Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Lush Veganese Conditioner

Welcome to the first official post of my reviews blog! In order to give this thing some gravity, I will probably put up a few reviews that some of you may have seen in other formats before. Feel free to skip them or relive the glory as you see fit, once they're up.

Anyway, first up is my review of Lush's Veganese hair conditioner.

I must admit that I was a skeptic at first. My hair is not meant to look fabulous. I'm lucky if my hair looks combed. I thought I was doomed to a life of frizz and horror. Veganese has alleviated that, somewhat.

Lush bills it as a completely Vegan hair conditioner. As a disclaimer, I am not a Vegan. I love meat. In fact, I wish I was eating a steak right now, preferably while wearing an awesome leather jacket. Nevertheless, the conditioner has a smell that is weird at first, but then grows on you as you realize that it is very pleasant and lemony.

The effect on my hair has been noticeable. I am not completely free of frizz, but my pitifully thin hair now does have some shine and manageability, and hey, isn't that what conditioner is all about? I use this conditioner in combination with Lush's Seanick shampoo (which is a solid blue bar with seaweed sticking out of it). So maybe I should be throwing some props Seanick's way, too.

Let me just add that there appears to be some conflict regarding the earth-friendly, Vegan nature of the conditioner and its packaging. When I ran out of the tiny bottle I had bought to try it out, I went back to Lush for more. I bought the medium bottle, as opposed to the large one, and brought it up to the register to pay.

The girl at the register gave me a concerned look. "You know, you save money if you buy the larger bottle, and it's better for the environment..." because of something to do with the packaging versus the amount of conditioner within. She squinted and nodded a bit when she finished, as if to say, of course I'd want to do the right thing by our beleaguered Mother Earth and buy the larger bottle.

I looked at her blankly for a few seconds. I then responded, "But can I buy this one?"

My cashier rang up my purchase, despite my obvious unworthiness to have shiny hair.

But my question is this -- if the medium bottle of Veganese conditioner is so much worse for the earth, why do they sell it?

Why do you hate the earth, Lush? Whhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy?

So, in short: Veganese conditioner is wonderful. The clerk who tried to upsell me was less wonderful. Lush might be plagued by ethical conflicts regarding their plastic packaging for their vegan conditioner.