Luscious Treats for Holiday Giving

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Others look forward to holiday gift shopping about as much as they look forward to rush-hour traffic. The lines, the people, the confusion ... you're lucky if you leave the stores with a quarter of what you intended to buy. Then when returning home, you question if whether your gift recipients will delight or cringe over the choices. But this holiday season things will be different.

Go to your local mall and you probably will happen across a LUSH store. It is billed as a cosmetics retailer, but a lot of people think it should just be called a dream come true to anyone who absolutely loves shopping for bath and body goodies by sight and smell. Who knew they are all over the country just looking to be discovered? Log onto www.lush.com and you'll find one near you.

Entering is akin to walking into your favorite bakery. But instead of creamy, crumbly and delicious-smelling treats you can eat on display, there are creamy, crumbly and delicious-smelling treats you can use all over your body on display. LUSH specializes in handmade, all-natural soaps, but they also have decadent Shower Jellies, Butter Creams, shower Emotibombs, liquid and solid shampoos/conditioners, fragrances, hair coloring, and so much more. On sight you'll know that heading back for holiday shopping will be a good idea and that you won't mind the shopping in the least.

Part of the novelty about the LUSH soaps and shampoos are that some are cut from giant blocks of the product, and so you can purchase just the amount you want. The salesperson will actually cut, weigh and wrap your selections in waxed paper. You'll think you're taking home a chunk of parmigiano-reggiano, but one sniff of your package will tell you otherwise.

LUSH actually began in the late 1970s in England making handmade soaps, massage bars and bath bombs -- effervescent scent balls to drop into bathwater. Today they have 500+ shops around the world bringing innovative and cleverly named products made of all-natural, fresh ingredients that are never tested on animals. With minimal packaging and little to no preservatives used in the products, LUSH items are great for both you and the environment. Seems the company was "going green" before it was chic to do so.

There are so many things to try out, but you may be instantly enamored with a relatively new addition to LUSH's extensive soap inventory: Porridge. It's a creamy, oatmeal-based soap infused with sweet orange oil and large bits of oats great for exfoliating the skin while you wash. It exudes a molasses, baked goods kind of smell while you're washing, but the scent doesn't really linger on your skin when you step out of the shower. It's likely that you'll also be sent home with a slew of samples to try. Youngsters will probably enjoy Honey I Washed the Kids Soap, with it's sweet, flowery scent and honeycomb design. Or try a chunk of Coalface with charcoal and licorice, purported to keep problem skin blemish-free.

You can put together a gift basket of a variety of LUSH items for everyone on your shopping list (yes, there are products for men and children, too), or let them do the work for you. Try Charity Box, the gift that keeps on giving with sale proceeds going to small, handpicked grass root charities and groups that work in environmental conservation and animal welfare. Or how about Supernatural, a gift box containing a selection of LUSH's super natural products that are crammed full of fresh fruits and vegetables, along with a few products designed to work a little natural magic on your skin and cast some wonder into your life?

Rest easy knowing holiday shopping will be easy for you this year. But chances are you'll head to LUSH a few times before December arrives to do some shopping for yourself.