Skinny Dip Buttercream

Being heavily involved in the online Lush community has allowed me to recognise which products are considered by fans, ancient and new, to be the 'holy grail' of Lush. These are products that create an excitement by a mere mention or a picture - the items that dominate the company's Facebook feed and go for extortionate sums of money on eBay. 

Skinny Dip Buttercream, alongside most of the products within this scent family, is one of those holy products. It is probably the most requested item on forums and through the Lush Kitchen, and builds up an impressive amount of 'buzz' when the two words are ushered in the same sentence. Yet, it is a product that does absolutely nothing for me. 

First released over eight years ago to replace the shower gel format that was notorious for separating in the bottle, the buttercream was Lush's way of rectifying the problem whilst still being able to offer fans the unique violet and clove aroma. 

For those unfamiliar with what a buttercream is, it's a product that sits in between a soap and a shower gel; a softer-style soap that can be used like a shower gel, but contains key ingredients to help soften and repair dry skin. It doesn’t contain as many surfactants as traditional soap, so it won’t lather up like you’re used to, but this does mean it’s especially good for those people who find that normal soap can sometimes dry their skin out.

Made from an array of skin-softening butters and containing an impressive nine different oils, this 'shower soap' should in theory be incredibly moisturising on the skin. With a base of creamed coconut, rapeseed and coconut oil, Skinny Dip is very light in colour and extremely creamy in the tub. You can detect a very gentle nutty aroma from the coconut underneath the other ingredients but it is the inclusion of the other oils that give it it's original fragrance. 

Clove bud and cedarwood oil dominate the smell of this - creating a rather strange, lightly-spiced and delicately-floral aroma with a subtle woody undertone thrown in there as well. Lush's description states that the key scent here is clove and violet and I can definitely detect both of these notes, although where and how the violet smell is created, I am unsure. 

Aside from these scents, the inclusion of both aloe vera gel and clary sage adds a freshness to the fragrance that gives it a rather clean smell; the ylang ylang oil also gives the buttercream a sweetness that brings all of the different elements together. 

To my nose, Skinny Dip Buttercream gives off an aroma that reminds me of spicy, indian tea - very similar to something like Masala Chai or those liquorice and cinnamon ones you can buy from health food shops. While the scent wasn't bad, I found it rather underwhelming and struggled to muster a lot of enthusiasm when trying it out in the shower. 

Aside from it's scent, this buttercream cleans the skin well and is very easy to use. A little goes a long way as I found that I only needed the equivalent of a dessertspoon to lather my whole body. This means that a 250g tub would probably last for at least 20 full body washes - making it a more expensive investment than soap but something that should be used in moderation to get your moneys worth. As I mentioned above, this doesn't lather like a soap does, but it does leave a light white foam when it's massaged into the skin, and is very easy to wash off afterwards.

Despite it's productivity, it's a rather costly alternative to shower gel or soap, and for those of us with normal or slightly dry skin, you may find that this is not as nourishing as some of the other products available from Lush. Despite the impressive ingredients list, this product left my skin rather dry - much like a lot of Lush's soap do, so it's not as effective as the Heavenly Bodies or Almond Buttercream varieties that I love.   

Although I have grown to appreciate it more after using it daily, it wasn't as instantly gratifying as other Lush buttercreams and it's not a product I would buy again. While I am always open to new and interesting fragrances, I found this one to be pretty boring and not something I can imagine ever getting excited about, even if Lush were to bring out the shower gel equivalent. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Creamed Coconut Infusion, Rapeseed Oil and Coconut Oil, Glycerine, Fair Trade Organic Aloe Vera Gel, Almond Oil, Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter, Water (Aqua), Perfume, Clove Bud Oil, Cedarwood Oil, Clary Sage Oil, Ylang Ylang Oil, Vetivert Oil, Palmarosa Oil, Sodium Chloride, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, Eugenol, Linalool, Geraniol, Benzyl Benzoate.

Vegan?: Yes.

2015 Price: £10.25 for 250g. 
2017 Price: £10.50 for 250g. 

Scent Family:
Skinny Dip Body Lotion
Skinny Dip Bubble Bar
Skinny Dip Buttercream
Skinny Dip Lip Perfume
Skinny Dip Shower Gel

Year Of Original Release: 2006.