Mystery Machine™

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)!

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.

Delicately floral and somewhat citrusy, the scent of neroli is distinctively cheering.

Neroli oil comes from the bitter orange tree (Citrus aurantium amara), which is an evergreen member of the Rutaceae plant family. Many parts of the tree are used for perfuming and culinary purposes. The fruits flavour food and drinks, and the flowers are distilled to produce neroli oil and orange flower absolute. Petitgrain oil is also obtained from the leaves and twigs of this same tree.

Neroli is naturally uplifting and widely used in aromatherapy for its stress-relieving effects. This oil is a true luxury, as the distillation process requires a lot of flowers to produce just a little. 

Marie-Anne de La Trémoille (1642 - 1722) named the bitter orange flower oil ‘neroli’ after the city Nerola in Italy of which she was the princess. She loved to wear the oil as a perfume and created a trend in European royal courts - she would probably be called an influencer nowadays.

Lush sources a few different neroli oils from several different suppliers. To find out more, 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!

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.

Fresh cosmetic ingredients are more effective on skin, hair, and mind than heavily preserved beauty products. 65% of our raw material spend is on natural ingredients.

All of our products are made by hand, fresh, every day, across 6 manufacturing sites all over the world. We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud.

It's better naked. 66% of products sold each year are packaging-free.