Little Dragon Reusable Bubble Bar

Over the years Lush have released a good many reusable bubble bars - most of which have stayed around for a season or two and then disappeared forever. Until last week, when the company began to sell its Flamingo Bubble Bar online and in stores, I don't think Lush have ever really ever sold their reusable wands over a long period of time.

While I love the concept of being able to invest in a product that'll see me through 3, 4, even 5 baths for the similar price of a bath bomb, I can often notice a difference between the quality of a bath created with one of these innovative wands and that of a regular bubble bar. Perhaps my standards have increased over the years, but I just don't find that many of the reusable bars are as enjoyable as other products in Lush's collection.

Little Dragon is one of six limited edition reusable bubble bars - all bar one of which are only currently available at the Oxford Street store. While most of them are priced up as £5.95, they all come in a variety of shapes and sizes - some boasting more uses, others claiming to offer a far better experience in the tub. 

Perhaps the most intriguing one of the lot, this bathing product is moulded on the Chinese dragon -  a legendary mythological creature that is said to symbolise power, strength, and good luck in traditional households. Sporting a bright red design and painted with a thin layer of golden lustre, this bubble bar looks like the perfect companion to relax and unwind with. 

Made from a combination of ginger, clove and cinnamon oils, this recipe sounds more like a Christmas product than an everyday item. Yet it is this very fact that made it equally as appealing to me - something that could accompany me in the colder months - when the seasonal produce was long gone and nothing else quite 'fit the bill' to warm up my toes and stir that blood circulation around my body.

Although a lot of people are comparing it to Hot Toddy, and I can definitely see why the comparison has been made, I happen to think that this smells very different to that particular scent. To me, Little Dragon has a very natural herbal smell - one that is dominated by the ginger both in and outside of the tub. While Hot Toddy has a sweet element from the combination of patchouli and lime oils, this is much more of a dry scent to my nose.

Imagine taking out the three flavours from a spice rack, sprinkling a little of each into a tub and giving it a sniff - that's exactly what this bubble bar smells like. The simplicity of the fragrance here will be loved by some consumers, yet it could also be viewed as being a little too 'bare' and 'boring' to others. Unfortunately, I was in the latter category, and was a little disappointed by the results that the product heeded in the bath.      

As you can see from my video, I used this product by alternating between holding it under the tap and swishing it around the water, where it immediately began to spew out a nice amount of soft, fluffy bubbles. If you're not a fan of too many bubbles, you can opt to swish this around the tub more instead as I found this was less effective than holding it under the tap. The great thing about all of Lush's reusable bubble bars is that you have complete control over deciding how strong you wish your bath to be, meaning that this bubble bar can last as long as you want it to. 

In its favour, I found that this bubble bar lasted a good five baths - making it one of the longest lasting ones when compared to every reusable bubble bar I have tried from Lush so far. Little Dragon also turned the water a lovely deep, red colour - a warming sight that stayed prominent throughout the whole experience. 

Unfortunately, I found that the fragrance of this bubble bar dissipated quite quickly in the tub. Within five minutes of submerging myself under the water, I found that I could only really detect a faint ginger scent coupled with the smell of hot water - an aroma that wasn't as lovely as it had been straight from the packet. 

Although the scent remained at this level for the rest of my bath, it wasn't strong enough for me to enjoy over the products I was using, and it didn't leave an impression on my skin afterwards. Furthermore, the water itself was nowhere near as soft and nourishing as a normal Lush bubble bar would have been, and I still had to moisturise afterwards which was dissappointing. 

By itself, I don't think this bubble bar has that much to offer, and I think I'd probably get a better (although perhaps less colourful) experience using a blob of Hot Toddy Shower Gel instead. Having said that, it would be a great ingredient in a cocktail - offering the bubbles, the colour and the spicy element to any bath, as long as there was another product to support it in the tub.

While you may be wondering why I have rated it so highly when I seemingly didn't enjoy the experience all that much, I do recognise that this is great value for money for those who might enjoy the smell, appreciate how many uses they'll get out of it and for the fact that it does produce a lovely effect in the water. 

Perhaps this is a bubble bar that needs to be coupled with a very moisturising shower gel or soap to get that much desired silky-soft skin. However, there are too many amazing products on offer from Lush for me to worry about making this one 'work' for me. This is probably not a product I would be in any rush to buy again. 

Quantitative Ingredients: Sodium Carbonate, Cream of Tartar (Potassium bitartrate), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Glycerine, Lauryl Betaine, Perfume, Ginger Oil (Zingiber officinale), Clove Bud Oil (Eugenia caryophyllus), Cinnamon Leaf Oil (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), Alpha-Isomethyl ionone, Lilial, *Benzyl Benzoate, *Cinnamal, *Citral, Coumarin, *Eugenol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Gold Glimmer Lustre (Synthetic Fluorphogopite, Iron Oxides, Silica.), Colour 14700.

Vegan?: Yes.

2015 Price: £5.95 each.

2016 Price: £5.95 each.

Year Of Original Release: 2015.