Lush Porridge Soap

I bought this soap online - I was intrigued by its appearance, full of oats and reminding me of a flapjack, but when I clicked on the description and saw it contained orange juice and orange oil, I decided I had to have one, being a lover of citrus scents.

When it arrived I took it out of the packaging and rather than the orangey scent I had been anticipating, I was met with a rather strange smell - the soap has a creamy, sweet scent and I wasn't sure that I liked it all that much.

The soap is a beige colour and has lots of oats running through it. I found it to be quite soft, and malleable - I noticed when I unwrapped it, that it had left a strange brown residue on the plastic wrapping it came in, so I'd expected it to be sticky, but it wasn't - just soft.

The soap contains Lush's patented palm-free base of rapeseed, coconut and sunflower oil. It also contains (as mentioned previously) Fresh organic orange juice and sweet orange oil, as well as pinhead oatmeal. Oranges are detoxifying, and oatmeal is anti-inflammatory and can relieve itchy, irritated skin.

When I actually came to use this, my opinion totally changed of the scent. I think perhaps, it just takes some getting used to, but it has a lovely creamy, almost sugary fragrance, and I can now even detect the orange in there, although it's quite muted and is definitely not the predominant fragrance of the soap.

I found that this product lathered up quite well, but there seemed to be more oats than there was soap! The oats are quite scratchy on the skin, and I found that if I was a bit too over-enthusiastic with it, it would actually leave my skin looking quite red for an hour or so after getting out of the bath, as I was basically using it as a scratching device!

It did get my skin clean, and left it soft, and I've no doubt the scratchiness of the oats exfoliated it a bit too. I did find it a bit annoying that the oats got stuck to me though, and also were often left stuck to the bath, making it a pain to clean.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that this bar is going to last too long. I remember thinking after the first time I used it, that it didn't look like I'd used it at all, but now it seems to be wearing down at an alarming rate!

At only £2.50 per 100g block this is one of the cheaper Lush soaps, and can be bought in-store or at www.lush.co.uk

Overall, I quite like this, despite the fact if you scrub too hard with it, it can leave your skin looking a bit red. Like I said I wasn't keen on the smell at first, but it has grown on me, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy this one again.

*Also posted on other sites by me