Lush Boxing Day Sale

This blog post was supposed to be the first of a two-part sales haul to kick off the New Year, and I wanted it to go live about a week ago.

Unfortunately you can't write a haul post without the actual products.

I won't lie, the Lush Boxing Day sale was a fiasco - the website had a glitch, so not only did it take almost 3 hours and countless refreshes to load the pages and put items in my basket, it meant people were still able to buy products that had sold out hours before. Inevitably this caused nearly 3 weeks' worth of shipping delays and a disappointing lack of communication from Lush themselves but yesterday, after 3 calls and a P&P refund, I finally got what I was after - a dispatch notice, and this afternoon a delivery.

 It was worth the wait.

One of my favourite products from this year's Christmas range was the Golden Wonder ballistic, so when I saw the Golden Wonder gift set on sale I couldn't resist - it comes of course with the Golden Wonder ballistic, which looks like a little golden parcel and turns your bathwater into this frothy, zesty turquoise colour and scent, and the Gold Fun, which is supposedly a malleable soap, shampoo and bubble bar all-in-one and smells caramelly and slightly citrussy (similar to the Honey I Washed The Kids soap). I'm quite picky about what goes on my hair after several bad dying experiences so I won't be using it as shampoo but I'm looking forward to playing around with it as a soap!

Secret Santa was an impulse buy. I'd looked at the Honey I Washed the Kids soap a few times in my local Lush store, as it's a permanent product, but I hadn't really looked at the Father Christmas bath bomb until recently, but I'm glad I purchased the set. Previously the Father Christmas bath bomb was a kind of lemon, citrussy scent, but this year Lush changed the formula to make him smell more like Snow Fairy. In my opinion, he smells exactly like Refresher sweets, but that's not a bad thing - who doesn't want to smell like Refreshers? Someone who doesn't like Refreshers I guess, but that's not the point. The bath bomb is huge - so big you can quite easily cut him in half and use him twice - and turns your bath a festive green colour.

Originally I wasn't going to buy the Christmas Candy Box. I had my eye on the Snow Fairy giftset because it contained not only the Snow Fairy shower gel, but the Magic Wand bubble bar too - but the website was so difficult to navigate I ended up settling on this, and actually it worked out perfectly as I picked up the Magic Wand in store. The Christmas Candy Box of course contains Lush's signature Christmas scent, the Snow Fairy shower gel. Reminiscent of childhood treats like pear drops and with small traces of glitter, it's a product that immediately makes you feel like a child again when you use it, and with the stress of university I could really do without adult responsibilities. The set also contained on my personal favourites, the Butterbear, which was completely sold out both online and in my local store, the Candy Mountain bubble bar that gives your bath these gorgeous vanilla-scented bubbles, and the Rock Star soap. Rock Star is also a permanent Lush product, and it's one I've eyed up a few times in my local store due to it's lovely vanilla scent, and I'm sure using the soap coupled with Candy Mountain will leave me smelling like a McDonald's milkshake after my baths.

I'm almost ashamed to say I bought Santa Claus Is Coming To Town for two products. Almost. I bought the So White bath bomb before Christmas on a whim as it had this gorgeous apple set, and I waited until only a few days before Christmas to use it, and I fell in love. The scent is spot on granny smith apple and turns the water a gorgeous pink, almost reminiscent of the poisonous apple in Disney's Snow White (which is of course where the So White name comes from). But because I'd left it so late both my local store and the online store were sold out, so I sulked until I realized that the Santa Claus Is Coming to Town gift set contained So White in shower gel form. Not only did the box look so cute and christmassy, it also contained my favourite moisturising Butterball bath bomb in Butterbear form, so I knew I had to get it. The giftset also contains another Golden Wonder bath ballistic; the glittery Holly Golightly bubble bar - named after Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's - which turns the bathwater a lustrous green and smells like cinnamon and citus; the Snow Angel bath melt, which is similar to the Butterball in that it's incredibly nourishing for sensitive skin but smells like caramel; the Dashing Santa ballistic that has been a Lush favourite this year and promises to dash around your bath leaving a trail of coral colour and satsuma scent; a Reindeer Rock berry-scented soap; and the citrussy Snowman shower jelly, that shares it scent with Lush's Easter Carrot soap and comes in this cute wobbly snowman shape.

I hadn't anticipated buying so much, but knowing that I could and would be using them well into 2015 it seemed silly not to - the Lush sale comes around but once a year you know! It's such a shame that my first experience was slightly tarnished by the website glitches and that there was very little in the form of communication from Lush, but when I did call the staff were very apologetic and did all they could to find out more information for me, and their products are well worth the wait.

I know most of the products aren't available anymore but I do know that some Lush stores have some Christmas stock left, and where possible I've included links to very similar products.