Lush 9 To 5 can be found amongst the cleansers within your local Lush store. I love the cleansers from Lush and have probably tried most of the items on sale. This product is sold in a black bottle and comes in two different sizes, you can either opt for a 95g bottle which will set you back £4.75 or you can buy the bigger bottle which costs £9.25 for 240g and naturally I opted for the bigger bottle and duly took my goods home. The bottle itself for interest is pure black plastic and has a black flip top lid which is easy to open and close and around its middle is a label which details the name and size of the product and obviously the Lush logo. It is quite blandly presented but it's what's inside that counts!
When it comes to cleansers there is a reason that I particularly like to use them. So why cleanse? Well living in London it's a polluter haven, lots of cars, buses, trains and tubes all equalling lots of pollution which in turn leads to dirt and grime on the skin. Since living in London, having moved down Sarf from oop North, I have noticed a change in my skin, it is now much dryer and oily in parts, so this has lead to my using more products to try and combat all of this. So Cleansing the skin, which should be part of everyone's daily routine, is done to remove sweat, air pollution, excess oil, grime, cosmetics and bacteria, all of which lead to skin problems and sometimes infection. Cleansing your skin isn't an arduous task, infact it takes me less than an extra five minutes a day to complete this routine, which isn't a lot really.
Lush 9to5 is marketed as being a 'liquid cleanser' and usually with a cleanser it would involve using it in a similar way you use soap and that is by wetting your face and then lathering the cleanser in the palms of your hand and then massaging over your face for a few minutes before rinsing it off and this is certainly what I had been doing with the Wash Away Clinique Cleanser.
However, with 9to5 you don't need to do any of that, after washing and drying your face as you would normally do in a morning and an evening, all you will then need is a cotton wool pad or ball (I use a pad because the balls make me feel queasy when touching them, even now I've gone cold all over thinking about them) and you simply squeeze a small walnut sized blob onto the cotton wool pad and you simply wipe it over your face, paying attention to your problem areas, which in my case is my cheeks and t-zone where I have dry and oily skin and once you have completed this task, look at the cotton wool pad and despite washing your face thoroughly you will probably notice that this lotion has managed to remove even further excess dirt, grime, oil, make-up etc... without fail every time I use this cleanser on my face after washing, it will remove excess dirt and grime - Yuck! After using it on your face it doesn't leave behind any greasiness or slimy feel on the skin, just soft smooth and moisturised feeling skin. There is also a lovely fragrance of honeysuckle and ylang-ylang left on your skin.
The cream itself is really smooth to the touch, as soon as it touches your skin you can feel its smoothness and it is such a gentle cream which sinks into your skin without a problem. For anyone who hasn't tried it, I would suggest going into a Lush store and asking them if you can try it, they will use the back of your hand as a tester area. So after it is applied to your skin, using the cotton wool pad your skin should feel silky soft and smooth to the touch, which mine always does without fail and your skin should no longer feel dry instead completely moisturised and this is down to the ingredients.
As ever with Lush you can expect to see a long list of ingredients which the shop assistant went through with me at the time of testing this product. Starting with:
- Almond oil which you can smell slightly when using, it is easily absorbed into the skin to help with moisturising and is suitable for use on all skin types, especially for someone like me with sensitive skin, it causes no irritations.
- Ylang Ylang oil and this helps to balance the sebum in your skin which can create that over oily look especially around your T-zone (nose, chine and forehead) and in controlling and balances the sebum it also helps deal with overly dry and oily skin. Ylang Ylang also helps soften and smooth the skin. Next is the main ingredient and the one which gives the most noticeable aroma and that is
- Fresh Dove Orchid Extract which are used to calm and soothe irritated skin and by irritated skin they mean dry problematic skin which is need of a little extra TLC and moisturising. For me, the Dove Orchid Extract is the most noticeable fragrance because it reminds me of the Orchid that I was given for my birthday last year and the aroma is just really lovely.
- Everlasting Flower Absolute, again not something I have come across before and I was told that it acts as an antiseptic on the skin to ward off infection whilst at the same time it helps to rehydrate the skin.
And it is suitable for Vegans!
So with all of that knowledge and those ingredients it isn't hard to see why this cleanser comes highly recommended not only from Lush but from me. Having used it since the beginning of November, every day in a morning and in an evening before going to bed I am still amazed at how soft my skin feels after using this cleanser and still shocked that it manages to find dirt and grime on a daily basis, even after I have washed my face.
At the minute I alternate between using this and another Lush product and having purchased this one just over 2 and a half months I am surprised to say that I have got just over half the bottle left to use and that is with using it on a daily basis and the reason for this is that you don't need to use that much at any time yet it is simple, easy and effective and it ranks highly up on my list of my favourite Lush products and it is something that I am going to continue to use long after it has run out.