Product Review: Lush’s Crème Anglaise and The Mask of Magnaminty

I'm soooooo sore from the gym. Miss M is sleeping over tonight, and berating me for not posting on my blog for 5 WHOLE DAYS.

I'm sorry for not posting, my loves.  Life is still pretty depressing for poor, single me, but things are looking up. 

I got asked on a date whilst working up a sweat at the gym today!  -insert applause here-  I’m totally gonna go, but I don’t think I want to exclusively date again for a loooong while, because I’m just not emotionally ready yet. (.__.);

Enough about my life, and onwards to what you’ve been waiting for:  the review! (^o^)/

First, a bit about the company for those who have absolutely NO IDEA what Lush is.

According to their website, the actual company started in 1977, and underwent name and ownership changes until it actually became Lush in 1995. 

They also have this cute little section on the website where it describes the company’s ‘beliefs’.  It is really refreshing, and straightforward in theory. 

They use fresh fruits and veggies, don’t test on animals, put their faces on their products, believe in massages and want to fill the world with perfume.  Perfume.  It’s all there, I kid you not. 

So lemme tell you how I discovered it in the first place... 

Mmkay.  I’d never heard of the company before, so when I stumbled across it in the Garden State Mall, I was d-e-l-i-g-h-t-e-d.  Simply gleeful.  Walking into Lush was like walking into Bath and Body Works on crack.

My nostrils were greeted with a fragrant, earthy smell as I walked into the shop.  T'was nice.

I was greeted by a blonde, enthusiastic guy (we’ll call him ‘W’) and promptly ushered to a table where wheel of what looked like cheese were stacked.  W gleefully explained to me that the ‘cheese wheels’ were actually soaps, and that I was free to smell all of them if I wished.

 

Oh, I wished. 

There were blocks of soap that were purple, pink, green, even honeycomb colored (which turned out to be my favorite one, heheh).  

I smelled them all. 

They had soaps, and powdered soaps, and soaps that were jiggly like jello… they had soaps for DAYS.

They had such a wide variety of body products, all with whimsical little signs next to them, displaying their names.  

I felt like Alice in Wonderland, because they were all so curious, and I felt like they were missing the ‘eat me’ tag. 

After making my selections (and receiving an AMAZING hand massage), I went to the register to pay and noticed little black pots in a tiny fridge behind the counter.   

When I asked the register girl what they were, she kindly informed me that they were freshly made face masks, and asked if I would like a sample.

Um, YES please?  

Overall, my in-store experience was phenomenal and I was so happy, I went back a couple of months later and bought some more stuff. 

Which brings us to review number one.

Crème Anglaise is described on the site as a “luxurious English cream”.

“Creme Anglaise is made with some of the finest ingredients available. We've used toning sweet orange oil and moisturizing natural butters blended into an almond infusion. An infusion of saffron, the world's most expensive spice, gives it the authentically golden colour of real Creme Anglaise.”

Well described, Lush, but does this $45 body cream live up to it’s description?

It’s an ivory color, thin and lotiony in texture.  You get 7.9 ounces in the jar. 

Ingredients:  Sweet Almond Infusion (Prunus dulcis), Saffron Infusion (Crocus sativus), Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (Cocos nucifera), Fair Trade Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Fair Trade Shea Butter (Butyrospermum parkii), Glycerine, Stearic Acid, Almond Oil (Prunus dulcis), Vanilla Absolute (Vanilla planifolia), Myrrh Resinoid (Commiphora myrrha), Sweet Orange Oil (Citrus sinensis), Triethanolamine, Perfume, Cetearyl Alcohol, Benzyl Salicylate, Coumarin, *Eugenol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Methylparaben, Propylparaben  *occurs naturally in essential oils

Pros: 

•  Well, the texture certainly is luxurious.  It feels like light, whipped silk going on your skin. 
• The fact that it contains saffron, an ingredient rarer than gold in certain parts of the world is pretty cool.  And it’s second on the ingredient list.  So it’s not an overhyped claim.  It’s really in there.
• Does a decent job moisturizing.  My hands and body are definitely softer putting this on.

Cons:

• The scent.  It smells like a vanilla and baby powder crossbreed.  Oh Lush, why do you make things that smell either really strange, or ridiculously amazing?  If only everything you made smelled like ‘It’s raining men’.  Le sigh.
•  It doesn’t moisturize me for long.  For almost fifty bucks, I want something that at least gets rid of the dreaded scaly winter leg.  It doesn’t.
•  You have to wait for it to sink in.  I know you have some heavy-duty oils and butters in there (yeah you, cocoa butter) again, waiting forever for the lotion to sink in sucks.
•  Did I mention I really dislike the scent? 

Conclusion:  

Well, there it is, my loves.  

You just have to decide for yourself whether the decent moisturization, awesome ingredients, and the grandmother-inspired scent is worth its $45 price tag. 

However, just based on smell alone, I unfortunately won’t be repurchasing this.  Sorry, but I’ve smelled some of their other stuff, which to me, is what I’d rather smell like. 

* * *

Moving right along to the other product review. 

The Mask of Magnaminty is one of the only facemasks lush creates that doesn’t require refrigeration. 

According to the site, the mask is described as a:

“Seriously minty body mask.  Mask of Magnaminty was worked on for years before it was settled on. Our inventors have been almost obsessive in their quest to invent the ultimate facemask. The formulation had to be just right in MoM to ensure that it was intense, but not harsh.” 

It contains ground aduki beans, bentonite gel and china clay. The aduki beans apparently exfoliate your skin, while the clay and gel pull dirt of out your pores.  This stunning combination of ingredients is supposed to leave you with brighter skin and feeling super refreshed. 

It retails for 23 bucks, and you get a whopping 11.1 oz of product. 

The texture of the mask is quite odd. The best way to describe it is lumpy, I guess.  You really have to work it over your skin to get it on evenly, and it seems to works best on damp skin.  The aduki beans also make the texture even lumpier. 

Ingredients:  Bentonite Gel, Kaolin, Honey (Mel), Talc, Ground Aduki Beans (Phaseolus), Glycerine, Evening Primrose Seeds (Oenothera biennis), Peppermint Oil (Mentha piperita), African Marigold Oil (Tagetes erecta), Vanilla Absolute (Vanilla planifolia), Limonene, Perfume, Chlorophyll, Methylparaben.  

Pros: 

• The scent.  It’s refreshing, cool, and truly smells like mint.  Like… spearmint sort of.  I like it.
• The effect.  My skin feels nice and clean when I rinse it off.  The aduki beans, although annoying in application, definitely do their job exfoliating when you’re washing this mask off.  Just make sure you wash off in circular motions. 
•  It’s really refreshing.  It tingles oh-so-nicely while it’s on your skin.  It’s a really nice pick me up, especially if you were to store it in the fridge on a hot day, and apply it as a cooling mask. 
• It lasts a while.  Like 3-4 months.  You don’t have to worry about refrigerating it, although it would probably keep longer.  
•  It’s annoying, but fun to apply.  It's always an adventure, getting this on your face.  You have even more fun when you’re doing it with your friends.

Cons:

•        The texture is a bit odd.  You really have to work it to get it to sort of stick to your face.
•        The price is a bit steep for a face mask.

Conclusion:  

Overall, this facemask is definitely a good one.  I would repurchase this because I like the way it makes my skin feel, and it’s got great ingredients.

If you can't afford the $22 price tag, then an excellent cheaper alternative would be Queen Helen’s Mint Julep Mask, which has excellent reviews all over the net, is available at pretty much every drug/beauty store, and is muuuuch cheaper than the MoM.  

Just google it.  I have both maks, and they’re great.

However, if you want a luxurious mask with all-natural ingredients, and an authentic spearmint scent, then by all means get your butt over to Lush and GET this bad boy.

Did I also mention that if you return 5 of the black pots they sell their stuff in, you can get a free fresh face mask?

Yeah, I love Lush. 

Peace, love and luxuriousness,

~Chas

edit:  please ignore the weird highlight on the post.  blogger is freaking out and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it. (T_T)