Tag Archives: Lush

Lush Kitchen – Percup and Avowash review

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Lush Kitchen is quite a new part of Lush. They make small batches of classic Lush products, something that used to be called Retro, but they also make exclusive products, or advance order products, again all in small batches.They also do regular G+ hangouts where the Compounders (the guys & gals making the products) & the Inventors (the people who come up with the products) talk about the ingredients they use, or where they source the ingredients, or inspirations behind the products.

Yada  Yada Yada – Tell us about the stuff you got!

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Avowash made on 5th August 2014 by Peter

Avowash soap

I love the ballistic Lush make called Avobath, it’s bright green, full of avocado, lemongrass oil and bergamot. Add them all together it’s brilliant. It’s great & citrusy for the summer & then also has really big powerful scent for the winter, specially if you’re full of cold, plus it’s got loads of avocado that’s super for the skin.

This smells nothing like it.

I know, should have read the ingredients better, and I’d have know it was packed with pine oil, but there’s a little bit of panic when you see you’ve only got 30 min to complete your order once you’ve put a Lush Kitchen product in your basket, so I didn’t.

Initial disappointment over, it’s nice. The pine in this is quite strong, it smelt quite antiseptic, or bathroom-cleanerish when I unwrapped it, but once it’s wet & on the go it’s quite nice.  It’s probably going to get used more as a hand soap than a soap I take into the shower. (It’s going to take something very impressive to take the mighty Sandstone off the number one spot!)

Avowash is £4.25 per 100g and is only available through Lush Kitchen.

 

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Percup made 8th August 2014 by Peter

 

Percup Massage Bar

This is what incited me to place the order. A massage bar made with coffee. There hasn’t been a coffee product in Lush since Vanilla in the Mist, a really great soap that made you smell like a vanilla latte. But Percup is not a soap.

It’s a massage bar. It’s a beautiful chunk of fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter & Fair Trade Shea Butter blended with some gorgeous ingredients. The massage bars melt surprisingly quickly in your hands, even my perpetually cold hands, and you can use it for massage (and they do in Lush Spas) or, as I did with this, use it after the shower (or bath) as a really great body lotion.

As well as the shea & cocoa, Percup has organic jojoba oil and extra virgin coconut oil. All of those by themselves are great for skin, wrapped up together with the coffee beans, vetiver oil and fair trade vanilla, it’s freaking UHMAZING!

It’s a real sweet & warm scent, like the smell of your local coffee shop in the morning when they’re still baking the pastries, and steaming the milk for lattes while you’re sat at the bar with a perfect espresso.  Even 8 hours after I’ve covered myself in it, I still want to lick my own arm. Unfortunately, Percup isn’t edible.

Sometimes, allegedly, products that start in Lush Kitchen will then end up in the stores. I hope so, because I think I need this in my life all the time!

Percup is £6.50 and only available through LushKitchen

If I’ve tempted you with these products, then be quick! The menu at Lush Kitchen changes frequently, and they might not make these again. Postage is about £4, so this package cost me just under £15.

 Anyone tried something from Lush Kitchen? What are your favorite Lush Products?

A break from normal broadcasting

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There is absolutely no running in this post, not even running for a train or bus, sorry.

There will be a lot of talk about perfume, Gorilla Perfume to be exact.
Gorilla perfume are the father & son team, Mark and Simon Constantine, who started the range of perfumes at Lush to combat the mass market generic scents virulent on the high street.

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Perfume is the point!
And to show everyone that Gorilla Perfume have set up “Voice of Reason – Exhibition of Olfactory Works” in Red Gallery on Rivington Street, London.
So, just exactly does one go about displaying perfume as works of art?

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Well, that’s exactly what me & four others from Lush Preston went to find out.
So being a Lush employee I had a little idea of what the perfumes are all about but, to be frank, the gallery blew my mind sideways a little. The idea of perfumes being just a scent, stops once you’ve experienced them in the way they were presented at the gallery.
I’ve been debating what to say about the perfumes and the exhibit, I’m only a baby perfume geek & if I give you a blow by blow account of each scent, I won’t do them justice or give you something you couldn’t find someplace else, however I’ve left London this afternoon and spent most of the train journey home frantically trying to put into words how awesome the experience was, so clearly it’s left me full of excitement.
But I still haven’t answered the question, “how do you display perfume as works of art?”
I think it’s all about putting you in the headspace of Mark & Simon Constantine (the Gorilla Perfumers) at the time the scents were conceived and leading you through that journey.
The exhibition isn’t something you stand and observe, it’s sight & sound and touch and smell, all giving you a deeper understanding of just why each scent is just so.
I don’t want to spoil it, or spend too much time talking about Perfume & art on a running blog, (but if anyone asks I’ll happily spill all the beans) so I’ll just mention my two most favorite moments out of all 20ish fragrances at the gallery.

WARNING SPOILERS!

The Bug / The sun20121218-195914.jpg The bug is a 21st century scent with the idea of CCTV & paranoia rooted in its concept and with The Bug by Magnetic Man played to you via some cordless headphones you’re sent to wander a dark maze with TV screens showing distorted CCTV type footage of yourself and you stumble upon a wall of screens.



As the music plays and you wander around in the almost dark not certain what comes next the air is filled with the peppery scent of The Bug fragrance.
You near the end of The Bug experience & leave the headphones behind and step through a black curtain into The Sun!20121218-200534.jpg
The room is bright the air is filled with crisp orange and citrus scents, there are beech huts & sand and on the wall images of birds and out doors.
As I stepped out from the curtains to the brightness I laughed out loud, and it’s that moment that captures perfectly the feeling that comes with The Sun fragrance. It’s uplifting, it’s happy and bright.

 

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It’s that moment, the transition between the two experiences that was the highlight of the gallery for me, but speaking with others and knowing how scent is such a personal experience I really do urge anyone able to get there to visit before the exhibition closes on Christmas Eve. Go Visit! Breathe deeply and take an open mind.

If you don’t manage to get there in the next week (hurry hurry!) I’d still suggest you head over there as the G Perfume “pop up shop” will be there for another 5 months, the staff there really know the perfumes ( & incense) and are happy to spend the time talking you through all the new & old scents.