Lush Red Dragon Soap

Lush Red Dragon soap was released earlier this year to celebrate the year of the Dragon in the Chinese lunar calendar. While it is no longer available, it shares basically the same formula and fragrance as Lush's Karma soap.

Scented with a blend of patchouli, lavender, and pine, the dragon also bears a fine sprinkling of gold dust, presumably for luck and prosperity.

The dragon figure isn't that easy to make out, with the scales being more prominent than the dragon head. Nevertheless, it makes for an unusual decoration in the bathroom, where the Karma scent quickly freshens up the entire room. I love the unusual scent, which is supposedly an attempt by the creator to bottle the heady ambience of Kensington Market in the 1960s. It is lively and refreshing without being overpowering or too spicy. The scent stays on the skin for quite awhile after rinsing.

It may not be the most exquisitely crafted but nevertheless, I'm keeping it around for luck, preserving the shape and gold dust as long as possible by using it from the bottom, rubbing it over my wet hands instead of wetting the whole bar.

Lush Putty For Your Hands

The ever creative folks at Lush recently brought out a new Putty For Your Hands (£5.95 for 100g), an wonderfully soothing remedy for dry, cracked hands that moisturises as it cleanses, thanks to the inclusion of ingredients like oats, vegetable glycerine, marshmallow mucilage and shea butter.

As the name suggests, Putty feels very different from the usual sulphate-based soaps that most of us are used to. The top three ingredients in Putty are cornflour, talc, and glycerine. Hand soaps typically lather up easily, rinse off in a jiffy and leave your hands feeling squeaky clean. Putty does not lather up and trying to rinse it off can feel odd the first few times you try it, because it feels like trying to get some paste off your hands. Actually, it does not require that much rinsing but most of us are probably too accustomed to waiting for that squeaky clean feeling.

After rinsing and wiping dry with a towel, I was immediately impressed by how soft and moisturised my hands felt. My hands also had a light scent of lavender mixed with chamomile. Putty also contains tea tree oil but I don't really smell it. After trying Putty in the Lush store, I was hooked and purchased 100g, cut into two chunks for ease of use.

Most soaps leave my hands feeling dry and in desperate need of hand cream, especially during the harsh winter months, but it gets tedious having to keep re-applying hand cream each time I wash my hands (and I wash my hands very often). Putty feels like a conditioner for the hands, so it's great if you're usually too lazy to apply hand cream.

Lush UK has a sound clip here featuring the inventors of the product talking about how it came about. Do check it out!

The colourful window display for Mother's Day (which is celebrated in March in the UK, whereas in Singapore, it's the second Sunday of May). The new products for Mother's Day and Easter are already available at the Lush store in Singapore as well.

Madame Butterfly Re-usable Bubble Bar and Washing Up Fairy.



The Mum Re-usable Bubble Bars.

Tulip Re-usable Bubble Bars.