How are you?
Welcome to a brand new post! I went to Manchester last week, and I thought that I would talk to you all about it today. (I've been in pain due to the aftermath of the weekend, which is mainly why I have waited until the end of the week to write and post this.)
The adventure started off with myself and Luke getting up at the crack of dawn, and making sure that we were on the train before eight am on a Sunday. Yup you read that right, 8am on a Sunday. We made sure that we were on the right train and made our way to Manchester Victoria. When we finally got to the superb station, we stopped for a couple of minutes (checked our phones) and then made our way to Manchester Central Convention Centre.
After a good ten minute drive and a tour of Manchester via our taxi driver, we arrived at the centre. As there were two different queues for Lush Showcase, we asked to double check that we were making our way into the correct queue. When we were triple sure, we slowly made our way up the side of the grand building, and waited in queue whilst others chatted and waited their turn to get into the beautiful building. After about half an hour of waiting, we had our tickets scanned and made our way to the wristband queue then grabbed our wristband. The wristband had a chip in it which meant that you could 'check in' and out of the building easily when you wanted to. Think of it like how Contactless works on a card reader. We grabbed our #LushLabs bag (to find out the contents of the bag ensure to read the Showcase Haul which will be coming very soon), and made our way into the centre of this well, centre.
Myself and Luke decided to make our way to the Makeup stand first. We, well I, wanted to check out the new solid makeup including the Slap Sticks and the Glow Sticks. I had a wander around and talked to a lovely Lush staff member who told me all about the Slap Sticks, including that they contain amazing oils and waxes including, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Argan Oil, Sunflower Wax and Orange Peel Wax. She then matched me up to a shade, as there is a mixture of Cool, Neutral and Warm shades to choose from. I found out that the best one for me would be 8N, which is a pale neutral shade.
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I then checked out the Glow Sticks which were at a stand next to the solid foundations. The Glow Sticks again contain amazing oils for the skin including, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Jojoba Oil, Oat Kernel Oil and Rose Wax. These solid highlighters come in an array of shades that are all named after birds. This includes, Goldfinch, Pipit, Sunbird, Robin, Ibis, Lark, Rock Dove, Egret, Linnet, and, Peacock. Sadly I didn't try them all, but I do remember trying out Sunbird and Peacock in particular. Sunbird was a lovely metallic silver shade, and Peacock was an amazing yet bright blue shade. The highlighters are creamy and glide on easily. A little goes a long way with these products. The only problem that I had when trying them out was the product kept falling out of the wax holders.
We then checked out the new Harajuku range that is exclusive to the Lush Japan store. The Japan store will get over 80? (I think it's 80 but it might be more) bath bombs including the seven that were at Showcase. Two of them that I was in love with was Black Rose, which looked amazing and smelt of the amazing Rose Jam scent. I also loved the seashell one that smelt of Lemongrass. I loved the concept of these. You could kind of buy them at Showcase, but they all had timers next to them. I think that you had to wait for the timer to go off and then go buy it, but I wasn't sure. It's a bit of a shame as I would have loved to try them. We did get to use the mix of one of the Harajuku bombs to create our own sculpture. It smelt of sweet Bubblegum. We also checked out the Goddess Bath Bomb, because well, if God is a Bath Bomb, then I want one!
Next on the Lush Showcase tour was Handmade By You. The Handmade By You stand consisted of two different stages, where members of Lush staff were helping members of the public who were attending Showcase to create products including soaps, bath bombs and much more. We wandered over and was told that we could make either Ghost In The Dark Soap, or Atmospheres. We were told that Ghost In The Dark would take two hours to set. This meant that we went to the Atmosphere's stand, but it turns out that it was just a talk about the Atmospheres for those who don't know what they are. We went back to the Ghost In The Dark stand, and was sadly told that they wouldn't have any mixture for an hour. I know that things don't go to plan at big events like Showcase, but I think it might have worked easier if the handmade by you stand worked on a ticket basis, where you made it and was given a ticket to come back and collect the product. A ticket system might ensure that they have enough mixture for so many or something? I don't know, it's just an idea.
Even though we didn't get to make anything at the stand, we wandered on and was amazed, as we were asked if we would like to make a Christmas Bath Bomb called Cheery Christmas. Luke being Luke, couldn't see the mixtures or the moulds therefore, the lovely staff member made his for him. I actually got to make mine which included, pressing the powders into the mould, and leaving it to set.
Carrying on the walk around Showcase, the next place we went to, was the FUN House. Luke decided to not go onto it, but I did and I loved it! It consisted of chunky bouncy castle like steps with a floor at the top including, a FUN modelling table where you can make any shapes out of FUN, a stand where you could choose a bath bomb to push down a shoot, and the best bit of the house... A slide. Yes, my big childlike self went down the slide. I mean, if Lush provides a slide, you go down it!
After this, we went to the best part of the whole experience in my opinion. We went into a moving Shower Jelly room. The floors moved, the tables moved, everything moved. There were Shower Jellies of all different sizes and scents. Snow Fairy, Refresher, big, small, you name it! You could do anything with them include slap them, as they were already wobbling due to the shaking floor. Y'know where this is going, I went round the entire room slapping every Shower Jelly possible and then smelling my hand, due to the product getting onto it via slapping. I loved it.
Wandering through the building, we ended up in a sea of skin and hair care, therefore we decided to check out the hair care first. Showcase had stations where you could have your hair consulted by a member of staff, and then they would use products that are best for your hair for you to try out in the middle of showcase. They also had stations where you could style your hair, wirth new and exclusive products. I went straight for that. I tried out a plethora of new products including an amazing Hair Clay, and an amazing Hairspray. Lush creating Hairspray? Weird, I know but also, amazing! We then went to a stand that was showcasing a plethora of jelly cleansers, solid cleansers and much more. The Solid Cleansers were the Cleansers that are available in store (Herbalism, Angels On Bare Skin, Let The Good Times Roll, Dark Angels) wrapped up like Sushi Rolls. The Jelly Cleansers looked like Jelly Cubes and included scents such as Strawberry and Lemon Verbena. Next on our list was face care. This included the new Cleansers and Face Balms including Jade Roller, Like A Virgin, Sleepy Face and many more. They're apparently available via Lush Labs.
After this, we attempted to go to the shop. This had many problems including the card machines going down, and queues becoming very long. When we got into the queue, it was at about a two hour wait to get into the shop. Luckily and thankfully, a person in front of us asked a staff member if there was anything to do for me and Luke to skip the queue due to Luke, a cane and a two hour queue would not go well. They said they couldn't do anything and then came back twenty minutes and let us in. Personally, I'd love to thank Alex from the Lush White Rose store for sorting that out for us. We got into the store and even had a member of staff help us around the store. (Thank you Holly from the Lush White Rose branch).
We looked around the store and picked up everything from face masks, to bubble bars, to face care and everything in between. If you want to find out more about what I bought, then keep your eyes peeled for my Haul very soon. I would also like to thank the wonderful staff at Lush Harrogate and Lush York who recognised me when I was purchasing my products.
We headed to the hotel and shoved everything down. We sorted what we needed to out, and then thought about what we wanted to eat. Due to me being knackered from Showcase, and guiding Luke about all day, we decided to opt for Uber Eats and decided to have a bit of a pig out. I then filmed Luke's Lush Haul for his YouTube, and then decided to call it a night.
Did you go to Lush Showcase? Did you watch any of it? Did you get anything from it? Let me know down below!
I hope that you have enjoyed this travel and beauty filled blog post. I hope that you come back next time for another post. Don't forget to follow me on Social Media at thejamiesowden.
Thanks for reading!
Jamie x
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