Harajuku Bath Bomb

When I first arrived at the Showcase, I was initially drawn to the seven enormous piles of bath bombs that were stacked precariously like beautiful scented pyramids about to collapse under the weight of it all. Not one of them I had ever seen before so I immediately tried to seek out the avenues by which I could purchase them all to take home. When I realised that not one of them had a price tag around them, and allure docked next to timers, I realised that the task of adding them to my collection was not going to be as easy as I was expecting.

It turned out that each of the seven bath bombs were only there to show: to taunt excite Lush fans at the prospect of the new 'bath bomb' superstore opening up in Tokyo. You can imagine how the collector inside of me weeped when I thought I was going to have to go home empty handed. As it happened, I was lucky enough to acquire one of each to sample myself, and I can honestly say that I hope each and every one of them make an appearance in more than just a single store.

Harajuku Bath Bomb was probably the show-stopper of the exclusives. Not only is it named after the very place where the new store is going to be open, but it's also the strongest one in terms of fragrance. When travelling back from Manchester to London, this is the one product that overshadowed all of the other items I was carting back in my haul bag.

A completely new scent, this bath bomb contains both orange oil and vanilla absolute, amongst other ingredients that I have not yet been privy to finding out about. Yet, if there's one thing I can say about Harajuku, it's that it definitely does not smell like you'd imagine it to - given the new components we do know have gone into creating this fragrance. 

To my nose, this bath bomb was reminiscent of old school raspberry bubblegum: the sort that had been pumped so full of additives that you could almost hear your teeth breaking before you'd put it in your mouth. The raspberry scent is very sweet and super powerful, and coupled with a strong thread of tangy orangey goodness as well. For those looking for something more mature and gentle, you won't find it here. This is for those who want their baths smelling like nineties sweet shops, without having to worry about the cavities afterwards.

I absolutely adored this scent: there is just something so beautiful yet youthful about it that brought back so many memories of my childhood. While it wasn't my favourite out of the seven, it was definitely the one I was most attached to. I felt like I relived my early years whilst bathing in the water, and it would certainly be one I would use again. 

In the tub, this one is a very slow fizzer. While it starts by sending out waves of yellow and pink and blue and white very quickly, it doesn't take long for it to slow down quite a bit. Here it tends to bob on the surface for a while, while the water turns a light golden colour, and the lustre swirls around beneath. In fact, Harajuku takes a good twenty to thirty minutes to fully dissolve. While this is great at keeping the scent alive a little better in the tub, I found that the display of colours wasn't so impressive because the bath bomb was fairly slow at sending them out, and so they'd dissolve before there was enough to make an interesting patterns.

Whether my expectation so these bath bombs have been elevated because of Black Rose, I didn't find that the scent of this one was as strong as it could have been. Strangely, the scent was much stronger when I stood up a few times. Here I could smell the wonderful scent, in all of its powdery goodness. However, when I sat back into the water again, the fragrance was diluted quite a bit.

While moisturising, it wasn't as nourishing on the skin as Black Rose was again, and I did need to moisturise afterwards to retain the softness of my skin. Furthermore, I couldn't detect this on my skin at all after I had towelled myself down, which shocked me given how robust the scent was to begin with.

Overall, despite its flaws, the scent is beautiful enough, and the memories I've linked to it are amazing enough, that I would definitely purchase this again. Having said that, if Lush were to bring this out in shower gel or perfume format instead, I would be even more enamoured with that idea than with the bath bomb.

Quantitative Ingredients: Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Cream Of Tartar, Sodium Coco Sulfate, Brazilian Orange Oil, Benzoin Resinoid, Vanilla Absolute, Water, Cornstarch, Dipropylene Glycol, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Maltodextrin, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cinnamon, Citral, Coumarin, Limonene, Perfume, Colour 42090, Colour 45410, Colour 45350. 

Vegan?: Yes.

2018 Price: £6.95 each.

Year Of Original Release: 2018.