Wee bit disappointed in Lush...

[cannotfuckingbelievethis]

....cause they're not really as "natural" and organic and they make out to be are they ? I got a couple of massage bars there today and was having a look through their catalogue. Almost all of their shampoo bars contain sulphates and loads of their moisturisers have parabens in them too. Fortunately their massage bars are indeed all "natural" ingredients.

I suppose at least the staff are knowledgeable enough to not miss-sell and if you go in requesting no parabens etc they usually have an option.

That's true. I've probably just been a bit naïve up until now. Since so much of their stuff is not packaged it's not always been possible to see what actually goes into it but their catalogue lists every single ingredient.

At least they list their ingredients somewhere. So many companies expect you to blindly buy without knowing what you're getting, ingredients wise. Not good for people with sensitive skin or who are acne prone.

The massage bars are lovely. Which ones did you buy?

I thought the shelf labels listed the ingredients? For a product like moisturiser, which you would expect to last for perhaps 6 months after opening and which is an ideal medium for bacterial growth, plus prone to contamination from having fingers dipped in it every day it is sensible to use preservatives IMO.

My sensitive skin disagrees with lush products.

The staff pointed out a moisturiser for sensitive skin. My hands felt like they were burnt!!

When I read the ingredients I was shocked. I'm not sure what I expected but it didn't seem very natural.

It costs a lot too.

My sensitive skin loves their products, one of their cleansers is the only one I have found that I can use for eye make-up removal, all the normal high street ones burn my skin.

I used to like that guinness shampoo but damn, there must have been some extra large amount of sulphate in it or something. Hair looked great but such an itchy scalp.

After reading all the stuff on that Mitherings blog about Lush and their various practices I've gone even further off them than I did before... Did used to buy their stuff and pore over the catalogues but realised it never really did anything for me, apart from the henna. And that's a pain in the arse because of all the cocoa butter gunk.

'Natural' (which is a really misleading term anyway!) does not mean suitable for all skin types. Some essential oils can be incredibly harsh, I find I react more to the essential oils in Lush products.

I know what you mean - they have marketing down to a fine art...but the overpowering smells coming their shops was enough to have me running for the hills...good skin care does not need to be so highly perfumed.

Coumarin - I got "Therapy" and the lovely sales assistant gave me "Wiccy Magic Muscles" for free because we got chatting and it turns out I'm doing the course at college which he just finished, same lecturer too. The massage bars were recommended to me so hoping that they are as good as I've heard.

I love their jungle conditioner bar. It doesn't overload my hair and smells amazing.

I'm sulphate free though so don't use the shampoo bars. I like the Avalon organic tea tree one from waitrose which is sls free.

I just check the ingredients carefully. Generally I like their ethos though.

buttered Palmers (as in the cocoa butter range) do SLS free shampoo and it's much cheaper than Avalon. You can get it in Afro-Caribbean beauty shops or online. Also, JASON (Holland & Barrett or online) and Yes To (carrots/cucumber/tomato etc) are SLS free and excellent value since they come in big bottles - the Yes To Cucumber shampoo is very gentle and £7 ish for a 500ml bottle is great value imo.

I do like that their paper catalogue makes the ingredients very clear (with colour coding according to origin IIRC). But I can't take the hard sell when I go into their stores, so I just don't any more (and they stopped selling Sonic Death Monkey, which was probably full of nasties but was my favourite of their products).