Lush Buying Guide 2026: The 6 Best Bath and Body Buys

Angels on Bare Skin is the product that best explains Lush. It is a soft, crumbly block of ground almonds, kaolin clay and glycerine with lavender, rose and chamomile blue oils, which turns into a cleansing milk once you add water. Lush calls it gentle enough for “the stroppiest of skins” and says a lab test, run on cells rather than people, found it non-irritating. Those are the brand’s words. It is self-preserving, and the page tells you to use it within three months.

The low-rated UK reviews are mostly about use rather than results: too dry and crumbly, awkward to spread, bits left in the eyes and hairline, and a lot of water needed to rinse it off. A few found the smell hard to like, and a handful reported breakouts. Skin reactions are individual, so buy one pot and see.

Shampoo bars are where Lush’s packaging-free argument is strongest, and this is its bestseller. The 55g bar uses the scent of the brand’s Honey I Washed The Kids soap, with fairly traded honey and bergamot oil; Lush says the honey draws moisture into the hair. Read the ingredients before the marketing: the first is sodium coco-sulfate, a conventional foaming agent, so it lathers like a liquid shampoo.

The one-star reviews on Lush’s UK site fall into three groups. Some found it left hair dry, knotted or “straw-like”, and a few blamed a formula change. Some said it irritated their scalp. And a few found the bar went soft or broke apart, which is why the product page suggests keeping it in a tin or cork pot, sold separately. Left in a wet shower tray, it will not last.

Sleepy is the Lush lotion people give as a present, and the page is unusually candid about it: “We’re not saying that this malty lotion will help you sleep.” What it is, according to the ingredient list, is oat milk, almond oil, lavender water and cocoa butter, with tonka and ylang ylang in the scent. It comes in four sizes, from a 50g pot to 440g, and it is self-preserving, so the small pot is the sensible first buy.

The criticism in Lush’s UK reviews is nearly all about scent. Several long-time buyers say a newer pot smelt nothing like their old one, describing it as burnt, sickly or like rubber, and a few found almost no lavender at all. Others found it sticky or slow to sink in. Smell it in a shop before you buy the big tub.

Bath bombs are what Lush is famous for, but they are single-use and fragile in the post. The Comforter is the better buy. It is a 200g slab of bubble bar, scented with cassis absolute and bergamot oil, that you crumble under the running tap for pink water and a lot of foam. Several UK reviewers say a quarter is enough, which turns £7.50 into a handful of baths.

The weak spot is the scent, again. Lush describes it as a blackcurrant sweet, and some buyers who expected mixed berries did not like it. Others say the fragrance fades once it hits the water, and one recent reviewer got a bar with no scent at all as a loyalty reward. A 2024 reviewer complained the bars had shrunk to half their old size. The foaming agent is sodium laureth sulfate.

Sticky Dates is the shower gel Lush calls its number one bestseller. It is made with organic date syrup (the page says 25%), vanilla, sandalwood oil and benzoin, and smells, by most reviewers’ accounts, of toffee or sticky toffee pudding. It first appeared in the 2022 Eid collection and was kept on all year. Sizes run from 125g to 580g.

It is very well rated, but the complaints are consistent. Lush describes it as a low-lather wash, and several reviewers found it watery and needed a lot to build foam, which makes a small bottle go quickly. Others say it smells wonderful in the bottle and of very little on the skin. One asked Lush to drop the sodium lauryl sulphate. Price is the other theme: some long-time buyers now wait for the Boxing Day sale.

Scrubee is a scrub in bar form: ground coconut shells and almonds for the grit, and honey, extra virgin coconut oil, cocoa butter and shea butter to leave something behind on the skin. It is 100g, solid, sold without packaging, and carries a melt warning on the page: keep it cool, and in the fridge in hot weather.

That butter content is the source of almost every complaint. Recent one-star UK reviews describe a waxy, lard-like coating that took several washes to remove, oil on towels, and a shower floor slippery enough to be a hazard. One reviewer blamed it for a blocked drain. A few thought the honey scent had changed, and one found a bar lasted only two uses. Use it on dry patches rather than all over, and rinse the tray afterwards.