Happy Soap

It's quite amazing when you think about how many different variations of the citrus scent that Lush have managed to concoct over the years. Every time they bring out a new product, or rehash an oldie, I always expect to discover that it smells like one of the other million products that have come before it. However, there is always something distinctively different about every fragrance and it's rather magical discovering how many gorgeous ways a single scent can be presented. 

Happy Soap looks and smells exactly how you'd imagine it would - a sweet, zesty and very uplifting orangey soap that works well in any weather. With sweet orange and tangerine oil, the fragrance reminded me a little of Orange Jelly Soap but with a slightly sharper and more rounded citrus note. It's what you'd get if you combined the aforementioned soap with Sunny Citrus.  

What works in the soap's favour is it's simplicity - it smells of sweet, ripe tangerines and oranges while also giving off a slightly perfumed, soapy scent. While that probably sounds a little off-putting for those that were hoping for a straight forward fruit smell, this extra layer of fragrance works really well and gives it a little more depth. 

Although you'd normally expect this to work better in warmer months, when it would clean as well as refresh your skin, I found that this worked really well at perking me up in the early mornings. The scent was strong enough to wake me, yet it wasn't too overpowering or heavy. 

Lush claim that Happy Soap is designed to tone the skin which I find very strange as there doesn't seem to be anything in the ingredients that stands out as being particularly toning, and the soap is definitely no different from other soaps in consistency. In fact, while the soap did leave my skin looking a little more radiant and smooth, it was still a little too drying for my liking and I had to use shower gel to soften my hands a little before leaving the shower. 

In use, this soap didn't do too badly at lathering up, although it produced more of an oily lather than a foam one. I found that once the soap had been used a handful of times, the lather did seem to come more easily - maybe it needed extra water to filter into the soap in order to do this. 

Disappointingly, the soap didn't leave any of it's lovely smell on my skin after use and I found that I wasn't able to enjoy the smell whenever I walked into the bathroom - something I can normally do with most of Lush's fresh soaps. 

Having said this, after using the soap a few times, my generous chunk has barely shrunk at all, which means that a 100g slice should last you for a good while - perhaps even a little longer than you would normally expect a piece of that size to do. 

Ultimately, this soap had a lot of potential which I don't think was quite reached here. It's a lovely idea, the scent was wonderful (when you could smell it) and it did leave my skin feeling clean and refreshed. However, Lush could do with making the scent stronger so that it stays on your skin longer. For this reason, I will probably use the rest of this as a hand soap rather than one I use on the rest of my body.

Quantitative Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Glycerine, Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Sorbitol, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Perfume, Sodium Stearate, Limonene, Sweet Orange Oil, Tangerine Oil, Sodium Chloride, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, Lilial, Hydroxycitronellal, Colour 15510.

Vegan?: Yes. 

2015 Price: £4 for 100g.
2016 Price: £4.25 for 100g.