It has taken me 30 minutes to try and succinctly introduce my intense, longstanding love affair with Lush. But the fact is; there is no clever one-liner that can sum up how their products have become the furniture of my daily life, the radiant, tempting parcels under my Christmas tree, and the familiar scent of home and happiness. I am known for my obsession, and I can smell the stock along the high street at least three minutes before I see the shop. I have even worked in the Covent Garden store, which was incidentally, the most enjoyable job I have ever had. And it wasn’t just because of the 50% staff discount.

You can imagine my delight then, when in May 2009, the brand announced the opening of its shiny new spa on the Kings Road in London. Finally, a local spa experience that uses the hand-made, vegetarian and veritably gorgeous products that Lush has been conjuring up since it was founded in 1994. I decided it was my duty, nay, responsibility, to pop down at try out the treatments, courtesy of the lovely people at Lush.

The homely kitchen at Lush

The spa is located under the Kings Road shop itself, which is one of the brightest branches I have ever been to; light pours in and gently bounces off the glimmering bars and bottles even more vigorously than usual. The staff sparkle just as much as the soaps (mainly due to their renowned happy demeanour) but also due to the extensive exposure to glitter which is inevitable whilst working as a Lushette: you instantly feel like you have walked into a Disney film set in a diamond mine. However the spa experience itself begins when you are escorted down stairs by one of these glimmering goddesses, to the spa kitchen.

Now ladies, this is where things start to get seriously lushy. The kitchen is where the magic happens, where you are introduced to the revolutionary concept that Mark Constantine and his team have dreamed up; a spa experience based entirely on synaesthesia. This is the process which the Lush spa hinges upon: a delicious combination of sensory stimulation designed to reinvent massage treatment and make it near transcendent, using light, sound, smell and touch. This ethos is explained to you while you sit in the ever so homely little kitchen, designed to look like an English cottage, with woolly tea cosies and floral china mugs dotted around the room. It is how you imagine Mrs Weasley’s kitchen would look if she discovered Cath Kidston. You are then asked to choose one of eleven words and phrases, haphazardly scribbled on the main wall of the kitchen, in order to tailor the treatment to your needs. Each phrase, such as ‘Feel Younger’, ‘Confidence’ and ‘Energize’, corresponds to an individual massage designed to achieve its namesake. And here begins the unique nature of the spa: you can go as many times as you can muster and never have the same experience.

Once you have decided on your massage, which decides how your treatment will be choreographed in terms of movement, touch and colour, you are then handed a children’s blackboard. You remember the quaint little ones you used to chalk on? Well it’s time to do exactly that. You are invited to write the name of your treatment, and any connotations that come to mind, or any doodles that might help you focus on its achievement.

Following this brief meditation you are led across the room and asked to choose from a delightful dresser-ful of small, tempting bottles. Rather like a scene from Alice in Wonderland, each naughty little potion wears a label around its neck boasting phrases such as ‘Accept; without submission’, ‘Brave; good and true’, ‘Curious; but quiet’ and other beguiling mottos. Sitting there in their rainbow colours, they resemble precious gems, and you start to realise just how special and well thought out the Lush spa experience really is. The choice of bottle determines the complementary scent that will be used during your treatment, which will take place in the adjoining treatment room that is already prepared for your arrival.

Where the magic takes place...

The treatment room is bathed in coloured light, in my case, a lethargic shade of lavender to correspond to my ‘Mind Cleanser’ treatment, and exudes Lush charm: natural wood finishes and cosy green towels. The cottage aesthetic continues, with tiny little books about birds and butterflies of England dotted here and there, and a delicate china plate for you to place your jewellery on. Your Lushette then leaves the room to allow you time to undress, and you are instructed to ring a tiny gold bell once you are snuggled under your towel; once more it feels like you have entered a children’s fairytale, and wonder whether instead of a Lush therapist, a fairy might fly through the door. My therapist, Jennifer, did return, and she may not have had wings, but she certainly waved her magic wand.

First of all, came the music. Now we have all been there, sitting in a spa, desperately trying to relax, and then the whales kick in. And it sounds like one of them is giving birth, and you end up fearing for the whale, then worrying about childbirth in general, and so on and so on until you’re so far from relaxed it’s untrue. Lush however, is different. First of all, the music is rather loud. It isn’t just an irritating twitter in the background; it is a full orchestra’s worth of woodwind and string instruments combined with bird song from Britain’s most beautiful winged creatures. This came from a very long, drawn out process of Mark Constantine travelling the length and breadth of the country, simply to record its birds and rejoice in their music. (Did you really think that Lush was founded by a middle of the road man? No. Of course it wasn’t.) And we’re very glad that he is this eccentric, as it is a frankly wonderful soundtrack. A delicious blend of lyrical, light birdsong skips over the humming of the strings, punctuated by steam trains and bull frogs. I have to say, that it is how I imagine the countryside would sound if you were to travel through it on the Hogwarts express.

As the soundtrack begins, your therapist applies the dry ice. Yes Lush lovers, dry ice. Scented, misty and magical, dry ice. Which is bubbled around your body, and also tumbles out of cups fixed to the wall. So far, the treatment is definitely earning points for showmanship. Following the dry ice, your therapist moves on to the massage itself. In my case, the treatment included a head massage, to aid the mind cleansing objective of the experience. The massage then moves down your body, as your therapist treats each limb in turn, applying the desired amount of pressure. She uses oil from a massage bar that is also, low and behold, tailored to your treatment and unavailable in shops. Then comes the hot and cold stone therapy, a new experience for me, and one I will definitely be repeating. The combination of hot and cold stones along your spine is particularly stirring; it is almost as if the body is confused by the dual sensation. This is a real feature of the treatment; your senses become so stimulated that the other worldliness of the whole process starts to dawn on you. You become so engulfed in the chirruping, the swirling, the colour and the rubbing that you no longer feel like you are having a massage at all. It’s more like dreaming through your senses. Once the massage is complete, (after a whopping one hour and 45 minutes) you are left to doze for a little while, and invited to use the shower room which is packed with Lush products. And if it doesn’t have the specific ones you want, you can ask for it to be fetched from upstairs. If only all shower rooms worked like that.

A souvenir of the Lush experience

Following your shower, you can also make use of the dressing room; complete with a dressing table full of make up products in sparkling little boxes from Lush’s sister company, B Never Be to Busy to Be Beautiful. This was the point at which my little lushy heart actually sang.

When you’re finally back to the land of the living, sparkles and all, you are welcomed back into the kitchen (feeling like you have been on some sort of long, spiritual, journey, the kitchen now seems even more homely). A cup of herbal tea, in a china tea cup of course, will be waiting for you, to further enhance the properties of the oils and cleanse your insides as well. It is at this point that you are handed a little tin, containing your massage bar, and a spanking new bubble bar that you can’t get your paws on in shops yet. It even has a hand written tag tied around it. Part of me wondered whether if I opened it, I might open up the passage way back to that swirling colourful mist and light…. But unfortunately I think I might have to book another treatment for that to happen. And book I will.

The Lush spa treatment costs £125, lasts around 2 hours, and can be booked at:

Lush London

Lush Poole

Lush Leeds

Lush Kingston-upon-Thames

www.lush.com