LUSH

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Junk

Small glass pot of purple solid perfume with black lid.

Oh, Junk, how I love you–one part Tiger Balm, one part black currant cough drops–you heal my soul with comforting ’70s vibes of beaded doorway curtains and rusty VW micro-buses, JOB rolling papers and Aquarian tarot decks.

The solid is much preferable to the spray, so it can be rubbed into the skin like a curative salve. Apply every four hours or as needed.

My little pot expires next year. I cannot wait until someone asks me what I’m wearing, so I can nonchalantly say, “Just some old Junk I had.”

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Rose Jam

Simple LUSH bottle with black cap, surrounded by pale pink rose petals.

Gourmand roses, to be eaten on toast.

Fruity citrus petal mash, exactly like the jelly I loved from the Turkish import store, perfect for little girls’ tea parties and big girl indulgences.
Loud lemony rose-hips at the start, with the faintest herbal green and sweet spice, and loads of sugar for hours and hours.
Eventually settles to floral caramel on the skin and cuffs, and stays there all day long.

Wear with lots of pink.

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Ebru Gündeş is a popular singer from Istanbul.
Google says the title of this song means “I Have a Lot of Business with You,” but translations of the lyrics have a much prettier vibe than that.

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Karma

A pot of Karma solid perfume, on the iconic blue, red and white box of Satya Sai Baba incense.

Dreamcicle orange vanilla ice cream pop and Nag Champa incense, done quite well. Sweet, herbal and spicy with nice urban hippie overtones.

The solid floats in personal space with sweet citrus for a good two hours before a slow melt into the flesh. The consistency is a bit waxy but not drying–works brilliantly as a cuticle cream.
The liquid lasts forever on paper, until laundry on cotton, and a day on skin–with more of the pine and patchi base.
I love both.

Sadly, a little hard to find sometimes. LUSH is fairly upfront about world trade and the sporadic availability of natural resources–and some of their fragrances only wind up in bigger metropolitan stores.
I’ll get a back-up bottle next I see one.

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I’ve always loved this song, and the video is a costume dream–

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Snowcake

Unicorn squeaky duck, and a full, black capped LUSH bottle. My most regretted blind-buy yet. (The fragrance, not the uni-duck.)

Ugh. No.
I hurked in my mouth.
My cat ran from the room with his ears back.

An explosion of rotting bananas and decomposing rubber bath toys that settles to moldy marzipan after five wretched hours. (I was so astonished at how vile it was, I had to see how it played out, the way one sits through a bad movie.)

The guy came home and said, “Huh. Not bad,” and now I’m questioning all my relationship assumptions.

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Sorry, Ernie, Little Richard did it best.

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Lord of Misrule

Bottle of amber perfume with a tall black cap and a blue and clear glass cruet with scattered pepper.

Lord of Misrule is what to wear to wild Bacchanalia parties where you sign a waiver to not hold the host responsible for any bruises, scratches or accidental pregnancies.

A pinch of lemon zest, then a bite of fresh ground black pepper–with sharp teeth, enough to make one wake up and pay attention–and woody patchouli that’s been sweetened with a hit of licorice powder.
The base is everlasting vanilla kisses, dark and dirty and rough in the best way, that linger on clothes and sheets for several nights afterward.

On the right guy, this would give soft demi-satyr vibes.
On the right woman, this would be dangerous.

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I have mixed feelings about the Hunger Games series, but the movie soundtracks were amazing.

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Fresh As

LUSH pot with teal solid perfume, and a pine cone and needle branch.

Fir and sweet balsam pine, with benzoin making it soft.
There’s a timeless quality to Fresh As, as if it could have been worn by a troubadour of centuries past, with stringed instruments made of spruce wood and polished with golden resins, yet also by a modern musician, fresh electric ozone and green Recording-In-Progress lights.
Pair with a clever shirt and a tweed cap.

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My brother introduced me to this one–I love the way this is filmed, so we feel like we’re in the studio with them.

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Cocktail

Large black label bottle of Cocktail at the local Lush store. The recent health regulations made testing cumbersome, but I’m glad precautions are being taken, and the sales associates were patient.

An odd one that started with faint florals and shy herbs with no projection from the test strip–a meh from me at the store–but slowly filled my car with big branches of moss and limes on the way home.
If Cocktail came in a small size, or better yet one of their solid pots, I’d order one, but there’s no way I’d shell out for three ounces without being able to test it on the skin.

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This song always winds up on my driving playlists.

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American Cream

Pale yellow filled small bottle in a wood display box at the nearest LUSH store–the furthest I’ve ventured from home in an entire year.

American Cream smells like Demeter Fragrance Library got stoned and went to a Ben&Jerry’s.

Scoops of strawberry vanilla with honey drizzle, and light herbal funk.
Not the highest you’ve been, but a long-lasting buzz.

Puff, puff, give.

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One of the sweetest slow jams ever.

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Yog Nog

yog nog edgyA big mouthful of Buttered Popcorn flavored Jellybelly beans, sticky sweet and stuck in the teeth for hours.
Later, powdered sugar and clove dusted gingerbread crumbs cling to shirt cuffs.

Fun, like that holiday party at the boss’s house that you weren’t expecting to enjoy–but I’d do better with it as a candle. It’s too sweet for me to wear on my skin.

By the Weather Girls, who brought you It’s Raining Men:

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Cardamom Coffee

cardamum coffee edgy
LUSH solid perfume pot and botanical drawing of Elettaria cardamomum.

Indeed.
Rich hot coffee and roasted cardamom pods at arms length for an hour, slowly fading to sweet oud and herbal rose a few inches above the skin for several more.

Gorgeously unisex, but also sensual and inviting–flickering lights on a cold night, hands held in mittens, warm drinks with spice.

The solid is nice, but I want a bottle to douse myself with on the holidays– and it would work really well as a bed linen spray, too.

This song is comforting and inviting and unisex, too.