SOS Liquid Perfume

There are times when my mind works a lot slower than I would like to admit, and I occasionally find myself rolling my eyes at the sheer silliness of what I've either done or said. When it comes to the confusing conundrum of Lush products, there are times when I struggle to make links between scent families, or completely miss the pun in the name altogether.

This particular product did just that, leaving my brain stewing over why I recognised the fragrance, and only tying it all together when I was re-organising my Lush stash and just happened to come across a product that sparked my recognition. That product was the limited edition SOS Solid Shampoo Bar, which alongside the wonderful Orangutan Soap, shares the same scent as this brand new Lush perfume. 

What I will say is that SOS Liquid Perfume offers the best version of this fragrance, in my opinion. There is something longer-lasting and more prominent about each of the notes on offer here. However, the exclusive is still very much on par with the products I mentioned above, and fans of this smell will no doubt want to buy a few bottles of this to keep close.

From my experience, it took a few minutes for the perfume to really start getting to work on the skin. At first you get a very dry, earthy almost smouldering patchouli scent. I use the word smouldering because it actually smells very slightly burnt to my nose, which is unique when compared to other patchouli products. However, immediately after this the orange oil comes through on its own, adding a brightness to the fragrance and coaxing the patchouli to come out of its shell a little more.

The orange oil itself is what I’d describe as dry and fruity, which means that it’s lost the juiciness of the fruit in this format, but you can still smell the distinctiveness of the fruit. In fact, it's almost like a rounded combination of the fruit itself and the bitterness of the skin being peeled as well.

Overall, I would describe SOS as being a very green and sweet aroma, yet one with an underlying exotic and slightly spicy note as well. There is also a rather gentle note of what I can only describe as being like dirt, but this is not intended to be seen in a bad way. This earthiness tends to sit underneath the other more prominent notes and just keeps the perfume grounded when its on the skin. Ultimately, I think that this fact is why the orange oil sustains itself for much longer rather than just dispersing quickly as we see in other Lush fragrances.

In all fairness to SOS, the perfume projects itself well during the time it is on your skin, as I found that I could really detect bursts of the fragrance throughout the day, especially when I was doing anything that warranted the heat of my body to rise. Furthermore, the perfume has good silage as it stayed on my skin for a good three hours or more after applying it in the morning. To increase the life of this perfume, I also discovered that I could prolong the aroma by spraying it on my clothes instead. This way I was still able to smell the fragrance over five hours later.

This is definitely a very wholesome fragrance and one that shows just how unique Lush perfumes can be. Fans of this aroma will definitely appreciate the scent of this on the skin, and will definitely appreciate how close in smell it is to the other mentioned products. However, this isn't a perfume I particularly enjoyed wearing, and therefore not one I will be using on a regular basis.

Quantitative Ingredients: DRF Alcohol, Perfume, Dark Sumatran Patchouli Oil, Brazilian Orange Oil, *Limonene, Geraniol, *Benzyl Alcohol, *Benzyl Benzoate, *Benzyl Salicylate, *Citral, *Eugenol, *Farnesol, *Isoeugenol, *Linalool.

Vegan?: Yes.

2019 Price: £39 for 30ml.

Year Of Original Release: 2019.