LUSH FOCUS | PEEPING SANTA

If you don't already know, I love Lush products. I especially love their bath bombs and melts - they are one of my favourite ways to relax and pamper myself. So in a new series of posts, I thought I'd feature different products from Lush (mainly their bath products) and give you a short breakdown and review of each of them.  Today's post is going to focus on a Christmas bubble bar - Peeping Santa.

A Christmas favourite, Peeping Santa is a bubble bar containing ingredients such as: shea butter, bergamot oil, geranium oil and olibanum oil. Lush's official description of the product is:

Santa may use his dairy-free chocolate eyes to see who's been naughty or nice come Christmas, but, at this time of year, he also looks out for the perfect batch of hand-churned shea butter. Nipping over to Ghana, he visits the Ojoba women's cooperative, who crack and churn the shea pods into a rich, chocolatey butter. Blended with Fair Trade, organic cocoa butter, this indulgent combination is sandwiched between fragrant bergamot and geranium oils. Crumble under running water for sack loads of fruity bubbles.

Ingredients:

• Sodium Bicarbonate
 
• Cream of Tartar
 
• Sodium Laureth Sulfate
 
• Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter
 
• Lauryl Betaine
 
• Cornflour
 
• Laureth 4
 
• Bergamot Oil
 
• Olibanum Oil
 
• Geranium Oil
 
• Fair Trade Shea Butter
 
• Benzyl Alcohol
 
• Hexyl Cinnamal
 
• *Linalool
 
• Colour 14700
 
• Colour 45380:3
 
• Dark Chocolate

• 
  

*occurs naturally in essential oils.

I love the cute design of this bar and especially this chocolate eyes which is a cute little detail. The scent is mild and pleasant - mainly smelling of both the shea and cocoa butter. Being a melt, I find this bar to also be fairly moisturising - though not as much so as something like Butterbear / Ball. It's definitely moisturising enough however that you feel it and don't necessarily need to moisturise after if you don't want to. This bubble bar definitely does go a long way - I decided to use half but I think you could certainly use a quarter and still get the same results. Overall, this is a lovely, relaxing and moisturising bubble bar that I'd definitely recommend you pick up around Christmas time!

REVIEW | Lush Oatifix Face Mask

Skincare has become really important to me over the years. Having sensitive skin however, makes things like pampering yourself a little bit trickier - particularly when it comes to face masks. I don't find there to be enough face masks out there for those of us with easily aggravated skin so when I found one from Lush, I was very pleased. The mask in question is called "Oatifix" and is made especially for dry and sensitive skin types.

Where to Buy: Lush

How Much? £6.50

Lush describes this face mask as "gentle and nourishing.. Made with fresh bananas and illipe butter to moisture dry skin".  Also in this mask as the name suggests is Oatmeal which is known for it's soothing properties. 

Here's a full list of ingredients:

• Glycerine, 
• Fine Oatmeal, 
• Fresh Organic Fair Trade Banana, 
• Water (Aqua),
• Ground Almonds, 
• Organic Illipe Butter, 
• Kaolin 
• Talc, 
• Fair Trade Vanilla Absolute,
• Sandalwood Oil, 
• Benzoin Resinoid, 
• Coumarin, 
• Benzyl Cinnamate, 
• Linalool, 
• Perfume,
• Gardenia Extract

• 
  

• 
  

• My Thoughts:

• 
  

• The first things I noticed about this product was the smell. It smells so good! Like something freshly baked out of the oven, I could happily eat it. This for me is always a nice factor because it really adds to that pampering feeling when the products you're using smells delicious. 

Something I also noticed about this mask is its consistency and texture - I have never actually used a mask like it. Unlike most that are often a lot creamier, this is a lot thicker and chunkier. It isn't going to give you an opaque coverage all over the face like others masks do. This is purely an aesthetic thing however as the mask does cover the whole face but due it's consistency, it isn't as smooth a formula. 

As it is intended for dryer skin types, this chunky texture helps to exfoliate the skin as well as soothe it - the exfoliation however is not harsh at all and is instead very gentle on the skin causing no irritation. I also found it to leave a nice little "film" after washing it off that wasn't greasy but just left the skin instead feeling really soft and moisturised. Due to its formula, it's much easier to remove than masks that dry into the skin and get everywhere so I actually really liked that about it as well. 

Whilst this certainly isn't a mask that is going to clarify blemished or spot prone skin, it is one that is definitely going to moisturise and nourish it. My skin felt lovely after using it each time and I definitely felt like it helped to moisturise it as well as to exfoliate areas of tougher dryness. The delicious scent added to that pampered feeling that the results also helped to deliver as well. 

Overall, I really enjoy this mask and would definitely re-purchase it. I think it will be particularly effective in the Winter months when many people start to get dryer skin - if this sounds like something that'd interest you, I'd definitely check it out in your local Lush store now!

• 
  

•