pot version.

I don’t think I have anything else to say about this product, it’s a staple if you ask me and one I will want to take away with me on holiday at the end of the year.

So, that was the first of my Lush review series. I’m so glad to finally have it started and I can’t wait to add more reviews to it. I think it’ll be a once every two weeks series as I don’t want to talk about Lush TOO much on my blog.

What do you think of Rub Rub Rub, do you love it, or hate it? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time all, take care and have a great weekend!