Lush Valentine’s Day 2017

Oh jeez Valentines Day… Such a bullshit holiday! Although it does make a good excuse for eating like shit. The only thing I do for Valentine’s Day is buy Dane a card and write a soppy message inside.

HOWEVER not all bad things come with Valentines Day such as soppy couples, restaurants being busy, expensive boxes of chocolates for sale and all sorts of stuff like that. It does come with some good, such as Lush’s Valentine’s Day range and this year it looks amazing!

A few weeks ago I popped into the Lush store in Birmingham to have a look at what they had on offer this year. Let me tell you, the store was HEAVING but what did I expect on a Saturday afternoon? In the end I managed to go back in and have a sniff and closer look at some of the new goodies, as well as some returning favourites. I thought I would talk through the new products with you guys and share which ones I want to pick up… Even though I’m meant to be on a spending ban… >.<

I might be naughty and get one or two things…

From L-R – ROW ONE – The Kiss Lip Scrub, Two Hearts Beating As One, Lovestruck, The Kiss Lip Gloss and Love You, Love You Lots. From L-R – ROW TWO – Unicorn Horn, Cupid, Over And Over, Roller and Kiss Me Quick. From L-R – ROW THREE Lover Lamp, Ladybird, Rose Bombshell, Love Spell and Prince Charming.

First of all I’ll talk about the lip products which consists of two for the Valentine’s Day range and are both returners from last year and if I’m not mistaken the year before too.

• The Kiss Lip Scrub – £5.75 (link)

The Lush lip scrubs are pretty amazing to be honest, but personally lip scrubs aren’t my cup of tea. This one is cute for Valentine’s Day and comes with some pretty pink hearts on the top of it when you first open the jar. From memory this has a sweet scent and taste similar to the Bubblegum Lip Scrub, but this is more grown up and in my opinion is nicer.

• The Kiss Lip Gloss – £5.95 (link)

Lush’s lip products when they were in the tins were horrible, but I don’t like any lip products that come in a pot. Lush now do the tubes for their lip products and they look amazing! I remember this lip gloss coming out ages ago and I wouldn’t exactly call it a lip gloss to be honest, it’s more like a tinted lip balm. I’m not a huge fan of this one as it just reminds me of Maybelline’s Baby Lips but with a couple more quid slapped on the price.

Next is the body and shower products, which introduces a new item that people are going crazy for!

• Love Spell Massage Bar – £5.95 (link)

I’m not a massive fan of the massage bars from Lush as I find they’re really greasy and as a result can break me out and cause issues with my sensitive skin. This one will be nice for couples who want to have a nice relaxing massage with one another due to the heart shaped nodules it’ll make for a lovely back massage and the floral scent will relax you both.

• Kiss Me Quick Business Wash Card – £2.00 (link)

Wash Cards are pretty new to Lush and from memory were introduced when the Oxford Street store opened in 2015. This is TINY and in my opinion not worth £2.00. BUT if you wanted something nice to give to a friend, or even treat yourself to it’ll be nice. You just rip off a bit of the card, apply some water and use all over the body. I’m gutted I didn’t get the chance to smell this as it contains apples and lemons, so I can only imagine how fresh it smells! I wish they had brought this out as a shower gel instead as sadly I won’t pay £2.00 only to end up using up the whole sheet in one or two washes. 😦

What Love You, Love You Lots Soap looks like before being cut up!

• Love You, Love You Lots Soap – 100g £4.25, 250g £10.63 and 500g £21.25 (link)

Like the massage bars I’m not a huge fan of the Lush Soaps and although this was up for smelling inside the Birmingham store I never bothered… I’m just never sold by any of the soaps Lush come out with and the only soap I did like by Lush was discontinued, even as a best seller! ANYWAY… Love You, Love You Lots smells of roses, which of course is always associated with Valentine’s Day. I’ve heard a few people say this soap reminds them of the Rose Bubbleroon and the matching Rose Shower Gel (which is a Christmas exclusive) and although I love the Bubbleroon I’m not so keen on the shower gel. Sadly this isn’t for me, but if you love floral scents, especially rose this is right up your street!

• Prince Charming Shower Cream – 100g £5.50, 250g £10.95, 500g £18.50 and 1kg £32.95 (link)

I LOVE this shower cream and have always bought a little bottle every year to try! I’ve tried both the gel and cream formula and the letter is definitely better. This contains marshmallow and vanilla which makes Prince Charming smell sweet but not sickly and is more comforting than anything. I find this one is lovely to use in the evenings before bed, or before a night out! I really want to pick up a big bottle of this for me and Dane to use in the summer.

I was going to talk about all the bath products together… But there’s nine and I think that’s a bit much so I thought I would break it up with the bubble bars and the bath bombs. First ones I’ll talk about are the bubble bars.

• Two Hearts Beating As One Bath Melt – £3.95 (link)

I like the bath melts that Lush also recently came out with when the Oxford Street store opened, however not all of them are great. I gave this a sniff in store and couldn’t smell much to be honest (which is a problem I keep getting with Lush products lately…) but even when this was demoed in the water for me, I STILL couldn’t smell anything! It’s supposed to smell floral. Very disappointed… This being said for nearly £4.00 you can get at least two baths out of this one, but I would say stick to the normal bath melts and save nearly £2.00 towards another normal bath melt.

• Lovestruck Bubble Bar – £4.25 (link)

I have to say this bubble bar makes me so angry, because it smells amazing but it’s TINY! For over £4.00 I would expect it to be the size of The Comforter Bubble Bar. What’s going on Lush??? This is supposed to look like an emoji (obviously!) which is funny although very hipsterish and annoying… I hate the whole emoji trend as I find it’s so tacky! ANYWAY! This smells of lemons and is so refreshing, so perfect for mornings off work when you have a long day ahead of you. I wouldn’t have expected this sort of scent to come up for Valentine’s Day, but I do like it. Just a shame about the price.

• Ladybird Bubble Bar – £3.95 (link)

This bubble bar was a newbie last year and one I heard nothing but good things about, so I wanted to try it so badly. Sadly I was on a much needed spending ban and I never picked one up, but to my delight Lush brought it back this year so I finally got to smell it a few weeks ago and it certainly didn’t let me down. It smells of a light mint scent but quite sweet at the same time. I love it though and I intend to buy quite a few when I get paid. I can’t go another year without giving this little cutie a go! It would be great teamed up with Intergalactic Bath Bomb and maybe even Snow Fairy Shower Gel or The Comforter Shower Gel.

• Unicorn Horn Bubble Bar – £4.25 (link)

This is probably everyone’s favourite product from the Valentine’s Day range… Or at least one of them. I know it’s one of mine! I still have one from last year which I know is pretty bad but I’ve been saving it for an evening where I’m really tired and need a good sleep. As you can see it’s a colourful bar which is to represent a unicorns horn. It’s quite a strong scented bubble bar and smells of lavender, which I really like! I’ve used these before in the past when I want a good relaxing bath before bed. I want to pick up a couple of these before they fly off the shelves for another year.

The final lot of products I’ll be talking about are the bath bombs and one of these is actually an Oxford Street exclusive BUT will be available on the Kitchen until the Valentine’s Day range disappears off the website.

• Cupid Bath Bomb – £2.95 (link)

This is one of the cheaper pieces in the range and one of the new ones as well. It’s a sweet looking bath bomb and the name of it is very apt. If you’re familiar with the Razzle Dazzle Bath Melt then this smells exactly the same, which is a mixture of raspberry, lime and rose. This sadly isn’t my cup of tear but for the price would make a lovely treat for someone wanting to give something nice to their Valentine. 😉

• Over And Over Bath Bomb – £4.25 (link)

This is one of my favourite new products for the range this year! It reminds me of Never Mind The Ballistics Bath Bomb from the Christmas 2016 range due to the bath melt on top and the rest being a bath bomb. I found the NMTB bath bomb didn’t have such a strong scent (even though I bought 2 in the sale… HA!) but this one really does have a strong citrus scent and I LOVE it! I know I’ll be buying a couple of these before they go.

• Roller Bath Bomb – £4.25 (link)

This has been a fast Kitchen favourite since either before or during Christmas and one everyone has been talking about for a while, so now it’s available to buy for a month online as well as in the Oxford Street store! Like Never Mind The Ballistics Bath Bomb and Over And Over Bath Bomb it has a bath melt on the top. It shares its scent with Yummy Mummy which is a creamy strawberry scent with a hint of floral. Sadly this bath bomb is CONSTANTLY sold out when online, which is annoying. Be quick if you want to get your hands on this!

• Rose Bombshell Bath Bomb – £4.25 (link)

This is another returning bath bomb from last year which did really well, due to peoples love of Rose Shower Gel. I haven’t tried this one, but I wouldn’t mind it. As you can tell from the name it smells of roses, which isn’t such a big thing for me as I’ve already mentioned. However the Rose Bubbleroon doesn’t smell anything like the shower gel to me and instead of being strongly floral, I feel it smells sweeter. This is why I’d like to give the bath bomb a go and see what all the fuss is about.

• Lover Lamp Bath Bomb – £4.25 (link)

Finally we have Lover Lamp which is exactly the same as Lava Lamp Bath Bomb which is a permanent bath bomb. I was annoyed when an employee at the Birmingham store told me there’s nothing like it when it was set relatively close to the Lava Lamp and that this had come out before Lava Lamp. Erm no. ANYWAY this smells fresh and like oranges which I really like! I sadly prefer Lava Lamp to this one as it’s available all the time.

So apart from anymore Oxford Street exclusives and some gifts for Valentine’s Day, that is all of the products coming out for 2017!

I really love the collection this year and feel like Lush have brought out some great products and scents, however I do feel some of the products are too small for the price, or too expensive for what they are. But meh this will only continue to happen the older Lush gets.

Have you tried any yet? If so which ones? Let me know your thoughts on the range this year!

Until next time all take care and have a lovely weekend!

February Wish List

I’m going to be honest and say that I’m trying to save money at the moment as my holiday wasn’t the cheapest in the world and I want to try and get my savings back as soon as I can! This being said I’m probably going to buy crap I don’t need now I’ve been paid… In fact it’s the weekend now so as this is live on my blog, I’ve probably already spent some of my money. Oh dear.

So this is basically a list of things I want and will possibly buy if I want a treat.

• Lush Prince Charming Shower Gel.

The new Valentine’s Day range is now out at Lush and sadly it’s only there now until Saturday and then it’ll be gone for another year. I’ve already picked this shower gel up but it was definitely on my wish list before I did. This is a gorgeous pink shower gel that smells of fresh pomegranate and grapefruit and of warm vanilla and marshmallow. What more do you want from a shower gel, eh? This also keeps the skin lovely and clean, as well as smelling sweet and feeling soft. Perfect for Valentine’s Day as a treat for yourself, or for someone else. I never liked the smell of this shower gel last year and I thought the hype for it was daft. Personally I still don’t see why it’s so hyped but it does smell nice. I’m going to see if I’ll pick up another bottle, or even a larger bottle as whilst it is nice, it isn’t THAT nice and Lush have brought out better smelling shower gels. Even so if you want to try this, pick up on of their smaller bottles. It’s well worth the money!

• Pokemon Center Eevee Mobile Phone Ear Jack Strap.

As regular readers will know, I love Pokemon and I especially love Eevee and the Eeveelutions. I would love a cute dangly accessory for my phone as if you know me, I’m always on my phone. Whether I’m texting, doing stuff relating to my blog, Twitter, etc. I’ll be on my phone! So why not having something cute dangling from it eh? You can get these sent to the UK pretty cheap, as Pokemon Center’s are mainly located in Japan. If I buy this it’ll only be as a cheer me up treat as it won’t be cheap to get this over to me (over £10) and I’m trying to watch my money at the moment. Definitely worth the splurge though, I love Pokemon!

• Logitech Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard K480.

I noticed this whilst I was away on holiday in an electrical shop and briefly had a look at it. Since then I’ve read a couple of reviews on blogs about it and I REALLY want it for my iPad. It would mean no more needing my laptop all the time, I could actually use this keyboard to do my uni work, blog posts, whatever I wanted! It isn’t cheap at £50, but it would be totally worth it! You can also use this with your phone too, which I think is pretty good. You can get this in black or white, I rather like the black with the yellow on it. The keyboard does remind me of a typewriters keyboard which I think is pretty nifty!

• Eeveelutions Charm Bracelet.

I’ve only recently started to look on Etsy as my friend Gabriella uses it and I really have found some lovely little bits and pieces on there that I want. It’s mostly Eeveelution items but that’s because it can be hard to pick things up like this over in the UK. Unless you ship them in any way. I don’t really need a new bracelet as I have my two Pandora ones, but I think that this looks too cute to resist! I probably wouldn’t even use the bracelet that much, I guess I would want the charms to pop on a keyring and keep that on my keys. I just think these look incredibly cute and who could resist?

• Pokemon Alpha Sapphire for 3DS.

Since this came out before Christmas, I’ve been lusting after it and I nearly bought the Spanish version whilst I was on holiday, but ending up leaving it. Alas I’ve now started to play Pokemon X again and getting ready to try and complete the Pokedex on it. As soon as I do that, I’ll be treating myself to this version. I never played the original Ruby and Sapphire, so it would be nice to play and see what the story is all about.

• Lush Unicorn Horn Bubble Bar.

Another Lush product I’ve actually bought since putting this wish list together, but I haven’t yet used it. It looks so beautiful and it’s definitely one of my favourite Valentine’s Day products to come out from Lush since the Ex Factor Bath Bomb (back from 2010!) so in five years I’ve been waiting for something good to come out, and finally I have it! Unicorn Horn looks so pretty, various different colours, a bit of shimmer and some candy stars. Can’t go wrong with that, eh? As well as that it also smells faintly of lavender, which I really like. It’ll be nice to use in the evenings to wind down before bed. I’m going to try and pick some more of these up before they go away after Saturday as I can see me loving these for after university.

• MAC Viva Glam Miley Cyrus Lipstick and Lipglass.

In October MAC and Miley Cyrus announced their collaboration and the beauty world went mental! Including myself, and as soon as swatches came out of the new lipstick and glass, I knew I wanted to be one of the first to see. Both the lipstick and the glass are hot pink and gorgeous for when summer comes around. I love hot pink shades and own a couple already, but as these would be going to a good cause, I wouldn’t mind getting some “dupes”. The swatches of these are amazing and I can’t wait for them to come out in store so I can swatch it for myself. I don’t know if I’ll buy the lipstick, the gloss, or even both! The gloss would make a nice change, but I couldn’t see myself using it all that much. I will have to wait and see what I think. But with the collaboration I think it’ll work out really nicely! I can imagine Miley’s second shade being red.

So that was my wish list for this month! What’s on your wish list for February? Let me know in the comments down below.

Sorry for this post being late, but better late than never eh?

Until next time, take care all!

End of January 2015 Haul

So I was naughty yesterday and went shopping… I’m meant to be chilling out now and saving back the money I spent on my holiday, but alas I’ve come back to the UK and there are things I wanted to pick up.

I did get some bargains in the sales, and I also picked up some items that won’t be around long so in my mind it wasn’t SO bad… Yeah… It’s bad.

I just want to clarify that the quality of the images aren’t as good as they usually are as I took these on my iPhone 5, as opposed to my Nikon SLR. I’m at my boyfriends at the moment and I don’t always carry my SLR around with me… It is quite a hefty thing!

So enjoy my haul and how naughty I was yesterday! 😛

The first place I went to was The Body Shop as I had a couple of freebie codes I wanted to use. However this wasn’t as straight forward as I had hoped it would be, but I’ll go into that in a moment.

Another reason I popped into The Body Shop was because I still had my £5 birthday offer to use up so I decided to use it on this foot rescue regime. Before going on holiday I did my best to get my tootsies looking good, but it seemed like a waste of time as during my holiday my feet went into an awful condition. I was pretty sad about it and felt pretty self-conscious about them for the majority of the holiday. Now I’m back home my feet are still a little worse for wear, but I wanted something to perk them up with. I’d been eying this up before I went on holiday but thought it was a waste of money.

The set includes Peppermint Cooling Foot Lotion, Peppermint Cooling Foot Spray, Peppermint Smoothing Pumice Foot Scrub and Peppermint Intensive Foot Rescue.

The only two products from The Body Shop’s foot care range that you don’t get are the Peppermint Reviving Leg Gel and the Peppermint Reviving Foot Soak. Two products I would love to try in the future!

All of these are full size and the set is worth £30, although it is priced at £22 I only got it for £15.30! Bargain!

All the products smell pepperminty (I know this isn’t a word, but it’s still awesome) and delicious and I can’t wait to try them all out during February! I’m sure if I like them I’ll be sure to review things too.

Due to filling out a survey I was entitled to a free Coconut or Mango Lip Butter… However I almost didn’t get this. This is where I’m going to go into rant mode. First of all I want to say I KNOW the staff in the store I visited were just doing their job but it still pissed me off what happened.

So I received an email from The Body Shop telling me if I filled in a survey I would be sent a code to take into the shop so I could claim my free lip butter. So I did the survey and took it into store. As well as this I also saw something online how members of Love Your Body were able to claim a free body butter too. SO I took this to the store with me as well. The woman who served me instantly said that due to scammers that they wouldn’t accept my codes and I would need the email instead. I wasn’t sent ANY emails with new codes on and as I looked through my old emails I was beginning to get frustrated. So I thought, “sod it doesn’t matter anyway”, but when the woman was trying to sort it out and asking her manager about it at the till I ended up feeling flustered, snapping and said, “Look it doesn’t matter, I’m not that bothered!” to which they ended up giving me the lip butter anyway. Which was nice but personally I didn’t appreciate being made to look like I was trying to scam the company when I spend quite a lot of my money there monthly. Not only that but it made me feel like I was being a pain, which I was intending to do. My anxiety has been okay lately but this really did flare it a little bit, as the last thing I need is to feel like I’m being a pain in the arse when all I wanted was a free lip butter, which I had been told I was entitled to anyway. I know they don’t know how much money I spend there, but I’m also frustrated that I didn’t get any emails about this. Either way the woman who served me was lovely and I understand how in retail if you are told a rule you need to o bide by, you have to! I’m just more frustrated at The Body Shop as a company, not the staff. This being said, a note to The Body Shop, if you weren’t so busy sending out emails about your constant sales, then maybe I WOULD HAVE received my email about the scammers.

Rant over and onto the lip butter I got.

I’ve owned the Coconut Lip Butter in the past and I really do love it! It leaves my lips feeling soft and smooth, as well as smelling and tasting of coconut too, super yummy! I’ll probably keep this in my house to use throughout the day as I don’t like using pot lip balms whilst out and about due to germs and such. I wish I could have chosen something different as I wanted to try something new, but alas this is better than nothing as it was worth £4! If you want to claim your free lip balm then check your emails, fill in the survey and then check your emails again. Take that to store and claim your free lip balm! You only have until Wednesday 4th February so make sure to get yours as soon as possible!

The next store I went into was Two Seasons. Whenever I go shopping in Coventry this is always a store I pop into without hesitation! I love the clothing that Two Seasons sells and in the past I’ve picked up some real bargains. I bought two things in there from the sale, both of which are orange and by Element.

Another product I bought, another rant to get out-of-the-way first. Earlier on today I actually had to take this back into store because the person who served me didn’t take the security tag off! All day I had been setting off alarms whenever I entered and left shops and I just thought it was my student ID in my bag. Alas, it was this t-shirt. The guys in Two Seasons are really nice and dealt with the issue straightaway.

Either way this is a gorgeous t-shirt by Element in the colour (what Element themselves call it) ginger… That’s orange to you and me. I own a red one that is exactly the same and I wear that all the time, so I’m pretty sure this will with be the same. It was originally £20, down to £10, which I think is a bargain! I bought this in a large as I love the baggy look you get and feel with this t-shirt, as it leaves a nice relaxed look and really compliments my top half.

Another Element product! This one is a sweatshirt which is also shares the colour name of ginger. I looked at this when it was full price and tried it on when it was down a little in a sale before Christmas. I was so tempted to buy it but I left it, as the size I tried on didn’t suit me. However when I saw it again yesterday I knew that I wanted it and went and tried on the large, which I had tried on originally. It was still too big and still looked too frumpy on me. However there was a small and whilst I didn’t think I would fit the small size, I DID! It looked perfect, showed off all my good parts and made me feel a little bit more confident in my body (which isn’t what I’ve been feeling at all lately) so I bought it. This was originally £50, down in the sale for £20.

So overall if I’d have bought these new I would have forked out £70, all I had to pay was £30. If that isn’t a bargain, then I don’t know what is.

I love Two Seasons and when they have a sale, they really do have a sale! If you like skate, surf and snow fashion then definitely check them out.

I just HAD to pop into Lush! As not only is it next door to Two Seasons, but they have their Valentine’s Day range out at the moment and the two products I picked up I have been lusting after since I got home from my holiday. I can see me ordering some more online before Valentine’s Day is upon us to order some more, as I doubt I’ll get time to go in store between now and then.

This is the number one thing I went into Lush for, Unicorn Horn Bubble Bar. It looks beautiful and it sounded like it smells beautiful too, and it really does. It has a light lavender scent to it and whilst I like lavender, I only like it when it’s gentle. This being said I love Twilight Bath Bomb and this would work perfectly alongside this! I would have taken it out of the packet to show off but I want to keep it in here until I get home, so I can transport it into a sandwich bag to keep it fresher. I’ll probably use this Tuesday night after uni to chill out in the evening before I go to sleep. I want to write a review on this so I’ll be saving any talk about it until the time comes…

Another product I have been lusting over from the Valentine’s Day collection is the Prince Charming Shower Gel. I remember this coming out last year and sort of wanting it, but not seeing the hype in it. This year however I made sure to give it quite a few sniffs to see if I really liked the scent, and I did! I love Snow Fairy but sometimes I find the scent is a little overpowering, but this is a lot milder and something that will be nice to use before I go to uni, before nights out and over the weekends. The scent reminds me of something that Lush has in a bubble bar but I really can’t think what it is! You can for sure smell the pomegranate juice in this and the vanilla and it’ll make for a sweet and warming shower gel. I’m definitely going to order myself a large bottle of this to use over the summer. I wish I had bought a large bottle, but I can just order it online or pick it up next weekend.

The last place I popped into was a card shop in Coventry called I’m A Write Card, which sells Yankee Candle products! I’d never noticed it before and as soon as I spotted it from outside, I was already thinking about what they may have in stock. They had all the new scents for Spring, as well as the two new limited edition scents to. I picked up one of the new summer scents, Shea Butter which reminds me of cocoa butter, and I’m hoping will be a nice relaxing scent, if so I’ll probably pick a jar of it up in the future. As well as that I picked up Red Raspberry, which is one of the two limited edition scents. This is gorgeous and something I have been after since it came out! It’s a very sharp raspberry scent and I can’t wait to burn this tomorrow evening when I get home from uni! I can see me picking up a large jar of this as soon as I can!

So that was everything I picked up on my shopping trip. I’m rather pleased with what I got, but I must be good for the rest of the month now!

Have you been buying anything since pay-day? If so, what did you get? Let me know in the comments down below.

Until next time all, take care and I hope you’re all having a good weekend.