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Lush Aqua Marina Cleanser {Product Review}

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Pink Mass wrapped in the sea weed
My second purchase from Lush and not much of a hope!!!
Price: 643 INR for 110 gms
Ingredients
full of amazing ingredients which is really a good thing – glycerin, calamine powder, Irish moss infusion, aloe vera, sea salt, nori seaweed, sweet orange, patchouli oil, carrageenan and perfume
My Experience
It looks peachy encircled in green and really gross green, actually, but since it is seaweed and Lush, you will forgive everything. So, you require a really less quantity of the cleanser – more like a peanut size. The direction is to make a paste with water and use as a regular cleanser but it is better to take the peanut size and rub it all over your wet face. It dissolves easily that way and many of the reviews suggest the same thing. You can feel the clay. It smells weird but likable once you get used to it so nothing to worry about. And, since it is so costly, I would like to get maximum out of it, so I massage it for 2-3 minutes over the face. It does cleanse the face really well. Does not leave any residue behind and leaves the skin soft. But, it can not even remove a simple kajal so it doesn’t remove make up at all.
I have been using this on and off since February and I have noticed that it used to dry my face during the colder temperatures where as it is just fine now a days. I have a combination skin which is towards dry side. So, keeping that in view, it wouldn’t suit people with dry skin (I don’t think it is meant for them) and people living in hilly regions. The climate there is too dry so you need something which can hydrate and moisturize your skin. I donno if I have a very strong reason but I can just say that it is fine but nothing great for me certainly nothing special after looking at the price I bought it for. Well, I get better results using besan which costs only pennies. Not that I am abusing Lush or something but my experience with both the products I have used till now (Caca Noir, this one and even Porridge Soap which I haven’t yet reviewed) has not been great. So, I think I’ll take a little break from Lush and revisit at a later point it for some masks and scrubs which is a better idea.
My Recommendation
Try it in the shop and wait for an hour or two and then decide for yourself if you want it or not. Try it on your face not hands. Don’t feel ashamed or anything. You are after all gonna pay a lot for it. You might end up liking it coz it did get rave reviews all over the blogosphere.

Lush Caca Noir {Product Review}

· · 7 Comments

This was my first purchase from Lush. And, I am little disappointed, not a good start at all. Actually, no, I am kind of confused with liking or not liking coz it gave fabulous results but missed on my most important expectation. I have been wanting to color my hair since quite a long time. Only I was too afraid of chemicals and didn’t wanna get my hair all damaged. Already its too thin and very prone to splits and dryness. And, I have never used henna on my hair. Mainly coz once my mom had used it and it had dried her hair completely and she ingrained in me the idea that henna is bad for hair. And, later I learned, the henna available in the market is chemically processed and is extremely bad for hair. So, I always stayed away from it. Very recently, while going through Lush website, I came across their Cacas which looked amazing to me.
Lush has four colors – Caca Brun for brown hair, Caca Maroon for chestnut hair, Caca Noir for black/blue hair and Caca Rouge for really flaming red hair. Now, I picked Caca Noir coz I really wanted blue glints in my hair. For me a combination of blue black hair looks celestial not crazy so I was very excited when I picked this up.
Price: 910 INR for a single block of 6 bars (yes, it is very expensive!!!)
Ingredients

Pure Persian henna mixed with Indian indigo for blue-black tints. It is an ancient Indian tradition to mix red henna with powder from the dried, fermented indigo root, to give dark hair deep blue glints. Indigo is not cheap, so there are some synthetic ‘black hennas’ around, but we want you to stay away from those! Lush Caca Noir is red henna with indigo powder, clove oil scent and Irish moss seaweed for softness. Cover it with Clingfilm and keep it damp for a redder colour, or let it air dry for a black/blue tint. Pick up any bits which fall on the floor or it’ll dye the rugs, too. – Lush Website

Lush believes in as less wastage as possible and tries to minimize packaging wherever and even wherever not. So, it has made the Cacas into solid bars using cocoa butter. In case of Noir, all the above-stated ingredients are mixed with cocoa butter and solidified. So, when you apply Lush Hennas, your hair wouldn’t go dry, you can be sure of that.
How to use it??
Using hennas is always messy, very very messy. So, first need is a pair of rubber gloves. They are easily available at a medical store. I bought mine – which were sterilized and powdered latex gloves size 8 which is way too big for my hands – from Apollo Pharmacy for 35 bucks. I don’t what they are powdered with but the instructions to remove the powder once the gloves were worn were written on the cover so I simply washed the gloves.They look something like this after ‘hennaing’ my hair once.
Now, how to use Lush Caca Noir. I took two blocks out of that bar coz my hair is thin and mid-shoulder length. For longer hair, you might need more blocks and a single bar is enough for short hair.
  • Grate the block using a cheese grater. It is soft so it will grate easily. Grating it does take quite a lot of time and patience.
  • After grating, add lukewarm water. Do not add hot water because heat breaks down indigo. Hot water can be added to other Cacas but not to Noir.
  • Make a gooey paste as henna pastes are.
It is ready to use. So, apply it to your hair as you apply henna. Cover with a shower cap for deeper glint or leave it to air dry for black/blue glints.
My Experience
It is definitely a messy process. Sitting with all that henna for four hours wasn’t at all easy for me. After that, removing the henna takes all your energy and messes up your bathroom like never before. So, be prepared to labor on. Using a shower makes it easier but then take care of the temperature.So, when you are done with removing all the mess from the hair, it is time for a hair wash. But, with henna, it is always said that a day should be given for henna to develop the color deeper that is why we don’t even wash the hands when we put the designs using henna. So, I prefer to just leave my hair like that. Following with oil is a great way to let henna settle deeper into the hair. But, mind you, cocoa butter is already pretty sticky so if you can’t stand the stickiness, you should wash the hair immediately.
So, what happens after washing the hair?? Ok, so there were no deep blue glints in my hair which I was so dying to get. So, a big disappointment there. But, then, I really checked my hair. And, voila, my hair was deep black (my hair is originally medium brown). A really beautiful black with all the shine and softness which I could never imagine. But, if you see the hair in sunlight, you can see beautiful brown highlights. I couldn’t keep my hands off my hair. The results were that awesome. But, there is a very BIG but there!!! The results (softness) lasts only till the next wash. And, the color lasts only a week or two. Then, the color starts fading. While the color fades, it doesn’t go really horrible or something, so you can rest on that account.
Lush says to apply henna three times consecutively day after day to make the color last longer. Well, who really has time for that. But, I did follow up on second application after two days coz I wanted to give it another shot to get the blue glints which I was originally aiming for. Alas, no results this time either. So, in case you are thinking that you can get blue color with Caca Noir, forget it. It does nothing of the sort. It dyes your hair jet black and that’s all there to it. So, the second time I dyed my haur, my hair was all black. All the beautiful brown highlights were gone. Though, the deep black definitely gave a dramatic contrast to my face (I am a golden wheat color not fair, though and black is my color). Again, the same amount of softness in the hair and no need for a conditioner. But, one should apply conditioner always, no matter how deep you have conditioned your hair already. But, then again, the color was gone quickly in two weeks probably.
Now, one thing I wanted to share with you all. The first time I applied the Caca Noir, I added five tables spoons of Apple Cider Vinegar for a single block. And, I did not wash my hair immediately after the application. Trust me, it was damn sticky and the scalp was all full of the henna which I couldn’t get out properly. So, my advise would be to wash it off. Second time I applied it, I didn’t add anything to the henna paste and washed it off immediately. Now, about the third time, I added an egg, a spoonful of amla powder and probably Apple Cider Vinegar too. Now, this time, when I had washed out the henna, I decided not to shampoo my hair immediately. And, when my hair was dry, I noticed that my hair was absolutely clean of the gunk which I had had to put up with the first time. My hair wasn’t at all sticky and oily but it was soft, clean, shiny and had a lift to it. So, I am assuming egg and amla powder acted as a cleanser too. In case you are wondering if my hair did get the color the third time, yes it did. I was also confused of it didn’t get colored but I saw that it was darker. So, obviously, it did bind with henna and the color did get seeped into the hair. So, this was all about my experience.
Oh, btw, I completely forgot to talk about packaging. Horrible. They just hand over the block in a plastic cover. Reducing the packaging wastage is good but when you are charging so much, you should really give something to help the customer keep the product safely. And, as you begin to use it, the cocoa butter seems to melt on contact with the skin and the block gets softer at the point where you hold it. So, it gives a difficult time while trying to hold the block.
My Recommendation
Ok, its actually difficult to say what I really think about this product coz I don’t have anything to compare it with. I never used any other henna so I am completely clueless about how my hair reacts with henna. I wouldn’t definitely mind trying the Caca Maroon coz I would like to see the chestnut colored hair. But, before I get that, I think I would go for Biotique Henna powder simply for the reason that its way too cheap and I had a good experience with the Biotique Musk Root hair pack.
Now, should you try it??? First thing is are you really sure of spending all that much on just 6 blocks of henna. I mean seriously 1000 bucks just on some henna mixed with cocoa butter really seems way too expensive. So, I would say its a luxury item. Go for it if you can afford but it is in no way a necessity.
Btw, don’t go for Caca Noir unless you are trying to cover up your grays coz you are not gonna enjoy bland black color. Go for maroon or brown. Again avoid rouge as it is for red heads and it wouldn’t really look good with dark color skins. So, choose wisely. As a plus point, even Lush people promote Caca Maroon more than other colors. So, I am guessing, its really good. Well, as I said, yes I will try it someday. Ok, another 1000 bucks down the drain 🙁

My experience with Body Shop and Lush

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To bring down the serious tone of my previous posts, I am sharing with you a hilarious tragedy which quite often happens with me. So, I hate The Body Shop (TBS) and Lush both. Well, I know there are ardent lovers of them among you all. But, seriously, have you ever been in their shop repeatedly and got so confused that every time you returned empty-handed???? I have been to TBS like may be 7-8 times since it opened here and always came out with out buying because there are so many amazing products which I wanna try but then I always end up getting confused and miser. Obviously, TBS is very heavy on the pockets.
So, this December, I went with my dad to make it easy on my pockets 🙂 And, again, the tragedy !! I came out empty handed 🙁 I wish now that I should have bought at least one product. I applied all the testers there and I ended up getting a greasy skin 🙂 You know I am so embarrassed now that I am always sitting and thinking what would I buy when I enter TBS next so that I end up buying something and not make a complete fool of myself. I guess I wanna start with Moroccan Rose or something range. It seemed most fascinating to me. So, hopefully, next time, I would be a proud owner of TBS products. I really wanna check out their body and facial oils. I read a review of some facial oil a few days back but the cost was whopping. Guess, how much??? Some 945 bucks for 15 ml. I mean come on???? They should at least give 50 ml in that money even if they are using the most exotic ingredients of the world !! One other thing I hate about TBS is their lack of sale offers. Most of the time I check that the sales are for members only and it seems that there is an extra 500 bucks for becoming a member though I really donno if you can redeem those 500 in your next visit or what. Would love it if you could explain about this thing. And, then, even on the New Year, they had just 2 day sale and I missed it and even the sale was bad – you had to buy 4 products to get a 20% discount !! I do not even consider it to be a sale frankly but yes, something is better than nothing. I have heard people saying they got products at 50% so would be keeping an eagle eye for that one but please it should be for everyone not only members.
Oh, so now its the turn of Lush. Frankly, I did not know about it. So, where it started? I went to Hypercity in Hyderabad for the first time soon after it opened and found a really amazing store with all kinds of colorful bath products and soaps and body butters. I did not check out the shop name at that time but loved the shop coz it smells so heavenly. You gotta go to experience it, seriously (if you have already not been there !!). I was very sure that I’ll buy something from there like shea butter or stuff. But, then it became a forgotten story coz I went to Hypercity some time later and could not find the store. May be it was closed or I did not check out on the right floor. I thought that it might not be selling enough so it closed down. I took to reading reviews of products very recently like 6 months back. So, I found Lush mentioned at very few places and the prices were even pricier than TBS. Consequently, I did not pay much attention to them. But, when I went to Hypercity, I checked out the name of the heavenly store I mentioned and then I knew that Lush was in Hyderabad too !! So, since then, I have been aching to lay my hands on Lush products. Please can any one inform me about the sales in Lush coz I never paid attention to it prior.
I wish I had an unlimited supply of money and I could spend it where ever I wanted. Anyway, my first love would be Marie Veronique in that case. Do not forget to inform me about the sales, please!! Guess what, even I became a sales freak now 🙂Also Read:
Lakme Vital Indulgence: Review
LashMantra Natural EyeLash Growth Serum: Review
24 Letter Mantra Products by Sresta Natural Bio Product Limited
Parachute Head Massager Review
Always have a bottle of calamine lotion
Get a bottle of Rogan Badam Shirin
Winter Skin Care Lotions
My tryst with Himalaya
Ponds Face Washes