Lush products are awful dot com

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who doesn't want to french Lush Cosmetics. A perfunctory search of ye olde internette, however, informs me that I am far from alone in my disregard for them. Don't you just love it when that happens? Nothing like a good hate read. Anyway, the number of Lush fanatics out there is scary - FYI apparently they call themselves "Lushies" which sounds so Jessi Slaughter it's hilar. Such is their wild-eyed devotion to bath bombs, I hear they go absolutely nuts if anyone dares say a bad word about their precious Lush, like some kind of Belieber/animal rights activist hybrids. Put your balls on chill, bitches, because it's 'bout to get real ugly up in this post. Mais oui, blogs abound with sycophantic "reviews" of enorm caskets hampers of those stinky Lush things and YouTube gurus - now there's a stupid word - positively rave about them. It's all lost on me, I'm afraid, so shove the sales patter up your arses. Been there, don't it, got the face rash.

Lushies, take a rasping, shallow breath, because you're going to h8 me. I HATE Lush products. They stink. They look like a 5-year-old made them in their sandpit. I would rather douse myself in industrial cleaning fluid than ever use one again - I'd probably have less of a reaction. I first heard of Lush yonks ago when I got a box of their bath things as a Christmas present. You know the kind - the ones that look like Play-doh. ALL OF THEM, in other words. Lurid colours, idiotic names and sweet, icky smells were very much the order of the day. I discreetly shut the box tight and put it to one side until I felt strong enough to actually throw one in my bath. Well, reader, much like your last boyf they fizzed very briefly and left me with nothing at all other than perhaps a lingering sense of shame. At £5 a pop. Blow me. Doesn't sound like much of a business model but it works for them - Mark Constantine, the twatty, gypsy-loving head honcho, is said to be worth a couple of hundred mill. Cushti job. I continued to use the bath things very infrequently and each time was left with slight patches of eczema in delicate places, as I am prone to after using something very harsh in the bath. Yes, Lushies, very harsh. My mum found exactly the same thing and she can use way more things than I can without getting a reaction. Because here's the thing: the whole "we're so pure and natural" vibe is rendered totally erroneous when you look at the ingredients. Parabens, perfume, sulphate. Very sheety, non? 

The thing that really turned me against them, though, was this pretend newspaper thing, the Lush Times, that I still get sent a couple of times a year. It's really annoying and God do I know annoying. It's got 5000 of the rubbish plasticine bath things presented by non-gender specific emplyees and a mahoosive selection of other skincare products. As in things you put on your face. I should have known but in my younger naive days I was extremely susceptible to a bit of the old sales patter - AKA lies. "This will cure my acne? This will stop my hair being greasy? £5 postage on top? Yes please, mister!" I trilled as I sent away my order form. Oh dear. I think the first one I tried was the Aqua Marina one. £6, thank you very much - chalk it up. I believed with all my little heart that it would make the acne go away but lawd. I've never had a reaction like that, even from Benzoyl Peroxide 5 twice daily. Do the words bumpy, itchy, cystic mess bring the image to life? No? Try Elephant woMan. Oh-em-gee. It drove me mad, because I so wanted it to work but after only two days I was forced to give up. What the heck do they put in there, itching powder? Not that it put my zeal to bed. After reading the amazing claims about the Fresh Farmacy cleanser in the Lush Times - God, that sounds douchey - I happily ordered away and tried again with that. Ping! £5 p+p not inc. Same reaction. Acne worse. Really quite farcical. Too angry for verbs. I think my little brain realised for sure at that time that Lush products were decidedly no bueno but that didn't stop someone buying me a new batch of them the next Xmas - relatives, eh? Can't keep 'em down. These included the Mask of Magnaminty which absolutely promised to get rid of that darned acne but by now a pattern and formed and my DNA simply refused to accept any contact with Lush. LOL. This disgusting gritty paste is like something your dad would use to pebble dash the house - I mean really, what is it? Colgate and gravel? It has the most awful synthetic fragrance and is pretty much no good for anything - least of all acne. I went on to try a solid shampoo - "Mummy! Mummy! I feel dirty" - and a "revolutionary" solid deoderant. A smelly time was had by all. Overall my point is that Lush products are very expensive and not up to scratch. The packaging, which like the rest of this harebrained brand they clearly believe to be highly subversive, is a disgrace. That's the truth but unfortunately a lot of people are blinded by the eco tactics. 

The best thing about Lush is that they test on willing human specimens rather than rubbing their stuff in some poor bunny's eye, but apparently some animal testing stunt they pulled last year was so sick it made all this feel a bit hollow. I think I might also have read that they are a little bit sparse with the truth because they do test individual ingredients on animals. Or maybe that was The Body Shop? Can't remember, sorry. Put down your hatchets, Lushies.

As a side note, it always amuses me to think of conversations being brought to a very unhappy end when people say: 

-OMG I love your perfume! What is it?
-Gorilla...by Lush

I know they're hippies but now they're just being SILLY.