Stark Raving: LUSH

Most of the time, I feel pretty immune to expensive beauty products -- first, there is the part of me that abhors the fact that women make less money in this society for doing the same work as men and yet we are encouraged at every turn to spend much more of our disposable income to support entire industries that have been created to uphold that fundamental economic imbalance, e.g. "the blowout."

Second, my mother, until very recently, ran a day spa and so I have more useless, and yet very luxe, products laying around my place than I could use in a million years. And third, there was the YSL Beauty bender at Barneys a couple of years ago that I am still berating myself about (although it's all gorgeous and served me well at a time when "Look good, feel good" was the only thing I had going...).

It is definitely saying something, then, that I'm willing to gush about something new: ever since I got the Antwerp Shag, I have been a little obsessed with my hair...and it is absolutely true that LUSH Big Shampoo and American Cream Conditioner have only made a good thing better.

Comments

[Gwenda]

I am a total Lush whore. I love going into the store, how you smell it down the block and how you can't really smell anything while you're there. Love. The. Lush.

And their stuff tends to last a reallly long time, comparatively speaking. (I just ran out of Karma perfume that I bought TWO years ago.)

But basically, other than that and the sample size crap my grandmother gives me a bag of every time I see her, I'm a neutrogena drug store girl.

[Editor]

Gwenda,

Yes -- I am close to wearing short shorts with LUSH printed across the back, just to testify my love. The Big shampoo has SEA SALT and LIME JUICE in it, both of which are clearly discernable and the perfect antidote to hot sticky weather.

Yeah, the drugstore can be marvelous -- there is a line called Apt. 5 that is exclusive to the Duane Reade chain here in New York that is pretty smashing, if only for the packaging -- clear, square Lucite -- alone. The colors and price point are perfect for impulse buys. The Duane Reade shopping bag is also known for its low-down chic mystique.

The rest of the time, I spend wishing that I had Gwyneth's budget for a macrobiotic chef and all the genuinely "rich hippie" Dr. Haushka products a woman could desire.

xoxo,
LC