I've tried Lush's Fresh & Flowers subscription box

     I promise, this is not a beauty blog and reviewing cosmetics won't become a regular thing; I was just gifted with the newest concept from a brand that I've been loving for the past decade so I thought it would be nice to keep a memory of that one time thing.

Lush is the brand that saved my skin back in my dreadful teenage years and their hair products are among the best on the market in my opinion. All of their products are vegetarian – most of them are vegan, the ingredients and final products are tested on humans only and many ingredients come from small producers who respect both the environment and their workers. That's what I like about this brand. Lately, Lush has been experimenting with new things like concept-stores that sell only exclusive bath products or perfumes or, here in Paris, the freshest cosmetics in an exclusive store called the Fresh & Flowers. The brand has always been boasting about how fresh their products are (and they are!) and at the Fresh & Flowers, everything is fresher than freshness itself, as it appears. This means packaging-free products with a very short lifespan and little to no preservatives, cosmetics to be appreciated right after being purchased, the fresher the better. I don't care too much about the freshness of the products I use in my bathroom (if only you knew how many expired lipsticks and eyeshadows I own), but I guess if you're really into clean, green, fresh cosmetics, that's nice. This shop also sells seasonal flowers, locally cultivated in the Paris region, pesticide-free. That's nice too if you're into flowers, another thing I don't care much about. All this to say that within this new concept, Lush just launched this month their newest idea : the Fresh & Flowers subscription box. For 50€ each month shipping included, you're treated to a box full of various super-fresh products to take care of yourself, and a small bouquet of seasonal locally grown flowers. I don't have the money to put this much into self care each month, but I guess ordering one from time to time as a treat or gift for someone you like could be an option, especially if the theme of the box is to your liking. The one I've been gifted was all about Valentine's Day, I don't give a damn about Valentine's Day, not because it's another commercial holiday, after all life is nothing but a commercial holiday, but because I'm not a fond of roses and chocolate-scented stuff. Now let's dig in and see what we got.

  

 First of all, I think it's relevant to note that you'd better be home when the parcel is delivered, otherwise you'd have to pick it up at your local post office whenever you can, which can lead to your products rotting in the box. Again, super fresh products that need to be stored in the fridge and all. Luckily, I was home the day the box arrived. The packaging was cute, everything had an overpowering scent of rose, I was just surprised at how tiny the box was, I imagined the flowers already starting to decay inside, squished on top of the products. But I was wrong to worry about this, the flowers were doing alright. I was just really surprised to see red roses. The Fresh & Flowers concept store opened one or two years ago –  I can't remember, and at that time Lush promoted it by taking pride in the fact that their flowers were seasonal and how red roses in February were not seasonal and hence, ludicrous. Finding fresh red roses in this box made me mirthless laugh. Aside from this very tiny "bouquet", the box included four products : Glen Cocoa (ok, this made me smile) a chocolate face-mask, Tisty Tosty a bath bomb made from roses, Fresh Flower a flowery enfleurage (fancy massage bar), Rose Eyepad, the name is self-explanatory, and a sealed note. If you know me you know I've always sealed my mail with wax, so I was definitely not impressed; I was even less impressed when I opened the letter, expecting to find informations about the products. Instead, when I found this "love spell" I cringed. Hard.

Oooo so #witchy.

 I put the tiny roses in a tiny vase and stored the products in my fridge, between the goat cheese and the tofu, hoping to get rid of the strong rose scent. I noticed the bath bomb had a self-love message engraved on it that said "I choose to love and accept myself as I am in this moment" which I found pretty cute and decided to keep it for a day when I'd need to be remembered of that. I tried the face mask first but wasn't convinced as the ingredients contained don't do much for my dry skin. I had to wash it off after three minutes because it started to burn my face. I guess it just wasn't the right face mask for my needs. I also tried the most intriguing item of the box, the Rose Eyepads. They had the texture of an oyster and the scent of a fish market, which was quite bewildering. On the instructions it was written that they were single use items. I don't quite understand why, as they look like you could always put them back in your fridge and take them out again. But I didn't get a chance to try to reuse them, because they lit my eyes on fire. They burned the hell out of my eyes and made my eyelids super itchy. I felt just like poor Gollum during the whole 4 minutes I had them on :

 After removing them, I read the ingredients and... they were made from aloe gel. Oh no. I'm highly allergic to aloe. That's not Lush's fault, it's entirely my bad, I'm too naive and wasn't expecting to be gifted a product that would try to kill me or at least blind me. I should have distrusted them from the beginning, they looked just like those stones painted with eyes that people put on their dead in Game of Thrones, I should have known that this was a bad omen and the sign that they were already prepared for my demise. Aside from those pesky eyepads, no product tried to kill me and I quite enjoyed the rest of the offering. As mentioned in the beginning of this article, I wouldn't put 50€ in a monthly box of that kind, but if you're really into self-care, exclusive products and "seasonal" flowers, then once in a while, it could be a nice and fancy treat.