Happy New Year and Lush, Lush, Lush!

Firstly, I know it's a bit late but I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, and to thank you for reading my musings over the past year and leaving your lovely comments. I really appreciate each and every one of you! I hope that 2010 is a happy and healthy year for you all and that all of your hopes and wishes are realised xx

I have been incredibly lazy in keeping up with my blog lately, but now that the madness of Christmas and New Year is over I'm looking forward to posting regularly (well, more than I did last year!) and keeping up to date with all of my favourite bloggers...

So to start my 2010 blog I wanted to write a Lush post. I know that there are hundreds of Lush posts doing the rounds at the moment, but to be honest I love reading them almost as much as I love Lush products so one more won't hurt ;)

I was a late-starter when it came to Lush and really only started to get into the products last year after receiving some bits and bobs as stocking fillers for Christmas '08.

With Lush, I do tend to stick to the same few tried and tested products - the main reason being that I find Lush products to be pretty darn expensive for what they are, so I don't want to risk spending lots of money on things only to find that they're not compatible with my sensitive skin... my local branch has been less than enthusiastic in the past with giving samples when I've only brought a couple of items, and being quite shy it's made me not want to ask again!

I was soo happy to find three of my staples in my stocking on Christmas morning (thanks Mum!):

(L-R): Rockstar soap, Snow Fairy 100g, Creamy Candy Bubble Bar

As you probably guessed, I love, love, love Lush's sweet candy scented products!

I first received Snow Fairy as a gift for Christmas 2008 and I fell in love with it. Not being that into Lush prior to that, I didn't know that Snow Fairy was Limited Edition and I was gutted to discover that it had sold out when I looked to stock up a few weeks after Christmas.

This time around I made sure that I had some stockpiles!! I knew that Lush would start a decent sale on Boxing Day (this year it's "Free Stuff Aplenty When You Spend Twenty") so I'd already made my mind up to take advantage of it... and especially the freebie gift sets that I'd heard so much about!

Unfortunately I couldn't get to my local branch after Christmas as there was snow on the ground, and me walking on snow and ice is akin to Bambi attempting the same... think flailing limbs and feet sliding all over the place and you get the picture!!

So obviously I did the next best thing and ordered online. The deal was "Spend £30, get £10 worth of product free" or "Spend £50, get £30 worth of product free". As much as I wanted to spend £50, the old bank balance was looking a little sorry for itself after Christmas, so I spent just over £30 on this:

 Snow Fairy solid perfume is missing as it was in my handbag!

Please note: these are the prices that I paid at the end of December 09. I made a quick check on Lush earlier today and some of the prices have now increased :(

(Being Limited Edition, the Snow Fairy and Candy Cane items are no longer available)

Honey I Washed The Kids soap - and it came with the "honeycomb" topping...

Even though it had broken off :(

And I got this free:

                           

(The rrp prices are based on Lush's website on 09/01/10. In the case of Snowcake (which is now unavailable online due to being a Christmas Limited Edition), the price came from various youtube haul videos)

As you can see, the contents of this freebie box is worth £19.07... well over the £10 worth of goods that they promised!!

I wasn't sure what to expect from the free gift offer but I have to say I'm so so pleased with these. I'd had my eye on Porridge soap and Honey Bee for ages, and I couldn't believe my luck when I saw Snowcake and Angel's Delight as they are both Limited Edition Christmas goodies. I think that the star shaped Angel's Delight is usually found in a gift box, as the regular shop bought soap looks like this:

Image from Lush

I wouldn't normally have chosen ballistics myself as friends have said that some have stained their baths, but you really can't complain about Lush freebies and I'm really looking forward to trying everything! My sister received Avobath as one of her Lush stocking fillers and it smells amazing... I love refreshing lime scents.

This sounds really blonde but I initially thought that Big Blue was faulty as it had all of these sharp black plasticy things poking out - I thought it was a broken mould or something and was getting ready to do some serious complaining - then I looked on the website and saw that they were pieces of seaweed!!! Haha!

I'll post some reviews once I've had a chance to test everything... if I can drag myself out of the bath that is!

xx