Lush - how does it linger so much?

[LittleEsme]

Hardly an exciting topic but I thought I'd park it here. Lush say they are 100% natural but how on earth do they get their smells to last so long?

I can't work it out - fragrances have a long last on my skin. Surely they must add something chemical to get it to last so long?

I don't know either OP, sorry, but am also interested. I have Lush products that linger and also some v expensive perfumes and body products that disappear after an hour or so. What is the lush secret...?

I'd love to know. I dabble at home with basic essential oil blends and I'd love to 'wear' them. When ai boend then with oil or alcohol, they're gone after half hour!

I had a shower with the rose jam this morning and the scent was still lingering hours later.

Thanks for answering - felt like Johnny No Mates

Surely they must add something chemical to get it to last so long?

Everything is made of chemicals. Water. Air. You.

If you mean something artificial, well that’s not necessarily bad. Not everything that occurs naturally is good. Eg arsenic.

Lush say they are 100% natural

No, they don’t. They say they are “fresh” and “handmade”. They do use some natural ingredients but they also use artificial fragrances, parabens and sulfates like SLS.

I can’t even go in the shop, the smells are far too overpowering for me.

It's grim.

But yes, everything is 'chemical'. Plenty of perfectly delightful organic lentil-weavery stuff is stinky as heck (though I think if they use anything delightful they do a bloody good job of concealing it).

Years back a friend of mine worked there and she said patchouli was a big one for them, but I don't know if that's still the case. That's certainly quite an overpowering smell at the best of times.

Lush aren't all natural nor do they claim to be.

I’ve wondered this. Also the glitter in the bath bombs, isn’t that micro plastic pollution? Can’t be good washing all that colour and glitter down the drain into the waterways.

Lush is far from natural.
I have had some horrendous allergic reactions to products from there.
And I second a PP about the glitter.

Ignoring lush being natural or not, (I doubt it is!) theoretically the way to make (natural) fragrance last is to include a fixative. It’s years since I read up in this, but from recollection certain essential oils can underpin & fix others (ylang ylang for instance). In pot pourri or other dry things you add orris root powder. Something to do with chemical interactions I think.

The glitter they use is made of seaweed rather than plastic I think.

uk.lush.com/article/all-glitters

Lush is far from natural.
I have had some horrendous allergic reactions to products from there.

I’m allergic to tomatoes. Natural
DH is allergic to cats. Natural.
Lots of people are allergic to pollen. Natural.
Millions are allergic to nuts. Natural.

Eventually they do degrade, and some things lose their potency sooner than others. The ballistics can eventually lose a lot of their scent (more accurately, they fade to a mild scent that would leave 2 different ones smelling the same when dissolved rather than very different).
Lush certainly use very high quality essential oils for fragrance and the product batches in a shop are usually under 10 months old. Orris root mentioned above is in quite a few of the products, also linalool in many (although this is something that isn't separable from a lot of essential oils). I think a lot of the alcohol solvents used are also not the really volatile types but terpenes and 'foody' ethanols that may have a scent in their own right - limonene for example.

I love lush. And I especially love how the scents last so long. When I get given a gift of a bath bomb it takes me about 5 years to use it because I'm so mean...Its so nice opening the drawer they're in and getting the heady sweet scents from them! Why bother use them?!