Santa's Christmas Shower Cream

Lush is about as unpredictable as you can possibly get when it comes to their releases. Products that seem incredibly popular suddenly find themselves being discontinued to the shock of the masses; scents that create an instant buzz seem to fade into the distance, never to be seen or heard from again; fragrances that are rarely spoken about within the community, are suddenly made the focal point of a seasonal release.

I cannot imagine that there would be many people who ever envisaged Santa Baby being made into a Shower Cream, let alone one that would be so prominent in this year's Christmas range. While not in anyway bad, the fragrance is not exactly one that inspires a strong reaction from most people, myself included, and Lush must have had some reason for including it in their collection this year. 

Santa's Christmas is a new addition to the company's ever-growing collection of Shower creams - a sweet and creamy fruity concoction of ingredients that is as impressive as the vibrant shade of red that it offers in the bottle. Featuring both a coffee and a cinnamon infusion; lime, black pepper and aniseed oils, you would expect the scent of this to be very different from the one that greets you from the bottle. 

With so many different components, you would expect a strong, complex aroma to contend with. However, I found that this shower cream was far milder in fragrance than I was expecting, which is perhaps why it hasn't made as much of an impact on my senses as some of the more 'in your face' products.

From the bottle, the initial smell, that both myself and the majority of people who I've spoke to about agree on, is one reminiscent of flat vanilla cola. There is a soft bed of creaminess that makes its presence known straight away - one laced with both lime and vanilla, with a delicate layer of cinnamon underneath to  add a little subtle seasonal spice.

Surprisingly, you will notice that there doesn't appear to be any vanilla in the ingredients list. However, the inclusion of the cocoa butter not only makes this shower cream rather moisturising on the skin, but it also offers a comforting blanket of sweetness that governs the aroma without a doubt. 

Strangely, I wasn't able to detect much of the coffee or the aniseed in the smell, although I would imagine that they do contribute to the overall 'roundedness' of the shower cream. Having said that, I did find that this product did well at cleaning my skin and leaving it feeling really smooth to the touch, and I wonder if both of these ingredients helped to give my skin some much needed clarity, that I did notice I could feel afterwards.

When compared to the naked version of this shower gel, I found that Santa's Christmas was quite hard to lather up, whereas the solid edition did produce some of a standard-looking lather. In regards to this version, I found myself using more than I would with a shower gel, just to ensure that I had enough to clean myself with.

Furthermore, I found it quite ironic, given the fact that Lush have brought out a solid version of this, as Santa's Christmas was perhaps the thickest shower cream I have used from the company to date. You really have to squeeze the bottle hard to get the product out, and it comes out as a thick paste, almost sharing its consistency with that of wasabi.

Despite this, I found that the scent of this version was much stronger and I was able to detect it longer on my skin. Furthermore, there is something rather enjoyable about using a shower cream that temporarily turns your skin the colour red because of how potent the colour is.

This is by far one of my least favourite seasonal shower creams to date, but only because the likes of Yummy Mummy and Prince Charming have set the bar so high in comparison. I will enjoy using my 250g bottle for the foreseeable future, but I don't see this as being one I would want to purchase again, or stock up on before the Christmas season is over.

Quantitative Ingredients: Glycerine, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Cocoamphoacetate, Water (Aqua), Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter, Almond Oil, Stearic Acid, Coffee Infusion, Cinnamon Infusion, Cetearyl Alcohol, Lauryl Betaine, Perfume, Triethanolamine, Lime Oil, Aniseed Oil, Black Pepper Oil, Benzoin Resinoid, Fresh Lime Juice, Fresh Orange Juice, Titanium Dioxide, *Citral, *Limonene, Colour 16035, Colour 73360.

Vegan?: Yes.

2017 Price: £10.95 for 250g, £17.95 for 500g.

Year Of Original Release: 2017.

Scent Family:
Santa Baby Lip Tint
Santa Baby Naked Lip Tint
Santa's Christmas Naked Shower Cream


Santa's Christmas Shower Cream