Lush Halloween Haul - Bewitched Bubble Bar

Hello and welcome to the final instalment of my Lush Halloween haul! The other items purchased and reviewed in my haul have been three bath bombs; Bat Art, Monsters Ball and Punkin Pumpkin. Along with the Very very frightening shower gel and the Toffee Apple lip scrub. For today’s post I’ll be talking about the Bewitched bubble bar.

 

Whilst kind of similar to a bath bomb, the Lush bubble bars work slightly differently. I tend to cut the majority of my bubble bars up into halves or quarters, as they pack plenty of punch and I can get more use out of them than if I used the whole thing in one go. I did find that the bewitched bar was slightly smaller than my other bars, and I didn’t cut this one up. I’m not sure you’d get away with quartering this one but I think you could get away with cutting it in half, and still have a good level of potency.

 

            

So, what do Lush have to say about this Bubble Bar?

 

“This friendly feline will boost your luck with blackberry scented bubbles and plastic-free glitter. Perrrfect for packaging-free bathing.”

 

As I mentioned before, you use these slightly differently to a bath bomb. Rather than just chucking it in a full bath and watching it do its thing, this works far better if you crumble it into the bath while the water is running to allow it to dissolve and create lots of wonderful bubbles. If for whatever reason you don’t want to (or would struggle to) crumble it you can pop it on the bottom of the bath just below the tap and the rush of water will normally break most of it down.

 

The scent of this bubble bar is one of my favourites from the range along with the Very very Fighting shower gel. It is described as having a blackberry scent, which I absolutely agree with. I liked the smell so much in fact, I put off trying this one because I didn’t want to not have it in my little collection – I have of course now stocked myself up on a few!  

 

If you saw my review of Bat Art, you’ll have seen I was extremely put off by the amount of glitter contained within the bath bomb, to the point that I wouldn’t re-purchase it. The Bewitched Bubble bar on the other hand had just enough glitter to make it pretty and visually appealing, but not so much that it was over the top or off putting. I had beautiful glittery waters while at the same time, didn’t emerge with my skin saturated in glitter. As with many of the Lush bath products my skin felt soft and moisturised after I was finished with my bath.

 

With previous posts I’ve mentioned staining of the tub with Bat Art and Monsters Ball being the biggest culprits. I found that this bubble bar didn’t cause any staining at all, despite being very similar in colour to Bat Art, which was really pleasing. All in all I really enjoyed this bar, and have purchased a few more of them.

 

Have you tried anything from the Lush Halloween range? Be quick if you haven’t, they are only around for a few more days!

Lush Halloween Haul - Bat Art Bath Bomb

Hello and welcome to my thoughts on the final bath bomb I purchased from the Lush Halloween range! You may have already seen my various posts on the other items I tried; Monsters Ball and Punkin Pumpkin. The Very very frightening shower gel and the Toffee Apple lip scrub. Today’s post is about the last bath bomb I tried from the collection, the Bat Art bath bomb. Here’s what Lush have to say about it;

 

“Be spellbound by this bat bath bomb. Full of bath-art worthy surprises, deep glittery waters await with a fresh, herbal scent that lingers.”

 

There is no denying that this bath bomb was absolutely saturated in glitter, and then had even more glitter within. The glitter is plastic free and environmentally friendly, so if you love glitter but are conscious about what you are flushing down the drain this is something you’ll like.

 

Personally for me, I’m not really a massive fan of glitter, which is one of the reasons I put this one off until last to try. There is no denying it made for a beautiful looking bath with its deep purple shimmer, but I found glitter everywhere afterwards. It got in my wash cloth, all over my body and somehow a fair bit ended up on my face too. In fact I had so much glitter on my arms I was half tempted to hop in the shower afterwards to remove some of it from my skin before I started to spread it around the house and on my clothes. I didn’t in the end, but if like me you don’t love being covered in glitter you might want to steer clear of this one.

 

I did find I had slightly itchy eyes the morning after using this, which could have been nothing to do with this bath bomb at all, however, it is possible that I rubbed some of the glitter on my face into my eye area while I slept. So just in case I would recommend making sure your face and hands are clear of glitter after using this.

 

The scent of the bath bomb was hard for me to place. The Lush website describes it to contain rosemary and sage, with uplifting lemon and mandarin oil. I found the scent to be quite uplifting, but also quite sweet and relaxing as well.

 

This bath bomb performed wonderfully in the bath, turning the water a deep purple colour, and the glitter I mentioned before looked beautiful as well. As with most Lush bath bombs this one did make a difference to my skin, and it felt lovely and soft after my bath.

 

I mentioned in my review of Monsters Ball that I didn’t mind a little bit of staining around the tub – and I don’t – but I found that this stained the most out of all of the bath bombs I tried. My husband used the bath after me, so I expected much of the black staining around the edge of the tub to dissipate, but it didn’t. Running the shower head round the bath didn’t really make a difference, and even spraying it with bathroom cleaner and rinsing did very little to shift it. It did lift when I cleaned the bath properly, so it won’t stain forever, but you will need to put some effort into removing it by actually cleaning your bath.

 

Being the last of the Halloween bath bombs I tried, I really wanted to love this bath bomb, but I just.. didn’t. The scent and the way it made my skin feel afterwards were fantastic, but with the drawback of having to scrub the bath and having my skin and everything I touched covered in glitter, this particular bomb just didn’t do it for me. I loved much of the Halloween range, and will be repurchasing many items before they disappear at the end of the month, but this sadly isn’t one of them.

 

Have you tried anything from the Halloween range? What was your favourite?

We got Pumpkins! A trip to Algy's Farm Shop

Is it even October if you don’t spend an obscene amount of time obsessing over finding the perfect pumpkin? Not in my household. Last year my friends and I had a day out together at Algy’s Farm shop in Dereham on the hunt for the perfect pumpkins for the various creations we all had in mind. This year was no different, and last Saturday my friend Chloe and I made the journey across the Norfolk countryside to re-visit Algy’s.

Thankfully the sat nav took us a different way this year, and I was pleased to find myself navigating much larger country roads than when our friend drove last year. In fact I’m 99% sure whatever sat nav we used last year was just messing with us, taking us down teeny tiny winding roads that were only wide enough for one vehicle at a time.

 

When we pulled off the road and into the farm we found it to be much busier than when we went last year. There were a lot of children about so I had to be pretty cautious and drove slowly down the track towards the carpark. Although it seemed it was the adults that were oblivious to the car far more than the kids, with one woman standing in the middle of the road faffing on her phone, while her child had to point out the approaching car to her. At the point the kid has better road sense than their parent, you’ve really got to wonder..

 

Anyway, we made it onward to the carpark and despite it being fairly full quickly found a space to park. The carpark is free, so there’s no need to worry about scrabbling change together to pay. The wheel barrels were all stacked up next to the carpark with plenty of sanitiser on hand to clean them down.

 

When we trudged back over to the field we found a slightly different layout to last year. Previously the pumpkins were unmoved, and most were still connected to the main plant. Whilst this had meant a little more challenge getting some of them off the vine it did mean that the pumpkins were fresh and happily still growing away until the point that they were chosen.

 

This year was slightly different, with the pumpkins cut from the plant and moved into rows. Whilst this did mean that some of the pumpkins had started to age, it also helped keep everyone separate and spaced out. I made soup from the innards of my pumpkins last year, so hopefully the pumpkins I chose this time round haven’t gone off and I can do the same again this year. There were also a few bits and pieces around to keep kids entertained, and the younger ages very much seemed to be catered for.

 

As we were in the open air very few people were wearing masks, but everyone was so far apart from each other that it didn’t really matter. We stomped up and down the rows looking at the variety of pumpkins whist I searched out what I wanted – I can be a little picky and over specific when it comes to picking out my pumpkins, and did change my mind a few times while Chloe patiently pushed the wheel barrow for me.

 

Last year I made a floral arrangement with my pumpkin, which I want to do again this year, but I also want to do traditional pumpkin carvings as well this time, so I picked ended up with four pumpkins of different sizes, colours and shapes.

 

When we returned to the shop to pay for our pumpkins we found a similar set up as last year, with the addition of an option to pay outside. Pumpkins are priced according to their size, which is measured using a large board with various sized holes cut out. To save people going in and out of the shop there was a staff member with a mask stood by the board – although it did look like the farm shop was still open for people who wanted to purchase things other than pumpkins. He allowed us to measure our own pumpkins so that he could remain at a reasonable distance.   

 

Previously payment has been cash only, but we were pleased to see that there was an option to pay by card this time around, to further aid in social distancing. The pumpkins are very reasonably priced, with the smaller ones being as little as £1 so you’d have to purchase rather a lot of pumpkins before you move into the realms of not being able to pay contactless.

 

All in all it was a great day out in the fresh air and I would highly recommend a visit if you live in Norfolk.

 

Have you got your pumpkins yet?

* Some of the photos for todays post were kindly taken or provided by my friend Chloe - thank you Chloe!

Hallotober Tag!

There really is no better way to kick off the month of October than with a Halloween themed tag to get into the spooky spirit! This tag put together by the lovely Jordanne over at Life of a Glasgow Girl! So first and foremost

 I'd like to give a huge thanks to Jordanne for putting this tag together and for tagging me in it. You can find the original post put together by Jordanne here.

 

 

We'll get stuck into the tag in just a moment, but first, here are the rules;

 

Thank the person who tagged you and link to their post

Put the rules at the beginning

You can use the tag image somewhere in the post

Answer the 13 questions

Tag 13 people to do the tag

Delete Question 13, add a new number one question of your own

  

So now it's onto my answers for the Halloween tag! 

 

What's your favorite thing about October?

 

Everything. It’s the month that the leaves start to change, it starts to get cooler but not quite too cold. I can break out the cosy blankets with my fluffy bed socks and stock up on seasonally scented candles to make my home lovely and cosy. It’s also the month of Halloween, which brings with it a flood of horror films, spooky clothing and all kinds of seasonal treats.

 

Are you a big celebrator of Halloween?

 

Yes! Absolutely! It's my favorite event of the year. 

 

What's your favourite horror movie?

 

Oooo this is a hard one as I love horror as a genre on general… Nightmare before Christmas is one that I've watched every year since being a small child, so I suppose if any film is deserving of being branded my favorite it's probably that one. That being said, I seem to have taken to wanting to watch Coraline over and over of late too!

 

Would you rather a cosy night in watching horrors or a big night out in a costume?

 

That’s a tough one, because I have a lot of love for both. Given that I celebrate Halloween over a period of time and not just the day I’d say I prefer a big night out on the day or nearest weekend day, surrounded by many cosy nights in watching horrors!

 

Which has been your most favourite costume to date?

 

Purge, hands down. This was actually a bit of a last minute costume, and probably one of the easiest to put together and prep for, but I think it was the best one. I loved it so much I’d quite like to do it again in the future!

 

Bobbing for apples or pin the hat on the witch?

 

Bobbing for apples all the way! Although I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly good at it..

 

How do you celebrate Halloween?

 

I start off the month of October by getting a good stock of seasonal candles and pulling our warm blankets out of storage. This as much a preparation for Autumn as it is anything else. A little later in the month I'll start watching horror films, decorating the house and we'll normally have already planned costumes for Halloween a fair while in advance. On Halloween itself (or nearest weekend) we tend to hold a large Halloween party followed by a night out. Although this year I suppose things may look a little different.

 

What's your least favourite horror?

 

Again this is a hard one to pick so I'll go with the latest horror I watched that I didn't enjoy. I watched 'In the Long Grass' which is based on a Stephen King novel (so I assumed I'd like it) but I just didn't enjoy it. It was somewhat on in the background though, so maybe I need to give it another change and focus on it properly.  

 

Do you have a favourite trick or treating memory?

 

Ok, slight sob story incoming here.. we weren’t allowed to go trick or treating as kids. Not even once. One year when I was in college I did manage to do a kind of reverse trick or treating with some friends, where we decorated the whole house, including outside and played tricks on the kids who were out trick or treating, as we were too old to do the same.

 

My favourite memory was where we hid in the front garden, and one of the girls stood really still right in the centre wearing a grim reaper hood and costume with her head down. One of the teenagers out trick or treating assumed she was a statue, came into the garden and said “it looks so real” as he poked the ‘statue’. My friend then lifted her head and asked “what looks real?” and the teen screamed and sprinted back out the gate, much to the enjoyment of his friends and the rest of us.

 

What's your favourite thing about Halloween?

 

The wonderful atmosphere it brings with it, not just for the day but for the whole month of October.

 

Scary costume or Silly costume?

 

Scary costume all the way!

 

What's your favourite Halloween candy?

 

I absolutely adore candy apples / toffee apples! During October I will always grab a few whenever I’m doing our food shop so I have a good stash of them. I really should learn how to do them myself so I don’t have to rely on them being available in shops..

 

Ghost decorations or skeleton decorations? 

 

Hmmm... I think we have far more skeleton decorations than we do ghost decorations. Although the majority of our decoration last time we hosted  Halloween was switching out for red light bulbs and putting cobwebs everywhere. 

 

 

Here's my questions; 

1. Which Halloween was your favourite?

2. What's your favourite thing about October?

3. Are you a big celebrator of Halloween?

4. What's your favourite horror movie?

5. Would you rather a cosy night in watching horrors or a big night out in a costume?

6. Which has been your most favourite costume to date?

7. Bobbing for apples or pin the hat on the witch?

8. How do you celebrate Halloween?

9. What's your least favourite horror?

10. Do you have a favourite trick or treating memory?

11. What's your favourite thing about Halloween?

12. Scary costume or Silly costume?

13. What's your favourite Halloween candy?

 I tag;

 @LoveEm_Blog over at Love, Em

@kvburton657 over at Life with Ktkinnes 

@MrsSleeJones over at Mrs Slee Jones

@BristolianGamer over at Bristolian Gamer

@Bournemouthgirl over at Bournemouthgirl

@Kabukirune over at Kabuki Rune 

@estherwyse over at Esther Wyse

@ChatterboxChloe over at Lifethroughmydarkbrowneyes

@Alicepluteanu over at Sprinkle of Beauty 

@HelloLizzieBee over at Hello Lizzie Bee

                                       

Lush Halloween Haul - Shower gel & lip scrub

Hello and welcome back to the next post for my Halloween haul! You may have already seen my two previous posts, so for this post, I’ll be talking about other items from the Halloween range.

As you may know, the items I narrowed my purchase down to in the end were three bath bombs; Bat Art, Monsters Ball and Punkin Pumpkin. The Bewitched bubble bar, along with the Very very frightening shower gel and the Toffee Apple lip scrub. For today’s post I’ve decided to combine the Shower gel and the lip scrub, simply because they aren’t as fun as the bath bombs, but also because I don’t feel I can dedicate an entire post to these items separately.  

 

First of all I’m going to go into the Very very frighting shower Gel, so here is what Lush had to say about it;

“Embrace your sweet side with this bold, uplifting shower gel. Containing fresh lemon and fig juice, it is palm oil and SLS free, plus it's vegan!”

Now, there has been some debate within our household as to what this actually smells like. To me it smells sweet, and very much like lemon sherbet sweets, and I absolutely love it! My husband on the other hand didn’t think it smelled of lemon sweets at all and instead thought it smelled like Jägermeister, which he really disliked. When my friend came over to pick up her purchases we gave it to her and she agreed that it smelled of some kind of alcohol, although not Jägermeister. Based on three different points of view for a single bottle, I would therefore recommend it a good idea that you go to a store to see if you like it before buying, or at the very least buy a smaller bottle first.

Despite its rather bright and vibrant appearance when you look at it in the bottle, it somehow manages to get even brighter when you pour it out. The gel has a very runny, liquid texture and lathers up really well, with a lovely strong scent when you use it. It leaves my skin feeling soft and seems to be keeping the dryness I normally suffer on my upper arms as the weather gets cold at bay too.

Given that it’s limited edition for this time of year I’ll be repurchasing and stocking up on this item as its fast become my favorite shower gel!

So next up, let’s talk about the Toffee Apple Lip Scrub ! Here’s what Lush say about it over on their website.

 “Ghoulishly gorgeous green apple and blood red sticky toffee, offers the sweetest pout around.”

When I first smelled this lip scrub the toffee scent was what hit me first, whereas I couldn’t really pick up much on the green apple. At a guess there is one scent in the green and the other scent in the red scrubs, but given I had a lot of green towards the top of my pot and red towards the bottom, I expected apple to be the overriding scent of the two. That being said, when I tasted the scrub I found the apple to be the slightly stronger flavour of the two, but still with the sweetness you would expect from the toffee. Needless to say it tastes amazing.

 

The scrub itself functions in much the same way as any of the other Lush lip scrubs, and is a product I become more and more reliant on as we move into the winter as the colder weather and my lips start to dry out.

The one drawback I’ve found when it comes to using this scrub, vs my other scrubs is the staining. I’ve found that I get a small amount of green staining on my finger and a little on my lips as well when I use this. I haven’t gone far enough through the green to get to the red yet, so I can’t confirm if the same can be said for the red. It does instantly come off when you clean your lips and hands in water, which I do anyway to remove the excess sugar, but it is worth noting.

 

Will I repurchase the lip scrub? Probably not. Not because I don’t like it (because I do) but simply because it isn’t my favorite out of the vast range of lip scrubs Lush have to offer, and if isn’t a product I need loads of multiples of.

 

Have you tried anything from the Lush Halloween range? What was your favorite?

Lush Halloween Haul - Punkin' Pumpkin Bath Bomb

You probably all know by now that I’m a rather large fan of bath bombs, in particular those produced by Lush. They just never fail to perform, actually seem to make a difference to my skin and within their varied range there will always be something for everyone.

                                      

When the Halloween range launched I promptly purchased a selection from the range. I ended up with 6 items from the Halloween range for myself, but because a friend and I combined our orders in order to qualify for free postage I did end up with one of every bath product other than the glow in the dark ghost soap land on my doorstep, so could have a little snoop through the items I hadn’t brought for myself before my friend arrived to collect them.

The items I narrowed my purchase down to in the end were three bath bombs; Bat Art, Monsters Ball and Punkin Pumpkin. The Bewitched bubble bar, along with the Very very frightening shower gel and the Toffee Apple lip scrub. You may have previously seen my thoughts on the Monsters Ball bath bomb and today I’ll be talking about the Punkin Pumpkin bomb. So, what do Lush have to say about this one?

 

“Watch this Halloween favourite glide round the surface, releasing bright, mood enhancing citrus oils as it goes. “

Of the whole Halloween collection, I think this is probably the most recognised and known about bomb, being in the image of a classic carved pumpkin. The scent is described to be of citrus, but to be honest I couldn’t really pick up on that. I would describe it as a spicy, autumnal scent that isn’t particularly overpowering and more subtle. I tend to go for quite sweet smelling scents so this isn’t what I would typically pick out, but I did still like it.

                                          

It was slower to dissolve in the tub than Monsters Ball, and rather than rapidly spinning it glides over the surface of the water spewing out bright orange and yellow into the water. If you place it into the water fairly gently you’ll see that the eyes and mouth break down faster than the pumpkin itself, and release a yellow froth, completing the Halloween vibes. Once settled this will leave your water a lovely orange colour. For some reason, I was concerned that it would stain my skin once I was in the tub. I’m not sure why, as I’ve never had a Lush product leave staining on my skin, but something about the colour made me concerned. I need not have been, and confirm that I had zero staining to my skin, which felt soft and soothed instead.

 

Once in the water the scent of this bomb doesn’t really change much, however the aroma really isn’t very strong. I like my bath to be quite full, and I feel like this bomb would have retained better concentration had I used less water, but it had the exact same amount of water I used for Monsters Ball, which had retained a strong smell. It’s safe to say it still isn’t the strongest smelling item from the range if you smell it before putting in the water, so it didn’t come as a great surprise really.

There was a positive with this bomb compared to Monsters Ball however, and that is that there was absolutely no staining on the bath. It didn’t even require a rinse with the shower head. As I mentioned in my last post this isn’t really a deal breaker for me, but I know it may well be for someone else. I totally get that you wouldn’t want to need to clean your bathroom after having a soak to relax, and you can rest assured you won’t need to with this particular bath bomb.

                                           

If you haven’t already guessed, this is my second favourite of the two bombs I have tried so far, and it’s probably not one I would rush to stock up on compared to other items in the range. Just because it wasn’t my favourite doesn’t mean I didn’t like it however, and I would suggest this as a good bath bomb for someone who doesn’t like the idea of a strong smelling bath.

Have you tried anything from the Halloween range? Which item is your favourite?