Hand Of Friendship Soap

You cannot fault the idea behind this soap release - a product equipped with a message, and one where 100% of the profits made from selling the soap goes towards an amazing cause. With an increasing number of refugees arriving in North America on a daily basis, Lush are using their Friendship Fund, and the many organisations associated with it, to both raise awareness of the plight of these families, and to generate the financial means by which to provide the relief. 

A limited edition release, Hand Of Friendship Soap didn't exactly have to be the most attractive soap in order to convince me to invest - the fact that it's a Lush product is enough as it is; the fact that it's backing an ethical cause more or less sealed the deal. However, it happens to sport an amazing design on top of all of this, and this makes it a clear winner in my eyes.

Firstly, I was impressed when I received the soap and discovered that it shared its aroma with the very unique Cyanide Pill Bath Bomb. As this ballistic is exclusive to Oxford Street and the soap is a US-only release, it's unfortunate that most people will only be able to obtain one of the two products - meaning that this fact would have probably remained hidden for a long while.

Mirroring the almond, cedarwood, rosewood and lemon oil that features in the bomb, this soap is a strange collaboration of cherry and almond - a combination that smells like a bundt cake or an exquisite fruity liqueur. Hand Of Friendship has an equal layer of both cherry and a creamy, marzipan-esque almond, that makes it far tamer than the likes of Happy Blooming Shower Jelly and Bath Melt.

If you really spend some time with this product, you can make out the gentle cloudiness of the rosewood, and the subtle sweetness of the lemon oil. However, this is one of those fragrances that has been combined really well, and it is difficult picking out the different elements, unless you're really trying to.

With a base made from both coconut and rapeseed oil, this soap is also incredibly soft on the skin. While it's definitely not the easiest to lather up, once it does, you can feel how soft and oily the foam is. I actually found it a lot more effective to stimulate the foam in the palm of my hands and then distribute it across the skin to clean myself with.

Upon rinsing, I found that not only did the scent linger fairly prominently on my body, but my skin did feel really clean and smooth, and it almost felt as if my skin was glowing. Unfortunately, like most of the soaps from Lush, I still found that my skin did feel fairly taut after use, and definitely not as moisturised as a shower gel would leave it.

Having said that, I have come to recognise and understand that my skin is clearly not suited to soaps at all. So rather than focus on the negative aspects of this product, I'm going to focus on the fact that design, scent and productivity wise, Hand Of Friendship is a great product, and one that I would recommend that you seek out if you can.

Quantitative Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Glycerine, Rapeseed Oil; Coconut Oil (Brassica napus; Cocos nucifera), Sorbitol, Fragrance, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Stearate, Titanium Dioxide, Almond Essential Oil (Prunus Amygdalus amara), Rosewood Oil (Aniba rosaeodora), Cedarwood Oil (Juniperus virginiana), Sicilian Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, *Citronellol, *Coumarin, *Eugenol, *Farnesol, *Geraniol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Sodium Chloride, Mica, Sodium Hydroxide, EDTA, Tetrasodium Editronate, Iron Oxides, Red 4, Red 28, Red 33. 

Vegan?: Yes.

2016 Price: $5.95 each.

Year Of Original Release: 2016.

Scent Family: 

31 States Bath Bomb

Cyanide Bath Ballistic

Cyanide Liquid Perfume

Hand Of Friendship Soap