Top Five Lush Favourites

1.Eau Roma Toner Water 

I never really understood the point of toners. What is toning? Why is it something I need to do? I figured it was another bullshit marketing ploy. Boy was I wrong. Lush's toner waters are blended with essential oils; Eau Roma Toner is blended with lavender and rose oil. Rose - if you didn't already know - is great for reducing redness (which I have lots of... Thanks for the genes Ma & Pa!) and lavender is great for healing scars and balancing oil production. So it makes my skin feel lovely jubbly. Toners act as a moisturiser for the deeper layers of the skin, and help prepare new skin so it grows lovely and healthily. These are also wicked for the summer, simply to cool down your skin whilst adding lots of minerals and nutrients. Delicious!

2. Twilight Bath Bomb

I always thought I didn't like lavender that much. It reminds me of older ladies, and those scented bags you get to put inside your pillow. But the lavender in Twilight is blended with Tonka (comes from the same family as vanilla) which gives it this lovely sweet edge, and kind of reminds me of malted milk biscuits. Plus it's a beaut in the water, you can’t go wrong with a nice hot bath. 

3. HQ perfume

Simple. So I can smell like Lush all day long every day. This is a limited edition perfume that I got from the pop up perfume gallery in London last year which was AMAZING. Unfortunately there's no link to prove this one's existence as it's only available from the founding Lush shop in Poole.

4. Ultrabland/Herbalism

I've slightly cheated by putting these two together as they are indeed separate products… but I love them equally, and on a daily basis I rarely use one without the other. 

Herbalism doesn't smell great, if I’m honest. It smells medicinal which I think the rice vinegar and witch hazel have something to do with, but it works wonders on my skin. I tend to get a lot of spots on my chin so I need something to maintain healthy oil production and prevent breakouts. On the whole the rest of my skin is fairly dry, so i do use a really creamy moisturiser after this (Celestial if you’re interested.) Initially I had reservations about using Herbalism because I thought it was mainly for acne-prone oily skin. But I love how clean it makes my skin feel, and generally my skin is a lot clearer these days. Nice one Herbalism!

Ultrabland is a really simple concoction of beeswax and rose infusion amongst other lovely ingredients. I tend to use this one to take off my makeup at the end of the day, as I wear a heck of a lot of eye makeup and need something heavy duty to take it off. It feels quite oily, sort of like rubbing butter on your face, but if you take it off properly with hot water and cotton pads or a flannel it shouldn't make your skin greasy.

5. R&B Hair Moisturiser

I'm not going to lie, when I first saw this I had two reservations. One being the price tag, and the other being that I don't have afro-carribean hair. However I sampled it after how much everyone else raves about it, and I was rather impressed.

R&B smells absolutely delicious, and you only need a teeny tiny weeny little bit, so actually it isn't that expensive when you consider how long a whole pot will last - my sample lasted me weeks! Bear in mind it's also not a product you need to use every day. It helps with managing the amount of hair I have, and tame my curls when they escape. 

So what have I learned from my Lush fave's?  Try things even if you're not sure that they're made for you. I'd gotten so used to boxing myself in my different skin/hair types - because that's how lots of shops market their products, e.g. " This conditioner is for dry hair. This moisturiser is for sensitive skin." Try breaking away from those constrictions, as you might find something you really like. Also skin and hair constantly change with weather, hormones, diet, stress (the list goes on!) so it's difficult to pin yourself down to one particular type; I think that’s why we end up saying ‘combination skin’. But everyone is different, and don’t knock something until you’ve tried it!