With all the Christmas things making the store smell beautiful, I feel it's only right to write a post about one of the most popular Christmas products: Snow Fairy!
This bright pink, sparkly shower gel returns to the shelves every year, and for good reason: people ask for it all year round, and buy it by the ton in the few months that it's around. This year she even has a pretty pink label, setting her apart from all the other gels with their standard black labels - very fancy! I like to buy a big bottle and hope it lasts - I don't stock up anymore, since one year I bought one myself and received 2 more for Christmas!
As I'm sure most of you know, it smells of sweeties - in my opinion, like a mix of candyfloss, jelly beans and those banana foam sweets you can often find in pick 'n' mix. And it's bright pink. And contains iridescent glitter. It's so girly, and yet somehow it draws in a lot of men too - I suspect that mine goes rather more on the hubby than on me! I like to shake up the bottle before he uses it - only right he gets his fair share of the glitter, right?
And what gives it this scent? Well, it's closely guarded secret, with most of the fragrancing ingredients being listed under the single ingredient of 'Perfume'. This is, of course, to prevent the recipe from being copied, which is always a risk with such a successful product.
One fragrant ingredient is listed on its own though - synthetic musk. And it does need to be synthetic, natural musk is an animal product, and the animals are killed in order to gather it. It's a common fixative in perfumes, helping the scents to linger longer on the skin, and adding a subtle aroma of its own. Unsurprisingly, it smells, well, musky.
A couple of other ingredients have been revealed over the years too - synthetic banana is in there, giving that scent of banana sweeties. I suspect it's synthetic for preservation reasons, as bananas do seem to go off fairly quickly, and it's only there for scent rather than any skincare reasons (unlike in Sympathy for the Skin, Oatifix and a bunch of other super moisturising products, where they give some serious nourishing to dry skin). I also heard that it contains bergamot - it certainly makes sense. The light, fruity fragrance would slot into the overall scent very well, and it would help to explain why Snow Fairy makes so many people so very happy, as it's a natural anti-depressant!
There's a range of products featuring the Snow Fairy fragrance these days. Magic Wand reusable bubble bar is another Christmas special, invented last year and returning this year, much to its fans' delight. There's The Godmother soap all year round, too, if you run out of Snow Fairy mid-year and can't wait for your next fix, and Bubblegum lip scrub if you're one of the many people who have wanted to eat Snow Fairy (I know I have, and even took an ill-advised lick of last year's Magic Wand - yuck!).
Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, get down to your local shop and take a good sniff as soon as possible - the Snow Fairy demands it!
Lots of Lush,
Coralie
Monday 15 October 2012
Friday 12 October 2012
The Smell of Weather Turning perfume
This is my sometimes-favourite of all the perfumes - on my more playful days I prefer Superworldunknown, but The Smell of Weather Turning was the first of the Gorilla perfumes range to really catch my attention. It also caught my imagination, taking me on a journey as it matured on my skin: the essential oils that make up the scent evaporate and react with the skin's chemistry at different paces in any perfume, and in a fragrance as complex as this one it causes some dramatic changes.
First, let me share with you the story that this perfume tells me:
It's summer. It's been unbearly humid for days, to the point where the air seems to have a tangible weight to it. To escape the heat, I'd gone to the woods, and of course at that point the weather finally broke, pouring down a few weeks' worth of rain in just minutes. And now the rain has stopped. The air is finally fresh and clear, and it's a delight to breathe something so clean tasting. The earth smells fresh and alive and full of potential, and all the plants seem as relieved as I am for the change. The sun has come back out now, warming and drying both me and the ground, bringing out the scent of all the wonderful wild plants as I walk - nettles, somehow beautiful with their coat of raindrops and their green, pungent scent; chamomile, gentle but deep, its daisy-like flowers drying in the sunshine; and wafting from the town at the edge of the woods, the smell of freshly cut grass drying in the sun, no doubt cut just before the storm hit. I feel warm and alive and content.
The initial hit is unquestionably mint - the fragrance is loaded with peppermint and water mint, and if you happen to inhale whilst spritzing you will actually taste it. That's where I get the fresh, clean air feeling from, and I suspect that there's some trace of mint's natural cooling effect contributing to it, though it's very subtle.
The mint top notes gradually fade out, leaving behind just the slightest hint that they were once there. In their place, deeper, smokier herbal notes rise up to mingle with sweeter hints - the depth seems to come from chamomile, nettle and oakwood, whilst beeswax and hay provide a subtle sweetness that is strange and familiar all at once. The herbal base notes are what suggests earthiness to me, and somehow seems to evoke the smell of rain-wet hair drying in the sun to me as well. The cut-grass smell comes from the hay, of course, and the beeswax just pulls it together somehow.
The fragrance came about after Mark and Simon Constantine, the father and son team behind Gorilla perfumes (who are also on the main Lush team as well) had a chat with one of the shop workers, who happens to be a white witch. The conversation turned to how weather turning might smell. This got Mark's imagination going, and ultimately he decided that he'd like to make it into a perfume using materials that would have been around in Britain thousands of years ago - hence the nettles, chamomile and grass. Simon pulled it together and warmed it up with hay and oak, and added some more of the fresh green notes. Apparently the tough part was choosing the top notes - Simon didn't want to use a modern citrus note, as is quite common in fresh and herbal fragrances. Then Mark had the idea of putting in mint. I think it worked perfectly.
All of the Gorilla perfumes react with each person's skin chemistry differently, as the scent is composed of essential oils. Many 'commercial' perfumes are carefully formulated to smell pretty much exactly the same on everyone. Now, I can see the point in it - people want to be able to sniff a test strip or even someone else who's wearing it and know it will make them smell the same way.
But where's the fun in that? Where's the individuality? Isn't a perfume meant to be like a signature, something distinctive for people to remember you by? And people really do associate scents with memories - the olfactory bundle, which processes smells in the brain, is virtually on top of the hippocampus, which processes short term memories into long term ones, and the two are well connected.
That's why scents can evoke memories so strongly - the scent of roses takes me back to my Nanna's garden when I was a little girl, collecting petals to make 'rose perfume' by mixing them into bottles of water, for example. It's also part of why this perfume may tell you a very different story to the one it tells me - you might have completely different memories connected to the various individual scents that make up the whole, and so your experience could be totally different. It's also down to how it reacts with your personal chemistry, of course.
Overall, I find this an unusual, complex and oddly comforting scent. Though the woody, herbal notes would traditionally be considered masculine, it smells amazing on women too - I find that the lighter notes tend to come through a little stronger on ladies, whilst the deeper notes take more of a back seat and add a real air of mystery.
If you get a chance, I'd advise you to give it a go. It's strange, it's mysterious, and it's absolutely beautiful.
Lots of Lush
Coralie
First, let me share with you the story that this perfume tells me:
It's summer. It's been unbearly humid for days, to the point where the air seems to have a tangible weight to it. To escape the heat, I'd gone to the woods, and of course at that point the weather finally broke, pouring down a few weeks' worth of rain in just minutes. And now the rain has stopped. The air is finally fresh and clear, and it's a delight to breathe something so clean tasting. The earth smells fresh and alive and full of potential, and all the plants seem as relieved as I am for the change. The sun has come back out now, warming and drying both me and the ground, bringing out the scent of all the wonderful wild plants as I walk - nettles, somehow beautiful with their coat of raindrops and their green, pungent scent; chamomile, gentle but deep, its daisy-like flowers drying in the sunshine; and wafting from the town at the edge of the woods, the smell of freshly cut grass drying in the sun, no doubt cut just before the storm hit. I feel warm and alive and content.
The initial hit is unquestionably mint - the fragrance is loaded with peppermint and water mint, and if you happen to inhale whilst spritzing you will actually taste it. That's where I get the fresh, clean air feeling from, and I suspect that there's some trace of mint's natural cooling effect contributing to it, though it's very subtle.
The mint top notes gradually fade out, leaving behind just the slightest hint that they were once there. In their place, deeper, smokier herbal notes rise up to mingle with sweeter hints - the depth seems to come from chamomile, nettle and oakwood, whilst beeswax and hay provide a subtle sweetness that is strange and familiar all at once. The herbal base notes are what suggests earthiness to me, and somehow seems to evoke the smell of rain-wet hair drying in the sun to me as well. The cut-grass smell comes from the hay, of course, and the beeswax just pulls it together somehow.
The fragrance came about after Mark and Simon Constantine, the father and son team behind Gorilla perfumes (who are also on the main Lush team as well) had a chat with one of the shop workers, who happens to be a white witch. The conversation turned to how weather turning might smell. This got Mark's imagination going, and ultimately he decided that he'd like to make it into a perfume using materials that would have been around in Britain thousands of years ago - hence the nettles, chamomile and grass. Simon pulled it together and warmed it up with hay and oak, and added some more of the fresh green notes. Apparently the tough part was choosing the top notes - Simon didn't want to use a modern citrus note, as is quite common in fresh and herbal fragrances. Then Mark had the idea of putting in mint. I think it worked perfectly.
All of the Gorilla perfumes react with each person's skin chemistry differently, as the scent is composed of essential oils. Many 'commercial' perfumes are carefully formulated to smell pretty much exactly the same on everyone. Now, I can see the point in it - people want to be able to sniff a test strip or even someone else who's wearing it and know it will make them smell the same way.
But where's the fun in that? Where's the individuality? Isn't a perfume meant to be like a signature, something distinctive for people to remember you by? And people really do associate scents with memories - the olfactory bundle, which processes smells in the brain, is virtually on top of the hippocampus, which processes short term memories into long term ones, and the two are well connected.
That's why scents can evoke memories so strongly - the scent of roses takes me back to my Nanna's garden when I was a little girl, collecting petals to make 'rose perfume' by mixing them into bottles of water, for example. It's also part of why this perfume may tell you a very different story to the one it tells me - you might have completely different memories connected to the various individual scents that make up the whole, and so your experience could be totally different. It's also down to how it reacts with your personal chemistry, of course.
Overall, I find this an unusual, complex and oddly comforting scent. Though the woody, herbal notes would traditionally be considered masculine, it smells amazing on women too - I find that the lighter notes tend to come through a little stronger on ladies, whilst the deeper notes take more of a back seat and add a real air of mystery.
If you get a chance, I'd advise you to give it a go. It's strange, it's mysterious, and it's absolutely beautiful.
Lots of Lush
Coralie
Flying Fox shower gel
For my first post, I thought I'd go for something that I've used for years, and which holds many fond memories for me - Flying Fox shower gel.
This golden gel might look like honey (and does in fact contain a load of the stuff - a whopping 37%), but the scent is packed full of jasmine and ylang ylang, giving it real sex appeal - literally, since jasmine has been used as an aphrodisiac for centuries!
That's not the original reason for the fragrance though - it was originally formulated to combat PMT! Jasmine and ylang ylang have long been used in aromatherapy to combat depression and all kinds of stress (sound familiar ladies?). Ylang ylang is wonderfully uplifting too, making it perfect for those days when it's all going a bit wrong, or to set you up to face a difficult day. There's a dash of cypress in there too, which is thought to be especially calming in times of emotional stress, and it helps take the edge off the sweet floral aromas as well.
Jasmine absolute is incredibly difficult to make, taking several thousand jasmine flowers to make one kilo of the thick, dark orange, intensely fragranced absolute. In many places it is traditionally considered a sign of wealth - and they put loads of the stuff in here! Lush sources it from plantations in Egypt, where farming families pick the flowers by hand to earn extra money in the summer, when their other crops are not bringing in much money. They have to be collected between 3 and 10 am, when the fragrance is strongest (jasmine is a night bloomer) and before the hot sun comes and burns off all the essential oils. And each blossom must be picked by hand - machines would damage both the flowers and the bushes. As ever, the Lush buyers make sure that the workers are treated well and paid fairly for what they do.
So, we know that the fragrance does wonderful things to your mood. But wait - this stuff has even more to give. Remember all that honey? It's there for a reason - honey is a natural humectant, meaning it helps to lock in the skin's natural moisture. It's also an amazing antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal ingredient, so it makes your skin lovely and clean - and you can have all these benefits withoutt the sticky mess! It's bought from small producers in Hungary, Greece and England, so you get a good mix of different flower honeys and support the little guys at the same time.
Just to give you an idea of how amazing honey is, I'll share a little story - archaeologists found an earthernware jar of honey in one of the Egyptian tombs, which had lain undisturbed for a few thousand years. It had crystallised a little (as it tends to do when left alone a while - the evidence can be seen in many a kitchen cupboard), but when warmed it returned to its original state (as will that mess in your cupboard) and was perfectly edible! Yes, for around 3000 years this pot of honey successfully battled off the nasties that normally destroy food. Amazing stuff.
Finally, there's a few more plants in there to help with the cleaning - there's Chinese angelica, burdock and jasmine infusion, which adds extra antibacterial action and an extra layer of complexity to the fragrance, and palmarosa oil, which is again antibacterial and antiviral, and also contributes another sweet note to the scent.
Phew, that's all the technical stuff out of the way (and I realise there's a lot of it - goes to show the work that goes into these things). But what is it actually like?
Well, as I already said, it's one of my favourites. Back when I discovered Lush, I worked at a certain chicken-based fast food restaurant, and I was looking for something that would perk me up enough to get through the day and also be strong enough to cover up/take away the smell! This ticked all the boxes - I'd start the day in a good mood, and end it smelling far lovelier than my co-workers. Back then there was also a Flying Fox temple balm, which was great for topping up during the day and it also made a wonderful solid perfume - I still have the scrapings of my tin left for emergencies! I always paired it with Godiva shampoo bar, which has the same fragrance, and used nothing else for months on end. I started dating my husband around that time as well, and now he gets all nostalgic whenever I use it. Aww.
In terms of its effectiveness as a shower gel, I've not found anything better. It lathers nicely, it feels lovely on the skin, and the consistency is great - not too thick, not too runny, and a little goes a long way. And the honey really does soften the skin, too. It even works well as a shampoo, if you've run out/forgotten to bring it - in the (brief) time that I went to the gym, I'd just chuck a 100ml bottle of Flying Fox in the bottom of my gym bag to use in the showers afterwards, and my hair always came out beautifully silky.
Well, I think I may finally have exhausted the subject. Please feel free to leave me any feedback - I appreciate that I went into a lot of detail, and that won't be changing, but if there's any way I can make it a better read, let me know! And definitely tell me if I missed anything!
Lots of Lush
Coralie
This golden gel might look like honey (and does in fact contain a load of the stuff - a whopping 37%), but the scent is packed full of jasmine and ylang ylang, giving it real sex appeal - literally, since jasmine has been used as an aphrodisiac for centuries!
That's not the original reason for the fragrance though - it was originally formulated to combat PMT! Jasmine and ylang ylang have long been used in aromatherapy to combat depression and all kinds of stress (sound familiar ladies?). Ylang ylang is wonderfully uplifting too, making it perfect for those days when it's all going a bit wrong, or to set you up to face a difficult day. There's a dash of cypress in there too, which is thought to be especially calming in times of emotional stress, and it helps take the edge off the sweet floral aromas as well.
Jasmine absolute is incredibly difficult to make, taking several thousand jasmine flowers to make one kilo of the thick, dark orange, intensely fragranced absolute. In many places it is traditionally considered a sign of wealth - and they put loads of the stuff in here! Lush sources it from plantations in Egypt, where farming families pick the flowers by hand to earn extra money in the summer, when their other crops are not bringing in much money. They have to be collected between 3 and 10 am, when the fragrance is strongest (jasmine is a night bloomer) and before the hot sun comes and burns off all the essential oils. And each blossom must be picked by hand - machines would damage both the flowers and the bushes. As ever, the Lush buyers make sure that the workers are treated well and paid fairly for what they do.
So, we know that the fragrance does wonderful things to your mood. But wait - this stuff has even more to give. Remember all that honey? It's there for a reason - honey is a natural humectant, meaning it helps to lock in the skin's natural moisture. It's also an amazing antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal ingredient, so it makes your skin lovely and clean - and you can have all these benefits withoutt the sticky mess! It's bought from small producers in Hungary, Greece and England, so you get a good mix of different flower honeys and support the little guys at the same time.
Just to give you an idea of how amazing honey is, I'll share a little story - archaeologists found an earthernware jar of honey in one of the Egyptian tombs, which had lain undisturbed for a few thousand years. It had crystallised a little (as it tends to do when left alone a while - the evidence can be seen in many a kitchen cupboard), but when warmed it returned to its original state (as will that mess in your cupboard) and was perfectly edible! Yes, for around 3000 years this pot of honey successfully battled off the nasties that normally destroy food. Amazing stuff.
Finally, there's a few more plants in there to help with the cleaning - there's Chinese angelica, burdock and jasmine infusion, which adds extra antibacterial action and an extra layer of complexity to the fragrance, and palmarosa oil, which is again antibacterial and antiviral, and also contributes another sweet note to the scent.
Phew, that's all the technical stuff out of the way (and I realise there's a lot of it - goes to show the work that goes into these things). But what is it actually like?
Well, as I already said, it's one of my favourites. Back when I discovered Lush, I worked at a certain chicken-based fast food restaurant, and I was looking for something that would perk me up enough to get through the day and also be strong enough to cover up/take away the smell! This ticked all the boxes - I'd start the day in a good mood, and end it smelling far lovelier than my co-workers. Back then there was also a Flying Fox temple balm, which was great for topping up during the day and it also made a wonderful solid perfume - I still have the scrapings of my tin left for emergencies! I always paired it with Godiva shampoo bar, which has the same fragrance, and used nothing else for months on end. I started dating my husband around that time as well, and now he gets all nostalgic whenever I use it. Aww.
In terms of its effectiveness as a shower gel, I've not found anything better. It lathers nicely, it feels lovely on the skin, and the consistency is great - not too thick, not too runny, and a little goes a long way. And the honey really does soften the skin, too. It even works well as a shampoo, if you've run out/forgotten to bring it - in the (brief) time that I went to the gym, I'd just chuck a 100ml bottle of Flying Fox in the bottom of my gym bag to use in the showers afterwards, and my hair always came out beautifully silky.
Well, I think I may finally have exhausted the subject. Please feel free to leave me any feedback - I appreciate that I went into a lot of detail, and that won't be changing, but if there's any way I can make it a better read, let me know! And definitely tell me if I missed anything!
Lots of Lush
Coralie
And so it begins...
So lately, I've been thinking I should start writing again - I find it soothing, which is always a good thing. And then I started wondering what to write about.
After a lot of deliberation, I decided to write about what I know, or at least what I think I know. This blog is the result of a 6 year love affair with all things Lush, plus the experience of 1 month (so far!) working there.
Here you will find information on products from a variety of sources - what's in them and why, how they work, how they came about, what I think of them, and maybe even what other people think of them. You could find out all of these things from the Lush Times, and the Lush website, and elsewhere - but here I will try to bring it all together. Hopefully, this blog will help people get a better understanding of the products and be a great training exercise for me in the process.
There will be no gossip about the shop - it's not cool, it's not nice and I just will not do it. Nor will there be any 'sneak peeks' or spoilers - if it hasn't been released, I will not talk about it. If you're looking for either of those things, you're in the wrong place. This is about the products and how they work, pure and simple.
To start with, I'll only write about things I've personally used - it's much easier. Eventually I might move on to things that I haven't used - things that don't suit my skin, primarily - from a mostly factual perspective. For example, I know how Dark Angels works, and I can chat about the ingredients all day, but I don't use it because it might trash my dry, slightly-rosacea-afflicted cheeks.
Anyway, enough intro-type stuff - to the products!
Lots of Lush,
Coralie
After a lot of deliberation, I decided to write about what I know, or at least what I think I know. This blog is the result of a 6 year love affair with all things Lush, plus the experience of 1 month (so far!) working there.
Here you will find information on products from a variety of sources - what's in them and why, how they work, how they came about, what I think of them, and maybe even what other people think of them. You could find out all of these things from the Lush Times, and the Lush website, and elsewhere - but here I will try to bring it all together. Hopefully, this blog will help people get a better understanding of the products and be a great training exercise for me in the process.
There will be no gossip about the shop - it's not cool, it's not nice and I just will not do it. Nor will there be any 'sneak peeks' or spoilers - if it hasn't been released, I will not talk about it. If you're looking for either of those things, you're in the wrong place. This is about the products and how they work, pure and simple.
To start with, I'll only write about things I've personally used - it's much easier. Eventually I might move on to things that I haven't used - things that don't suit my skin, primarily - from a mostly factual perspective. For example, I know how Dark Angels works, and I can chat about the ingredients all day, but I don't use it because it might trash my dry, slightly-rosacea-afflicted cheeks.
Anyway, enough intro-type stuff - to the products!
Lots of Lush,
Coralie
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