Alina

Bergamot is a citrus fruit grown in Southern Italy and is known for perfuming Earl Grey tea. It yields a delightful essential oil that smells like ‘sunshine in a bottle’.

The bergamot tree doesn't like extremes. On the contrary, it enjoys a well-balanced environment and is consequently known as the most delicate citrus tree. The soil must be just right (not too dry, moist or chalky), and the weather must be temperate (not too hot, cold, or windy). If those conditions are met, the tree grows yellow-green fruits whose appearance and taste are a bit like an orange and a lime combined.

Bergamot oil soothes the skin and scalp and contributes to balance sebum production while keeping bacteria at bay.

It makes the hair shine!

Its unique scent profile makes it very versatile. It can complement and enhance sweet, floral, fruity, fresh, herbal, or warm perfume just as well.

When inhaled, its elevating fragrance clears the mind and encourages a sense of well-being.

Since 2005, Lush has sourced bergamot oil from a family business in Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. This dedicated page explains more about our supplier and the scent profile of bergamot oil.

Bergamot is featured in many Lush products with various scents! It would take too long to give you a complete list, but here is a selection of products if you are into citruses and a collection of scents that lift the mood (in our opinion)!

Spicy, sweet-scented cloves add warmth to perfumes and stimulate the blood flow. 

Cloves are the dried aromatic flower buds of a tropical evergreen tree of the Myrtle family. When drying, the buds change colour from rose to brown. They can then be sold raw or put through a process of steam distillation to obtain an essential oil with a warm, rich and spicy aroma.

Cloves are known to have antiseptic properties that are beneficial for soothing skin irritations.

They offer a helping hand with boosting circulation and blood flow.

Their unique spicy yet sweet fragrance also has an uplifting and stimulating effect on the mind.

Cloves are used in herbal medicine. They were first mentioned in Chinese medicine in about AD600. Particularly known for their soothing effect on toothaches, it is said that the ancient Chinese also used to hold a clove in the mouth to perfume their breath when speaking to the emperor.

At Lush, we buy an oil distilled from clove buds and one obtained from the plant's leaves. Depending on the part used, the scent will be subtly different. We also use a lot of dried cloves, especially for our exclusive winter festive products. Each of these materials will be purchased from another source. To find out more about them, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

The scent of patchouli is grounding and bewitching, and will transport you to dense Indonesian forests.

Patchouli is a fragrant bushy herb that belongs to the same family as mint. It can grow as high as three feet tall, with purple and white flowers growing from its long stems.

It has an earthy, warm aroma that takes you on a meditative journey. 

It is antibacterial and soothing to the skin and armpits. 

Its aroma is said to balance and ground the mind, and harmonise emotions.

On Saturday, 4th July 1846, the London Daily News advertised: “Viner’s patchouli is confidently recommended as the only remedy known to prevent moth. In foreign countries, the peculiar properties of this Indian perfume are highly appreciated.” This perfectly illustrates how patchouli arrived in England during the Victorian era: the plant's aromatic leaves were slipped into the folds of Indian textiles to avoid the ravages of insects during their journey to other lands. Impregnated with an unmistakable aroma, Indian shawls were sent to Great Britain, where they were all the rage. The ubiquitous scent soon became symbolic of luxury and the mark that distinguished a material of Indian origin.

The scent of patchouli made a comeback in the 1960s, also imported from Asia - but this time in backpacks! The Hippie Trail was a promising mystique adventure and, if lucky, a spiritual enlightenment. An overland round trip of roughly 12,000 miles, this trail took hippies through Istanbul to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India. Herbal handbook writer Stephen Orr writes that patchouli’s association with the era is “due to the Asian travels of backpacking hippies, who brought home the scented oil and incense as a reminder of their spiritual awakenings.”

The story also goes that patchouli oil was used to mask the scent of marijuana. In terms of pure usage, it’s plausible: cannabis was a booming business in the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was also suggested that marijuana and patchouli don’t smell all that different and hippies simply wanted their bodies to smell like their bedrooms. An argument can also be made that patchouli smells of fresh soil and roots, an ‘authentic’ scent that recalls hippies’ aspirations to connect with the natural world.

Patchouli is used in our products in several forms (essential oils, root…), and each of them can be purchased in different places worldwide. For example, our dark Sumatran patchouli oil comes from a remarkable producer, the Gayo Lues Permaculture Center in Indonesia. Their practices are designed to support the health of Sumatra and Borneo islands’ ecosystems, protecting the primary rainforest and its inhabitants, like the noble orangutans. 

To learn more about our other sources, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

Two of Lush’s most iconic fragrances contain patchouli. If you’re a fan of the earthy oil, have a look (and smell!) at our best-selling Karma and Lord of Misrule ranges.

Vanilla is the unmistakable, uplifting and sweet scent we all know and love.

Vanilla beans (pods) are the fruits of the orchid Vanilla planifolia. Centuries ago, one could only purchase vanilla from Mexico, as the flowers required a local bee to pollinate and grow the precious pod. Thanks to the discovery of a hand pollination technique in 1841, orchids can now be cultivated in most tropical areas close to the equator. This step requires specialised know-how and must be carried out a few hours after the flower opens; otherwise, it will wilt.

Each blossom produces a single bean, which is normally harvested after eight or nine months. The beans then pass through a complex curing process before becoming the black-brown fragrant spice we all know. This process usually involves four steps: soaking in hot water, sweating in a warm environment, drying for a few weeks, and conditioning (packing in boxes) to develop flavours.

It has a sweet fragrance with uplifting, de-stressing and aphrodisiac qualities.

The sugars in vanilla act as humectants, which minimise moisture loss.

The spice is soothing, softening and antibacterial for the skin.

Its main aromatic compound, vanillin, is an antioxidant that helps the skin to stay firm and radiant.

Since Madagascar, the world's first vanilla producer, stopped regulating vanilla prices in the 1990s, its trade has seen ups and downs. The latest struggles began in 2012 when very low harvests caused demand for the spice to exceed supply. Since vanilla is a rather rare natural delicacy that cannot be rushed, the situation quickly snowballed into huge price increases (over 100%), poor quality and crime.

In 2016, the situation in Uganda (where we buy our pods) became critical and was reported to us in an article by Lulu, owner of the Ndali farm. Resellers and agents working on commission began buying vanilla that was not even cured properly yet. Vanilla pods must reach maturity and undergo the full curing process to develop all the notes of their wonderful taste and aroma, and to prevent mould. During price crises, crops are sold far too early, and pods can even be stolen from the fields before they're ripe. Farmers try to expand their crops to meet demand, and governments implement drastic measures. Eventually, when things finally calm down, farmers find themselves with too much production and prices drop tragically, as has been the case since 2019.

We love natural vanilla so much that we couldn't stop using it. Thanks to our dedicated team of creative buyers, year after year and month after month, we have found solutions to the market’s turmoil. Find more information on each source in the description of the main vanilla ingredients we use:

Vanilla Extract, combines several ingredients whose comforting scent enhances our perfumes and skin-soothing cosmetics.

Vanilla Pod Powder, which adds vanilla’s signature tiny black dots to our products.

Want to dive straight into our range of vanilla-scented products? They're ready for you.

It pays to recycle with us! Return the packaging for this product to any a Lush shop and receive money towards your next purchase. Alternatively, return 5 qualifying items packaging for a free fresh face mask.

Your order will be expertly protected against impact during transit by biodegradable Eco-Pops, compostable packaging nuggets made from potato starch! They're easily dissolvable in water or soil.