The Rough With The Smooth Solid Body Scrub - Lush Oxford Street

I started working for Lush in October of 2014, which means I was just in time for Halloween holiday products; all kinds of magical wands and sparkly pumpkins and it was in this season of trick-or-treating, I found one of my favourite Lush products to date; Lord Of Misrule Bath Bomb. 

Named after a pagan festival ‘The Feast of Fools’,  in which the town would name a peasant king for the day and allow all sorts of feasts and frivolities, this patchouli and black pepper scented bath bomb is the ultimate blend of sweet and spicy.  Who wouldn’t want a speckled green bath bomb that looked to be wearing a crown? I was sold. 

Of course, with my love of the bath bomb I was also quickly introduced to the perfume, the FUN bar, the shower cream and eventually...the scrub. 

When deciding what to pair with my (currently) Oxford Street exclusive Rough With The Smooth solid body scrub, I thought why not make it a complete Lord of Misrule bath? I fished out my penultimate Lord of Misrule bath bomb (the problem with loving a seasonal product!) and threw it in the bath with a splash of Lord of Misrule Moisturising Shower Cream for some bubbles. 

The shower cream is a little creamier (shocker) than the shower gels I’ve used from Lush before but in actuality it’s just thicker and glossier as well as being a little more moisturising so it gives great bubbles too. The lovely Lucy at LulabelleMUA picked me up a mini bottle of Shower Cream from Lush Oxford Street; they sell them in four sizes 100g, 250g, 500g and 1kg. 

Now, this past week we’ve been having a typical English summer – torrential rain followed by a day and a half of blistering heat and then back again. But of course, this means that I too followed natures course and behaved like a true Brit – I threw on a strapless summer dress and stayed out all day, playing in the sunshine. By 6pm the following evening I was uncomfortably pink, being the English Rose that I am I had forgone the sunscreen and burned like a bitch. 

Give it an extra four days and although I’m no longer sore from the sun, I’m peeling.
Sexy as hell, right?
For someone who usually takes pride in being soft-and-smooth, any kind of peeling freaks me out. Luckily, The Rough With The Smooth seemed perfect; murumuru butters and castor oils are said to be healing and supporting in the recovery of general skin complaints (including burns - score!) and hydrating for the skin.  Pairing that with the perfect creamy-come-crisp scents of Lord of Misrule and this product was just what I needed. 

Aesthetically, when you first use Rough With The Smooth it looks great; a warm, reddish brown with smooth on one side and (you guessed it) almost corrugated/rough effect on the other. Once used, the red fades a little and you are left with a brownish sugary square which melts away pretty quickly if left near the spray of the shower.
Obviously, the aesthetics should come second to what the product actually provides and it does – mine lasted a good amount of time as I remembered to put it away after each use, as opposed to leaving it out on the shower rack as I have done before (sorry, Sugar Scrub.) The Rough With Smooth is a really great scrub, I much prefer it to Sugar Scrub because it’s not too harsh but my skin feels buffed and soft – gentle enough for my whole body, but harsh enough for those tough spots.

After my bath which included all of the facets of Lord of Misrule which I currently own, I feel great – most importantly, I smell great. Lord of Misrule is one of those scents that lingers forever keeping you comforted and happy throughout your day. 

Lord of Misrule, as a scent, will always remind me of my first Christmas at Lush – making new friends, crazy days attempting to squeeze £15k+ worth of stock into a truly tiny stock room and laughing at the hysterics of serving, what felt like, fifteen customers at the same time, consistently, for eight hours a day. 

If you wanted to layer your scents even more, like I’ve mentioned, you could also introduce the perfume (solid or liquid) and the FUN bar. And why you wouldn’t want to, I just don’t know...

Rough With The Smooth Solid Body Scrub
Lush Oxford Street Exclusive – £4.95
“All of us have dead skin - some of just better at scrubbing it. If you like it rough take this sugar-packed scrub into the shower and scrub all over to reveal softer skin underneath, nourished with murumuru butter and castor oil.”

Rub Rub Rub Solid Body Scrub - Lush Oxford Street

One of my favourite products that Lush sells at the moment is Rub Rub Rub. It’s around £7 for a big black pot and it’s truly glorious. Which is why, when the time came for me to make my pilgrimage to Lush Mecca (aka, Lush Oxford Street) I, of course, picked up the new SOLID formulation of the Mimosa and Orange flower beauty .

Around the same size of current Lush product You Snap The Whip (which I happen to love), Ox St Rub Rub Rub is a pale blue colour and feels a little powdery to touch; each block has a delicate cherry blossom dried and pressed into the top which just makes the aesthetics of this product near enough perfect to me. 

The solid block is far easier handle than the original black pot version of Rub Rub Rub and there’s no chance of losing a blob of this to the sinkhole. With the same perfect scent as the black pot version, the new formulation remains true to its predecessor and comes up as a worthy opponent.

Some people like to use original Rub Rub Rub straight onto dry skin for a rougher scrub, and if you like it rough maybe the naked/solid version isn’t for you. Whilst the ingredients are mostly the same, the liquid content is obviously far less so to scrub yourself, dry, with the solid block would hurt. However, you could wet the block and then scrub onto dry skin if you are craving a harsher exfoliation. 

Whilst the product is aesthetically beautiful, it didn’t seem to be too popular when I visited Lush Oxford Street at the end of May, however I urge you all to go out and buy it. It may not be a brand spanking new product with all kind of newness to discover, but it’s a winner in my book. 

I had doubts that due to the solid nature of the reformulation that the super-silky feeling I have after using original Rub Rub Rub wouldn’t be the same with the block; I was wrong. That silky feeling is still there and the scent lingers just the right amount of time. 

Rub Rub Rub Solid Body Scrub.
Oxford Street Exclusive - £4.75
“A final cherry blossom flourish tops this sea salt scrub blended with Illipe and Cupuacu butters. Scrub your body in the shower or the bath to exfoliate dead skin leaving you smoothed and florally fragrant.”