Tunnel Of Love Soap

As I was travelling nonstop since the beginning of this year, I had no time at all to read up on all of the new seasonal products that were coming out around that time. One of the biggest shocks that I faced when arriving home to all of my goodies, was the fact that there were so many soaps to comprehend with. It's hard to imagine Lush having the room to produce the regular soaps, let alone the three million (or so it seems) seasonal blocks that have come out since the beginning of January. 

While by far one of the most boring looking pieces of the lot, Tunnel Of Love Soap is easily one of the better smelling ones for sure. With a baby pink outer shell and a white heart threaded throughout each piece, it's not exactly the most original to look at, nor the most appealing if you were searching for something to buy a loved one. However, the wonderful smell will certainly bowl you over.

Supposedly sharing its scent with the limited edition Never Mind The Ballistics Bath Bomb that came out during the Christmas season, this soap does not have the usual predictable rose-scented fragrance that you might expect it to possess. Having said this, I wouldn't say that the scent of the soap is a direct replica of the bath bomb. In fact, I would even argue that the smell of this soap is far stronger and much more appealing.

To my nose, I get two different notes at the same time. On the one hand, the orange and lime oils amalgamate together and create a sweet, fruity note that has the slightest hint of 'green' alongside it. This creates a scent that is very playful and youthful and possesses what I would describe as being almost a sherbety element. Alongside this, the rose water base creates a sweet but slightly damp-like floral component. It is this note that I think grounds all of the smells together, and also creates a juxtaposition that makes the fragrance of this soap so unique. 

When compared to Never Mind The Ballistics, this is definitely far stronger and more interesting, and lasts far longer on the skin after you've used the soap. While the soap itself is slightly reserved during storage, the scent comes out a lot more through the heat of the shower, and it does linger on the skin for a short while after you've towelled yourself down. 

What was interesting about this soap was its consistency. Having done a little research, I discovered that Lush created this soap to act a little like a FUN Bar as well as a soap. This is why Tunnel Of Love is a little softer than most other soaps, and why it creates more of a thick, oily lather than a soft, frothy one.  Although it cannot be broken off into pieces like FUN, it was definitely far softer in the water. While other soaps tend to kill any bubbles that are present in the bath tub, and dry out the water a little, I was able to use this one without facing these issues at all. 

Being a soap still means that I didn't find it to be as moisturising as any of Lush's creams or gels. However, I was impressed to find that my skin felt soft and seemed to look slightly radiant after using this in the shower. In fact, I was so impressed with how my hands felt after my initial use, that I decided to use this primarily as a hand soap, and have found that it is one of the best Lush soaps to do the job.

On the positive side, this soap lasts a lifetime. I have been using my 100g block for a good three weeks now and it has barely altered in shape at all. Having said that, it is a little stubborn at producing enough lather to clean your whole body with and this is probably the reason why it hasn't shrunk all that much.

As with Tender Is The Night Naked Shower Cream, the release of Tunnel Of Love has only made me hope that more products with this scent will come out in the near future. This fragrance works far better in soap format than it does as a bath bomb, and I can only imagine how wonderful this smell would work as either a massage bar or a shower gel.   

Quantitative Ingredients: Glycerine, Talc, Cornflour, Rose Water, Propylene Glycol, Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Water (Aqua), Organic Castor Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Kaolin, Perfume, *Limonene, Sweet Wild Orange Oil, Lime Oil, Olibanum Resinoid, Titanium Dioxide, Citric Acid, Sodium Bicarbonate, *Citral, Colour 45410, Colour 14700, Colour 17200.

Vegan?: Yes.

2018 Price: £4.95 for 100g.

Year Of Original Release: 2018.

Scent Family:
Festive Friends FUN Bar
Fun For All The Family Bubble Spinner
Never Mind The Ballistics Bath Bomb
Tunnel Of Love Soap