Lush Gardener Cold-Pressed Soap

Like a kid in a candy shop, I raced through the Oxford Street store - grabbing anything and everything until my basket was piled high with at least half a month's wages worth of cosmetics. If it was new to me, in it went - regardless of price, scent or format. It was only once I had gotten home that I was able to inspect exactly what I had picked up, and this is when the surprises made themselves known. 

Lush Gardener Soap was one of the items that initially intrigued me once I had laid everything out on the table for inspection. One of three new cold-pressed soaps, I was excited by both the scent of the product as well as the science that went behind making it. As a self-confessed 'vegan hippy', the idea behind this product was right up my alley. 

Being someone who is very much into healthy eating, I was already aware of what cold-pressed meant in terms of the food industry and how this idea might transpire into a soap. Although most companies tend to heat up their oils, melt them down and mix them together before leaving them to set, cold-pressed is when ingredients are pressed, ground down and mixed together while keeping the temperature low at all times (below 49°C to be precise). The lack of heat used throughout this process means that the oils retain all of their flavour, aroma and nutritional value - making them better for consumption as well as for the skin.

While soaps that have been produced in this fashion tend to be harder because the ingredients are quite heavily compressed together, they tend to have a  longer life span than regular soaps because they contain less liquid - liquid that would normally evaporate over time and dry the soap out. To prove this point, I have had all three of Lush's new cold-pressed soaps for near enough three months now and they have not changed in consistency at all during this time.

This particular soap features rosemary and a nettle and tea tree infusion - three ingredients that give this product it's main fragrance. Out of the packet, this soap smells like you're walking through a herb garden - offering a strong thread of rosemary and sage that nestle underneath the nettle and tea tree - supporting the aroma without being too overpowering. The sage aroma also helps to deter bugs during the warmer weather so you'll less likely to get bitten after using this; the lemon oil adds an uplifting quality to the soap without making it smell strongly of citrus, and the moringa powder does the same but adding a sweet element to the mix instead.

Although all of the ingredients give it a very distinctive smell, they also help to make this soap really effective in the shower. While the moringa powder acts as a antioxidant - clearing the pores and revamping the skin, the tea tree and eucalyptus calm and soften sensitive skin while reducing the appearance of spots and rashes across the body. 

In the shower, this soap takes quite a bit of work to lather up at first, and this is due to the lack of water in the ingredients list. Once the soap has had enough chance to soften under the running shower nozzle, it becomes a little easier to use and creates an oily, green-tinted lather to smooth across your body. 

What I loved about this soap was that it wasn't as drying as most of Lush's regular soaps can be with my skin, and I did really appreciate the gentle fragrance that stayed on my body once I had exited the shower. Furthermore, because it was quite a solid chunk, I didn't see much of a change in size between uses - meaning that a block would last you a good couple of months and prove good value for money. 

While my skin felt taut after use, it felt really clean and not the sort of 'dry' sensation you find when a soap has removed too much moisture - more of the squeaky clean feeling you get after washing the dishes and exposing your hands to the soap suds for a prolonged amount of time. 

However, it is important to keep Lush Gardener dry in-between uses as it does shrink if left wet and it ends up bleeding out and creating a horrible looking splodge of green on the side of your bath. Unfortunately, while it wasn't as drying as a regular soap, it still didn't prove as moisturising as a regular shower gel.

For these reasons, I will continue to use this chunk and might very well invest in another one at some point in the future. It would be a great product to use in the warmer months so I might very well take this with me when I visit my family during the summer holidays. However, it's not a soap that I would buy on a regular basis. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Rapeseed Oil; Coconut Oil (Brassica napus; Cocos nucifera), Rosemary, Nettle And Tea Tree Infusion (Rosmarinus officinalis; urtica dioica; Melaleuca alternifolia), Almond Oil (Prunus dulcis), Water (Aqua), Moringa Powder (Moringa pterygosperma), Cornstarch (Zea Mays), Sodium Hydroxide, Glycerine, Perfume, Clary Sage Oil (Salvia sclarea), Eucalyptus oil (Ecalyptus globulus), Organic Lemon Myrtle Oil (Backhousia Citriodora), Geranium Oil (Pelargonium graveolens), Gardenia Extract (Gardenia jasminoides), Sodium Chloride, Citric Acid, Sodium Bicarbonate, EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Citral, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene, Linalool, Chlorophyllin (CI 75810).

Vegan?: Yes. 

2015 Price: £4.95 each.

Year Of Original Release: 2015.