Lush Spa + Treatment

Hey guys!

One of the highlights of my work during 2016 was being able to partner with Lush, who invited me to their headquarters in Poole. Lush is one of my favourite brands and during the time in which I was undergoing treatment for acne, I was prescribed Isotretinoin or Accutane, which is a vitamin A derivative that essentially blasts your skin from the inside out. Is it effective? Yes. Are the side effects awful? Without question. You wake up with nose bleeds, your eyes reject lenses due to dryness, your mood changes and you are constantly in pain, whether backaches or complete exhaustion. Lush is such a natural approach to skincare that you can mix in some of their moisturizers without much fear of being too invasive and doing more damage than good. Some of the products I like are the Dark Angels scrub which I mixed with honey as a mask and the Celestial moisturizer.

We took the train to Poole and I was able to meet some of the staff from the PR for the first time, they were all really lovely. Lush has really quite an unusual approach to making makeup and cosmetic products because it is completely different from the way I was taught to create cosmetics in a lab. You don’t really work with a holistic approach as a lab technician - when you describe using essential oils you’re talking more so about the chains than the properties you’d associate with the plant. Yes, they are connected, but the approach is another level different. Lush has a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory approach which I had never encountered before.

I was met with vast warehouses full of workers that were busily rolling, pouring and mixing all the products from the complete raw ingredients. When they say they have garlic in the face mask, they literally throw in garlic in a refurbished industrial cookie mixer. It was totally bonkers but really refreshing from someone who grew up with my nans home recipes that often worked better than anything I could buy in Superdrug. Now anyone that knows the Lush stores, know that the fragrance can be intense and the actual factories are even more intense, but you soon acclimatize. We went to the head offices where I was informed that the opposite island was home to the only red squirrels left in the UK, and I spoke to the graphic artist who creates all the texts for the franchise.

We were told the story of the brand and the book clubs that they involve with their staff, it was all really fabulous and we were offered a huge amount of samples of the products to test out. I really was interested in the makeup section because we were there to help with the launch of their new lipstick products: lipsticks with no packaging. Now… I’m a makeup artist and I’m also totally honest with you guys about the products that work and the products that do not. Lush does not have a range of products that I’d be comfortable recommending to people at home if you were not specifically looking for a type of range that was naturally resourced, which was packaging free and that was the only type of color product you’d use. For me, the Lush range has the potential to be something really innovative but they’re too literal. We were discussing with Rowena Bird how she’d gone to find the actual raw ingredients from the rainforest, which included a red staining plant that is encased in a bamboo type stalk. The product they presented was literally this, the raw red stain in a bamboo pot. Now, what a wonderful idea, but the product is a stain that is impossible to remove, is very difficult to use as a product on the go, and I’m not sure what the limitations with how long you can keep a product like that. It’s very strange and I remember discussing the chemicals with one of the ladies on the face products and I noted that she said that she had a list in her mind of things she’d worked with before that were great and I was just a bit shocked by how crudely it was organized. There is a space for ethical, package free cosmetics but the ideas have to be sophisticated and although it was very fun playing with their products, it reminded me more of wax crayons than a product I’d use for any type of finesse in my image.

So Lush don’t work with influencers, the UK team actually removed their social media to build a more inclusive network of their own which was a huge reassurance to me because I wanted to do that with Agitprop. I really respect everything Lush does and they are one of my favorite brands for skincare. So they also don’t pay you to do any of this type of work so what they offered in exchange for this event to give me a spa treatment at their Oxford Street location! I was happy to explore this idea as I did a lot of spa reviews for my surgery series, so I asked if we could use my mum as a model and I could do the review as the cameraman. So whatever reason, the PR company didn’t want to do this and I was really confused as to why they wouldn’t want to promote the treatment as a completely focused review, as I did want to do a separate feature on the time I had in Poole, but we went with the flow and rebooked the treatment for myself.

The treatment list was really interesting and I was offered the Synesthesia massage, which was described as blurring the senses. This basically is when people experience sound as colours, or flavours as colours, or like any situation where the senses blur into the same experience. The founder of Lush has this ability and I thought it was a super cool concept for a treatment. I had to pick out some of the scents I’d like to have in my massage and I chose calming and relaxing. They used a combo of mist aromatherapy with a full body massage, it was very gentle and relaxing and I really enjoyed the experience.

The practitioner was great, she talked me through what was happening as I am not that much of a massage person - if I was going to have a treatment to my body I would rather have a chiropractor that can fix some of my structural issues or nothing at all. I find massages quite uncomfortable and that was one of the reasons I wanted to be the camera person and offer it to someone that I thought would give a better review, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I really liked the spa and the sounds played during the massage added to the relaxation of the experience. I also was very interested in the blurring factor to the treatment because that basically involved a hot stone and a cold stone being used in sequence and that was quite an interesting idea. I don’t know if I would repeat the treatment but for anyone that loves massage and loves the ethical practises Lush offer, with the great skin products then I’d definitely recommend. My one negative was the oils that are very intense are quite difficult to work with as the location is so central, so you have to essentially walk through busy tube stations covered in a thick layer of their products which was very uncomfortable. I think they could offer a shower or something that would help make you feel a bit better after the treatment and it would have been excellent.

Overall I definitely liked the treatment and would give this as a recommendation to someone who enjoys massage. So let me know what you think! Give me your opinions in the comments below.