LUSH

Inexplicable Marilyn Moments: Or Are They?

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I was going through some bits and pieces I had torn out of magazines, fodder for future collages and vision boards, and there was Marilyn, big as life.

I would not be a … I was going to say huge fan, and I wouldn’t be, but I think by that I also mean an obsessed fan of her persona. You know, because I don’t get ever get obsessed about anything. Ha, ha.

Or by that I think I may mean that I absolutely recognise that she was talented — and funny! — but I don’t know that she was any more tragic than many women walking around out there, living lives that are markedly less glamorous, sure, but with their own brand of pressures.

But, lordee, that woman could rock the red lipstick. Continue reading →

How Did It Do? Passionate from Lush Emotional Brilliance

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This photo was taken about two hours after application.

Well, it’s true. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.

That is pretty incredible pigment, isn’t it?

I will say, that as with most matte finish lip colour, the gob felt dry. I hadn’t even blotted the initial application, so I did that — two hours later — and then added a touch of lip balm.

It lasted about another hour, until which time I had had a sandwich. This couldn’t withstand a sandwich. But! I bet if you had a salad and ate it reallllly carefully, this would not budge.

I am very keen to collect a few of these colours…

***

Passionate Liquid Lipstick from Lush: Emotional Brilliance, €17.95

Lush Emotional Brilliance: Change Your Face, Change Your Attitude

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Last night, I was applying some of Lush’s gorgeous Celestial: Heavenly Moisturiser for Sensitive Skin — not that my skin is all that sensitive, but this cream is so soothing and gorgeous, it feels really dreamy, which is perfect for entering the dreamtime… anyway, I was doing that, and thinking to myself, I haven’t blogged about Lush in a while…

This morning, I got a Lush delivery in the post!

I must be psychic or something.

Well known for their skin care and bath ballistics, Lush are venturing into the realm of cosmetics with a typically holistic approach. Emotional Brilliance uses colour therapy and behavioural therapy to allow users to enhance not only their faces, but their moods and attitudes.

So: you look at the wheel and respond to the first three colours that jump out at you. There are words that correspond with the colours — like Passionate, Sophisticated, Fantasy — and these words will be significant for you at the time of choosing. Then! In using the colours, you fulfill a need or amplify a specific talent or quality that you have, but may have been neglecting.

I think it is dead cool, and I totally believe it. For example: I’ve started wearing less black-coloured clothes in favour or more colourful ones, and I can really see a difference in the way that people respond to me. It’s a chakra thing, into which I will go into further depth when I start talkin’ ’bout my Reiki practice {soon!}

Lush’s new line features lip colours, eyeliners and eyeshadows. The variety of shades on offer point to timelessness: this is less trend-driven, and more about the sorts of tones and hues that will never do you wrong.

Here is a picture of  Passionate lip colour:

The packaging is a departure for Lush, who usually try to not have any packaging at all. Everything about the containers is recyclable, and even reusable. I’m not sure if you can go back and get refills, that sounds unlikely and unwieldy.

Here it is, applied:

It felt a bit grainy to start, but then I reckoned it was more likely that my lips needed a good exfoliating. I’ve been sporting it for the last 40 minutes or so, and it feels super light.

There’s something alchemical about the whole shebang: the bottles, the colour theory. It’s fun!

I received several samples, including one of Fantasy Eyeliner and Sophisticated Cream Eyeshadow. All of these retail for €17.95 each. There’s a supplementary line of powder, skin tints, and Eyes Right Mascara, which is shown at left. Hmmm. That makes me nervous for no good reason… Mascara in a bottle? The applicator is a traditional brush, which gave me comfort. I think I was expecting a brush, like something olde-timey? I dunno, whatever, we’ll see.

The line launches on 21 July, and there are thirteen lip colours, two no-smudge eyeliners, eleven smudgeable ones, and six eye creams.

I can never get a good photo of colour swatches, but I’ve just stroked some of the eyeliner and some of the cream eyeshadow on my hand, and the pigment is exxxxtreme. Cannot wait to play with this stuff!

Four out of Five Senses: LUSH H’Suan Wen Hua

/ brightandbeautyfull / 4 Comments

Because I am not going to taste any class of beauty product, not even for you, beloved readers.

This is H’Suan Wen Hua Hair Treatment by LUSH.

It looks like this:

A bit like custard, only beige.

It’s got avocado in it, and balsamic vinegar, and watercress — a veritable salad for the hair. Apply it to dry locks before showering and let it do its intensive hydrating for twenty minutes.

It felt a bit light, which turned out to be a good thing, due to the amount of hair that sprouts out of my skull. There’s a lot to cover.

This is how much I used:

One third of the pot, not bad. Its lightness translated into excellent coverage, so that a little bit went all the way.

The smell? Slightly odd. Sort of like lapsang souchong tea — smoky, a little bacon-y, which I completely do not understand. There are eggs in this too, so maybe they are the culprit? Is it sulphur?

But, this is how my hair looked:

Shot in my favourite location, the back of the 46A.

Look, so shiiiiiny! And sleek, and the highlights, popping even more than they did the day I got them! Highly recommend, even with the odd fragrance.

And it felt crazy-soft, and still does, two days later.

I can hear you saying, Yeah, and the sense of hearing, Sue? I don’t know how to pronounce the name of this! So there. What’s it sound like to you?

Sounds like: if your hair needs a comprehensive conditioning, you better get some of this.

€11.50/£8.50/$19.95

Make Your Own Bath Ballistic

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How much fun does this look like???

My answer: LOTS.

As a life-long fan of Lush Bath Ballistics, I am delighted to announce the some of the brand’s crack compounders, are comin’ to town to help you craft you own wee fizzy bath thing. In the olde dayes, we used to call them ‘bombs’ but I think for humanitarian reasons, they changed the name — this is nothing less than you’d expect from the all-natural brand.

You have three choices:

Blackberry Bath Bomb to lift you up with bergamot and frankincense; Think Pink with reassuring tonka and vanilla; and Space Girl, an intergalactic, glittery bath ballistic scented with grapefruit and bergamot oil and filled with popping candy that is truly out of this world.

I am definitely going to make the Blackberry one. Oh, but, I love vanilla, so Think Pink, maybe? Clearly, Space Girl suits me down to the ground…

The compounders are in residence at the Henry Street shop from 1 to 5 pm this Saturday, 5 May, and in the Grafton Street premises on Sunday, 6 May. That’s this weekend, bath enthusiasts! It is free to do this thing, to learn how to make your own ballistic and then take it home! Don’t miss out!

For more info and to book, ring the Henry Street shop on 01 873 5735 or the Grafton Street Shop on 01 677 0392.

Three Days Down the Country: High Maintenance, Wha’?

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Template for a chill weekend up from Dublin: sitting around, drinking cups of tea in various people’s houses. Watching movies, drinking wine. Not expecting to wash much, to be honest. That’s not very high maintenance, is it now?

Er, so, then, why did I need all the stuff at left?

And all the makeup I brought and forgot to put in the photo — or it didn’t even occur to me to shoot it as it always goes with me anyway, like my keys, and my wallet.

So, what did I end up not using at all? The toothbrush>> JUST KIDDING. The Avéne cleanser, the Clinique Turnaround Concentrate sample, the Kiehl’s thing in the small blue tub.

Hmm. That’s not a terrible average, to be honest, and I had suspected that the cleanser wouldn’t get a look in.

I must highly recommend the Lush Silky Underwear Dusting Powder. I haven’t used dusting powder since I was a sprog, and this was great for, er, taking a bit of the pong off before the Big Easter Hill Walk through a bunch of woods, up and down boggy hills, to a lovely wee church on the side of the mountain. Not that there was anyone to offend, the gang of us were all in the same state, but I felt better in myself to have done even cursory grooming. I also lashed on some of the L’Oréal Nude Magique BB Cream, which is my absolutely new favourite thing, and swiped on some of my also-new-favourite-thing, Clinique’s Quickliner for Eyes Intense, because you never know who you might run into in the middle of a bog.*

Post-hike, with the last leg of it in bucketing down rain, I had a lovely bath and was sorry that I hadn’t brought along this egg from Lush, but my hostess had a gorgeously frothy bar of lavender soap that an Australian friend gifted her from Oz, and boy, would I like to know what that brand is.

Always on the job. But! The biggest asset to my three days with very little application of cleaning products will be revealed in the next post…

*No one.

Speaking of God

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

No, really.

I’ve got all manner of things ranged across my desktop — the actual wooden surface of my desk, not the screen of my laptop — and one of the lot is Breath of God by Gorilla Perfume, which has been named one of the top 100 fragrances of all time.

No insult to the Deity, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

It’s strong {not surprising, lol}, but when I first used it, I sprayed it alllll over myself, and had a headache by the end of the day. Right this second, I have sprayed the tiniest amount, half a pump {yes, it’s possible} on the pulse points at my wrist.

Simon Constantine, perfumer at Gorilla, devised this scent upon returning from a trip to Tibet. The main notes of the fragrance are neroli, lemon, melon, jasmine, rose, vetivert, sandalwood, cederwood, amber, and musk. {I am still on the lookout for those perfume lessons.} Anyway, to me, without having any fancy knowledge about this sort of thing, there seems to be a terrific elemental balance to this fragrance, and perfect balance of masculine and feminine. In fact, I would very much like to squirt a dude with this, I bet he would smell yum-my.

I am finding that the eeensy amount I’ve sprayed is just enough. Every time I scooch up my glasses or play with my ponytail — lost in thought — I get a whiff off my wrists and it’s lovely: fresh; a bit sharp; invigorating, but not in a pushy way. Or, as the crowd who wrote The Little Book of Perfumes: The 100 Classics put it:

Surreal combinations – lemon ham, grape leather, bubblegum tobacco, loquat vetiver – rise from its depths each time it comes to attention, hour after hour.

Whoa. Lemon ham? I wish I even knew how to smell like that. Wow.

This is very intense, and even now, some time post-spritz, this is making its presence felt in a different way, as mentioned above; rather than fading, it feels like it’s getting stronger. Which is weird. So, if you are looking for a scent that lasts for, well, an eternity, I can recommend this one without reservation.

€39/£32/$42.95 for 30g

Little Book of Perfumes: The 100 Classics (2011) by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez can be purchased at all usual online outlets. I’ve just wishlisted one myself…

Oh, Lush, Why Do You Do This To Me?

/ MANY BRAVE FOOLS / 1 Comment

Not that I don’t want you to send me things — OMG, don’t stop sending me things! — but I swear, anytime there is a thing inside another thing, I go cray-zee with wanting to play!

The Immaculate Eggception is a double-layered bath ballistic, and you can hear the thing inside the thing rattling around. I made myself sit down and breathe, which allowed me to enjoy the Lush-y scents of vanilla absolute, ylang ylang, and grapefruit, and also to get a grip.

Not on the egg though, with the view to OPEN IT AND SEE WHAT IS INSIDE, but in order to calm down, because my water heater is waiting to be replaced and I can’t draw a bath.

Dammit.

The plumber is in tomorrow, and so I will have to just hang on til then. And given that the weather is bright and sunny, like, it is so not bath time, right?

{You just keep telling yourself that, love.}

€8.75/£7.99/12.95

It’s Leap Year, and You All Know What That Means: Reprised*

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Right? You know what that means? If not, get this:

On the British isles, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. While it has been claimed that the tradition was initiated by Saint Patrick or Brigid of Kildare in 5th century Ireland, this is dubious, as the tradition has not been attested before the 19th century.

Wha’? I don’t even — it’s an Irish thing? This is from Wikipedia; naturally, I took that with a grain of salt and went off a’googling. Now, it occurs to me that the internet is just a massive self-fulfilling prophecy, in that information is taken from one website and put in another, because where else are we going to get our information, and everything you see on a screen is true. Right? I don’t know, it just hit me, that this is so, and made me wonder about the things we think we know… I’ve always been easily led, but today is the day I question everything.

From about.com:

St. Bridget’s Complaint
It is believed this tradition was started in 5th century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait for so long for a man to propose. According to legend, St. Patrick said the yearning females could propose on this one day in February during the leap year.

Plus the whole Sadie Hawkins thing started in a comic strip? Really?

I didn’t really get Lush’s Leap Frog Bath Ballistic. I mean, he smelled fantastic, and was made of all of my fave essential oils: jasmine, neroli, ylang ylang, sandalwood and rose. < Seriously, all of them in one place, I couldn’t believe it. He looked to be a good size, one that would keep fizzing until he melted, rather than fizzling out. LOL.

The Leap Frog’s particular thing is that he comes with a special message inside. Now, let me tell ya, there is nothing like the promise of a secret thing inside another thing to get me going. Or a prize of some sort! Lucky Dip, Cracker Jacks, piñatas — holy wow, watch me go for it.

The special, secret message, though, has to do with being a female and popping the question to the male? I have no use for such a message at this stage, but: I HAD TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN THE FROG. And if I got the special, secret message that’s supposed to help you go about proposing {???} then I would put it aside for future use. Maybe. I already been married, sistuhs, so, you know, no big deal.

BUT I HAD TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN THE FROG. I needed a bath, anyway. Are you the kind of person who needs baths? I prefer showering for cleanliness, but need baths for relaxing and unwinding. So, into the bath I went, with the Frog, who was as fizzy and fragrant as promised and although this was a scenario designed to create the relaxing and the unwinding, I was completely focused on the disintegrating Frog, waiting for the SPECIAL MESSAGE.

When it appeared, I couldn’t read it anyway because I had the candles going and I didn’t have my glasses. Did not relax or unwind much because I COULDN’T READ the special message that I HAD BEEN WAITING FOR.

<This is what I got!

Okay! I am down with this! I actually had a dream a couple weeks ago about a dude called Robert! WILL THIS SPECIAL MESSAGE COME TRUE?!?!?!

€3.50/£2.95/No sign of this in the US

Are you superstitious? Don’t go here.

*I first posted this on 23 January — what was I thinking? I was thinking, ‘Hey, I get stuff from Lush all the time, and never seem to stay caught up with reviews.’ So there I was, being all efficient, and this got buried. So here it is again, a little over a month later. Still no sign of Prince Rob, *sob*.

From the Archives: Stylin’ Hair

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I admit, I feel somewhat lost without another ♥Day post to write. And also: relieved. Sheesh, that was crazy, remind me not to do that next year.

I’m in the process of winnowing, and faced with my multitude of hair styling products, I thought the best thing to do would be to consult my own archive, and lo, here is a linkety link to an Evening Herald Tried & Tested column.

Hmmm. Only two of these are still in rotation, which makes me feel hopeful about my ability to streamline. After you read the reviews, can you guess which two? I was surprised, myself…