Twilight Bubbles: A Mini Lush Review

In yesterday’s bath-themed post I called this Twilight bath bomb from Lush Cosmetics the best one I’ve tried yet, a statement I continue to stand by today.  Twenty-four hours later my skin remains super soft and smooth, to say nothing of the herbal lavender scent that continues to sweetly perfume the air.  A lovely bath time treat. And an adorable one as well!  How cute is this little star-embossed guy?  Can’t go wrong with glittery pink galaxies.

Inside, the Twilight bath bomb is a beautiful mess of turquoise and purple, the overall bath art effect mimicking the sky at sundown.  So pretty, and I can’t deny how much fun it is to swirl the dissolving bomb around, creating all sorts of fun shapes and colours, like a fabulous, beauty-oriented bath toy.

Bonus: Twilight is not as highly pigmented as some of Lush’s other bath bombs.  This doesn’t diminish the effect in the least – I love the cotton candy-hued bubbles – but it DOES mean that Twilight won’t (temporarily) dye your tub (or skin) neon turquoise, a nice touch indeed.

The MOST fun to be had with a bath bomb, though – and particularly this one, with its ultra fluffy candy floss hues – is to smush the nearly-dissolved bomb in your hand once it’s cracked open.  It sounds odd, but it’s a particularly delightful sensation, and a bit of a naughty one at that – hastening a bath bomb’s demise seems like something you shouldn’t do, right, given its already pretty limited lifespan?  Nope, just me?  Alrighty then.

The Twilight bath bomb is part of Lush’s regular assortment of bath time goodies – no limited edition nonsense here.  Retailing for $6.55, it’s at the lower end of the bath bomb price scale, another nice touch, as $12 bombs aren’t always in the offering.  Lush, of course, has online and physical outposts all over the world, although I purchased mine here in Canada through Lush.ca.  Happy soaking!

Herbal Refreshment

Not that kind of herbal refreshment (although I can’t even type the phrase without hearing Brittany Murphy’s Tai, of Clueless, New Yawk-drawling, “I could really use some sorta ‘erbal refreshment” to her new pals Cher and Dionne.)  I’m talking about the beauty variety, like the loaded-with-lavender bath I recently enjoyed. Lavender is one of those fragrances most commonly associated with relaxation; you’ll find it in all sorts of naturopathic sleep aids like teas and eye masks and bubble baths.  Its buds also taste pretty darn terrific baked into ultra buttery shortbread, believe it or not (and rendered down with simple syrup and added to lemonade as well.)

But that’s dried lavender (and in the case of the shortbread and the lemonade, cooking lavender – that’s very important!) which to me always errs towards the powdery – granny’s unmentionables drawer.  My preferred lavender is fresh and green and uplifting; very much an herbal refreshment.

I used a bunch of fun products for this lushly lavender bath, including a couple of items from Lush itself, a Twilight bath bomb and a bit of a French Kiss bubble bar.  A third of this lavender-sprinkled bubble bar tinged my bathwater the loveliest shade of plummy purple and produced an absolute mountain of fluffy, super moisturizing bubbles.  Plus it’s as cute as a wee little button!

Entertainment and additional moisturization was provided by a Twilight bath bomb, a lavender-scented bath ballistic embossed with tiny stars.  I’ll have a bit more to say – and show – on the subject tomorrow when I take a closer look at the Twilight bath bomb (including some pretty cool bath art) but this little guy is stupendous; the best Lush bath bomb I’ve used to date.  You can’t ask for much more than a sweet scent, a super cool – and long-lasting – effect and tons of skin softening goodness.

And if you’ve ever wondered what the inside of one of these things looks like…well, kind of like that egg husk that Hopper touches in The Upside Down in Stranger Things.  But turquoise!

And because I scoff in the face of overkill, I melted a wax tart from Ten Digit Creations in one of my favourite scents, Lavender Poundcake, a fresh, herbal lavender kissed with the very barest hint of buttery bakery, and gave myself a wee spritz with my Demeter Lavender cologne.  Overkill?  I say no-verkill!  And the perfect finishing touch to a really nice bath that did exactly what baths are supposed to do – leave you feeling refreshed and relaxed and smelling pretty darn awesome.

Lovely Lavender

It is an absolutely bee-youtiful day in the neighbourhood, complete with sunny skies, melting snow, birds a-tweeting and, to my never-ending delight, a neighbour out walking her two fat cats on the path that runs alongside my building.  And I don’t know about you, but I think beautiful days call for beautiful nails, especially ones that evoke all things warm and springy.

Here we have another manicure inspired by a Demeter perfume, this time the sweet and simple fragrance of herbal lavender.  I think perhaps the background polish I chose for these nails, A England’s Wuthering Heights, is a tad too dark to really let the delicate little lavender blossoms shine – these nails ultimately remind me of a pair of flannel pyjamas I used to own!  Still fitting, though, given the whole lavender-sleep connection.

Lavenderly Lovely: A Then and Now Post

Last year, for the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge, the ladies of N.A.I.L. set lavender as one of the daily themes. Lavender is indeed lovely (gourmand lavender scents, like lavender pound cake, are some of my favourites) so I can’t blame them for coming at it again, this time as week four’s theme in May’s nearly-finished Nail Art Challenge. This is especially great news for me, because it gives me a chance to redo the lavender nails I submitted last time, which were awful. No, really (see below.) I even remember thinking at the time that I had whiffed it, and I could have done so much better.

So I did! This time with the help of some of my holographic friends, including three Enchanted polishes (deep eggplant February 2015, dusky purple Dream On and pale lilac Time to Pretend.) As nail artists and nail polish aficionados, I think we sometimes hoard our holographic polishes for special occasion manis, but with their built-in shading and highlighting, they’re perfect for detail work, like these tiny lavender buds. Ahhh, MUCH better.