Have you heard of LUSH?

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Has anyone heard of a company called LUSH, which sells handmade soaps in the malls....apparently has stores all over?

I was in one in Maryland...and they have bath bombs the size of footballs. When I asked if there handmade soaps were made locally...they said, no in Vancouver...and it's a British-owned company.


www.lush.com

Interesting.......and scary for me as a small business.
 
Yes, they are huge & quite popular. There for a while every handmade soap maker was trying to copy Lush recipes for bombs & esp bubble bars. The world of B&B was in a LUSH bubble bar frenzy about 2-3 years ago....
 
I love love love their Honey I Washed The Kids soap. It just smells divine.

And Butterball, and Black Pearl....

But now that I'm making my own soaps, I don't know what to do with my massive inventory of Lush.
 
I am going to have to disagree with you soapbuddy. The ingredients in their products are 95% natural. They are not 100% natural but they do a great job and have a quality IMHO.

LUSH has been around for 30+years and have have created such a demand w/i the marketplace they needed to add extra hands to do the job but they are making items by hand, just more of them.

As for being local, we can all only be local in 1 zipcode, if someone ships their product to Texas, NY, CA, London they may not be local to thiose areas but it does not change the quality of a product. People do not always find what they are looking for in their own zipcode but it does not lessen a products quality.
 
This is from their web site:

"Our handmade soaps are made with only 40-60% soap, leaving more room to add other goodies, not as drying and harsh as other commercial brands."

That sounds like BS to me. Only 40% soap?

Irena
 
Anything can look like BS when taken out of context.

Here is the rest of that quote:

LUSH handmade soaps are made with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, and pure essential oils, for a cleansing experience beyond the ordinary.

Each chunk contains only 40-60% vegetable soap to leave lots of room for beneficial ingredients like honey, clay, aloe Vera, and seaweed. We also add propylene glycol or glycerin to soften your skin.


It is very similar to Dove claiming to be 25% moisturizer & 75% soap.
 
I was shocked to find out their soap is M&P.

Then I realized... it gives me something to aspire to!
 
Another company that has had great success with M&P is Primal Elements.
 
On Lush

I had no idea LUSH was M&P. Actually, I do melt & pour, so this kind of gives me hope if it can be that successful.

Someone at a craft show a few weeks back told me that M&P is the "ugly stepchild" of soapmaking?

I don't think so.... I've seen some wonderful M&P products

Is that the consensus..or are there just some folks who are purists about the CP method?
 
Lush....

dragonfly princess said:
You could do what my kids suggest and throw it at passing vehicles ;)

Those basketball-sized bath bombs might total a car!

:wink:
 
Re: On Lush

uplandermom said:
Someone at a craft show a few weeks back told me that M&P is the "ugly stepchild" of soapmaking?

I don't think so.... I've seen some wonderful M&P products

Is that the consensus..or are there just some folks who are purists about the CP method?

Ugly stepchild? :shock: Oh lordy. I hope it's not the consensus. I think CP and M&P are totally different things, both can be very beautiful, both can be total disasters, too, LOL, and neither should be considered inferior, they are just different, two different sorts of craft, two different types of craftsmanship. There are things you can do with CP that you can't do with M&P and likewise, there are things you can do with M&P that you can't do with CP. My personal opinion.
 
Re: On Lush

sunflwrgrl7 said:
uplandermom said:
Someone at a craft show a few weeks back told me that M&P is the "ugly stepchild" of soapmaking?

I don't think so.... I've seen some wonderful M&P products

Is that the consensus..or are there just some folks who are purists about the CP method?

Ugly stepchild? :shock: Oh lordy. I hope it's not the consensus. I think CP and M&P are totally different things, both can be very beautiful, both can be total disasters, too, LOL, and neither should be considered inferior, they are just different, two different sorts of craft, two different types of craftsmanship. There are things you can do with CP that you can't do with M&P and likewise, there are things you can do with M&P that you can't do with CP. My personal opinion.

That's my opinion too. :D

Irena
 
Here is a link re syndets by Eucerin, a dermatological skin care company based out of the UK:
http://216.109.125.130/search/cache...s.asp&w=syndets&d=SP_0_vL9Pm_U&icp=1&.intl=us

Soaps, Syndets and Surfactants
Sumarian clay tablets from 2500 BC found between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers document the early usage of soap. Soap, the product of a chemical reaction between natural fats and alkaline lye, has some disadvantages, especially for sensitive skin. Soap scum forms and surfactants are inactivated when used with hard water. Carbonate salts are deposited on the skin hindering the restoration of oils, which makes skin raw.


Schematic diagram of surfactants.

1 Hydrophilic part

2 Lipophilic (hydrophobic) part

Development of Syndets
Soap's disadvantages led to the search for new body cleansing substances. In the late 1950's, scientists introduced synthetically produced detergents, known as syndets. Today, syndets are used in skin-beautifying cleansing because they have distinct advantages over soap:

Do not form insoluble soap scum
No alkalising, so pH can be set
Suitable for skin with a lowered alkali reducing capacity
Little swelling of the horny layer

The currently popular expression "syndet" comes from the syllables "syn" for synthetic and "det" from detergent. Detergents refer to cleaning agents of all kinds, including soaps and synthetic surfactants. The term "synthetic surfactant" is sometimes used as a synonym for "syndet".

Surfactants
These molecules or ions are comprised of a very water soluble (hydrophilic) part (1), the head and a fat-soluble (lipophilic) long-chained segment (2). Individual surfactants have specific properties, such a creating foam (anionic surfactants), or leaving behind a pleasant sensation on the skin (amphoteric surfactants). Most cleansing products consist of a mixture of them.


Besides active cleansing agents, the term surfactant is used to describe emulsifiers, foaming agents, solvents and other similar substances.



This was the forst webiste to pop up when I entered syndet at yahoo search. It is a pro synet site, it you do a thourough serach you will alos fid con syndet info.
 
Soap is defined as: soap (sp)n.
1. A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.

A syndet (in a nut shell) is any other cleaning agent that does not begin with fats & lye.

synthetic + detergent=syndet

Most M&P bases contain synthetic detergents.
 
Tabitha said:
A syndet (in a nut shell) is any other cleaning agent that does not begin with fats & lye.

synthetic + detergent=syndet

Most all M&P is a synthetic detergent, it contains oils but does not begin w/ lye.

But SFIC base is considered soap, correct? Because it does have saponified oils?
 
Lush is overpriced and full of yuck for my skin but a lot of people like it. I prefer Primal Elements as it's lovely on my skin and pretty. People like to bad mouth MP a lot but a lot of it is quite nice and nourishing and you can get great SLS free MP base! :)
It drives me a little nuts when I see other soapers on Ebay or Etsy say that (and they usually put it in bold letters) THIS IS NOT MELT AND POUR SOAP! Hate it with a passion and I end up not buying from them because of this- who cares what process you use- if it gets you clean, smells good, and is good for your skin then why not give it a try.
I like making CP myself but that is what I'm used too- I will use any soap that is handmade and appeals to me and hopefully won't make me itch!
 

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