Divination Reusable Bubble Bar

While most of the limited edition products available at the Oxford Street store have had a fair share of excitement surrounding them at one point or another, I'm not quite sure as to whether many have had as much intrigue as this particular bubble bar has. While Lush are known for their impressive range of smells and colours, it's normally the weird and wonderful items that get the most attention, and this product is definitely a mixture of both. 

Divination - a name that comes from the Latin word, divinare; meaning 'to foresee, to be inspired by a god' is a bubble bar that makes an immediate impression - a stunning sparkly bronze shaped pendulum unlike any reusable bath product that Lush have ever released before. 

Containing a generous helping of patchouli, rose and amber oils, this bubble bar offers a rich, complex and multi-layered fragrance that is perhaps Lush's most decadent bubble bar to date. A first sniff reveals a strong presence of all three of these components, but it is perhaps the inclusion of the amber that creates a rather unexpected aroma here - one that I was very pleasantly surprised by when I first removed this product from its bag. 

Amber is not an ingredient that Lush use very often, which is a shame because it offers an amazingly sweet, resiny and almost woody element that would work so well in many of the products that Lush produce. In this particular bar, the amber helps to give Divination a very incensey fragrance - one that surprising offers a strong violet smell that I was not expecting at all. 

While I don't want to undersell the bubble bar and say that this is all that the product smells of, the sweet, violet aroma is definitely the leading note - with a sort of powdery, woody layer underneath which rounds it off wonderfully and gives you one seriously sensual bath to enjoy. I have heard that this bubble bar is supposed to share its scent with the Tuca Tuca family and I can completely understand this as this is very much what I detect once the product is in use. 
       

To use this bubble bar, you need to hold it underneath the running tap where the water will stimulate the bubbles. Almost immediately, the top layer of bronze lustre will melt away to reveal a succulent deep purple bubble bar underneath. As Divination gets to work at filling your tub with silky-soft, fragrant bubbles, the water mimics the design of the product and creates a gorgeous purple haven to submerge yourself beneath. 

What was great about this product was that even though I held it under the tap for a good few minutes, the bar barely altered in size and I know that I could easily get a good 2-3 more uses out of it. While most of Lush's reusable bubble bars claim to last the same length of time, I often find that after two baths, the product is looking rather worse for wear. Given the size of Divination, I was expecting the same results, so I was rather impressed to see that it withstood the pressure of the running water and went on to provide me with three bubbly, fragrant experiences. 

What lets this product down a little is that it wasn't as moisturising as most of Lush's bubbles usually are - the water felt rather average in this way and I had to add in part of a bath melt to add that much needed oil. Furthermore, the bubbles that were created at the start dissolved pretty quickly in the tub and the water didn't retain it's vivid purple colour for as long as I was hoping. 

Despite this, I really loved that I could detect the violet aroma throughout my entire experience and the scent lingered for a short time afterwards on my skin.  

Quantitative Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Fresh Banana, Glyceryl Stearate & PEG-100 Stearate, Perfume, Cetearyl Alcohol, Polyacrylate 21, Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Polyquaternium-88, Citric Acid, Cationic Guar Gum Stearyl, dimoniumhydroxypropyl Laurylglucosides Chloride, Cypress Oil, Lime Oil, Rosewood Oil, Oakmoss Absolute, Almond Oil, Ground Almonds, Organic Jojoba Oil, Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Organic Brazil Nut Oil, Alpha Isomethyl Ionone, Cinnamal, Benzyl Alcohol, Benzyl Salicylate, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Cinnamate, Cinnamal, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Citronellol, Coumarin, Geraniol, Limonene*Linalool, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Vegan?: Yes. 

2015 Price: £5.95 each. 

Year Of Original Release: 2015.