Igenlode Wordsmith

I'm still getting spam via fanfiction.net (thanks to its PM alert still being connected to my GMail account), despite not being able to view the site:

Dear, i have read one of your book and i am very honored to offer you to try publishing your novels with us, exclusive or nonexclusive. the following are the welfares of our company. if you have more questions, please mail me at or hit my inbox in my facebook. p?id=100058122373339

(Apparently they hadn't even done enough research/experimentation to realise that FFnet aggressively strips anything that even looks like a URL, including sentences where a space has been missed after a full stop...)

I read somewhere that the mangled English in these communications is actually seen as an asset, on the grounds that anyone who is prepared to respond to the offer despite the obvious unprofessionalism of the writer is by definition going to be an easy mark - pre-selection for gullibility :-(

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I used some 'liquid shampoo' for the first time in years yesterday, after having been converted to the practicality of the Lush hair soap. I was taken aback by just how *much* I had to squeeze out: at least a fifth of the whole bottle for a single wash. Admittedly my hair was very greasy and badly needed washing, but even under those circumstances I'd only expect to need five or six rubs with the hair soap, which has lasted me since last August and is only now starting to look rather diminished.

Of course when it's liquid a fair proportion of the extra volume is simply taken up by water, but even so, it's a stark reminder of just how much extra washing (as well as less packaging) you get out of a single purchase of concentrated solid shampoo.

I went to buy another bar of Lush's Soak and Float shampoo to deal with my particularly bad dandruff, the last bar having finally been reduced to a couple of slivers the length of my thumbnail. (At £7·50, it's not as cheap as it was but it's still good value for a medicated product that lasted me a couple of years.)

This shampoo used to be famous as the only Lush product you absolutely shouldn't sniff, ( Read more... )

This summer I've been using the Lush solid Sunblock. It wasn't actually what I went in looking for (I was much more interested in the idea of their powdered sunscreen, since I hate the greasy feel of your average suntan lotion), but it was the only high-SPF product they had; I don't sunbathe for fun, and my general idea is not to tan at all, though by the end of the summer I generally end up with a noticeable and somewhat ludicrous difference between weathered face and hands and pale body.
(I'm someone who has received the astonished comment -- from a Ghanian -- of "so that's why they call you white people" when she caught sight of my midriff!)

For some reason the Sunblock is marketed as a shower-on product, though I really don't understand how that is supposed to work on something that appears to be basically a non-water-soluble cocoa-butter base, and would surely make a nasty greasy mess of the towels. Also, I prefer to wash after going out in the sun and getting all sweaty and hot, not before.
But the sales assistant advised me simply to use this product like one of their massage bars -- run it over the skin until it melts at body temperature, then rub in the resulting oils -- and this seems to be what everybody who reviewed it on the Internet ended up doing. ( Read more... )

Having been given a bag of assorted soap products from Lush (a.k.a. 'the smelly shop') as a present earlier this year, I was rash enough to go out and purchase with my own money a slice of their 'Sultana of Soap', a confection made to look exactly like nougat right down to the fruit and nuts embedded in its top. (This does seem to me to be going a little too far; one can't eat sultanas impregnated with soap, one can't wash with them, and as a result they just come off and float around in the bathwater. Generally they get scooped up before blocking the plughole and then sit in a little pile on the windowsill in a rather revolting way.)

Anyway, there was a sample sliver of this stuff in my 'gift pack', and I actually liked it much the best of all the products that were in fact included (even if my bedroom did end up with a tendency to smell like the proverbial bordello...), so I thought I would treat myself and buy a proper-sized slice.

I hadn't realised it was quite such sensitive stuff!

Every time I used it (and I've been having a few extra baths on Lush's account recently...) I left it on my windowsill to dry out overnight. But every morning I found it beaded with moisture; and over the course of several days unused, the droplets grew larger and larger, ran together into little puddles, and began to collect in a pool of scented oil beneath the bar. This was getting more than a little messy... and I could see my expensive un-birthday-present literally disappearing before my eyes, as it continued to weep away its vital essence.

Panicked, I went back to the shop and asked for advice. The assistant listened to my tale of woe and advised me that this particular soap was notoriously 'soft' and rich; if kept too warm or if not kept dry, it had a tendency to melt. This sounded like exactly what mine was busy doing!

In an unheated building, it seemed unlikely to me that the soap could possibly be getting hotter than it was in the shop. So in a quest to stop my Sultana of Soap from weeping, I tried extreme measures; the next time I used it I made sure to rinse away all the accumulated oil, disposed of the (by now highly soggy) wrapping, cut a piece of greaseproof paper from the larder, and put it in the warmest place I could find to dry out. Then, instead of leaving it on the cold windowsill for condensation to gather overnight, I wrapped it up securely and put it in the bottom of a stout paper bag at floor level.

A few days ago I ventured to investigate the results; complete success. The disintegration appeared to have been halted, and the slab was again as solid and creamy-white as when I had bought it in the shop. I wouldn't have to make haste to use it all up in a rush before it fell to bits!

But in future, for a more practical result, I plan to take a new approach. I'm going to cut off a wedge at a time — sufficient for four or five baths — and keep that in the makeshift plastic box I created to sit on the windowsill and restrain the perfume. That way, it won't get a chance to build up a 'critical mass' of essential oils, but will just sit there slightly beaded on the surface as it did before...

At least, that's what I plan to do just so soon as I have finished off the tester sliver of Snowflake soap I was given when I bought this last one, of course!