I was really excited to try Lush’s Oxford Street exclusive shower roulades when I first spotted them amidst the washcards and shower jellies. A shower roulade is a regular Lush shower smoothie except they’ve ditched the tubs and rolled them up in a washsheet (paper made from soap!) which they then slice much like a swiss roll. I had tried to pace myself instead of going mad and spending a fortune in Lush like I usually do, so I actually managed to omit these from my basket. In the six months or so that Lush finally released them as part of their summer collection, I had completely forgotten about these mysterious rolled up shower gloop in all the excitement.

Last month during a routine scour through Lush Kitchen’s wares I decided to make a few novelty purchases, with a shower smoothie roulade being one of them. I had completely forgotten what these smelled like so going on the descriptions I opted for the Enzymic roulade which boasts to be a “tale of two fruits” and being packed full of pineapple and lime juices they seemed about right. Being such a fan of fruity scents I thought this sounded right up my alley and the deep mossy green really made my eyes light up. I’m a very visual person and I have a tendency, like many others, to smell with my eyes. So when something looks a lovely juicy, fruity shade of green – I begin to hype up the smell in my own mind which can sometimes leave me disappointed as this relies very much on colour association.

Unfortunately when this product came in the post I was already quite put off before I even unwrapped it. It came in a very uncharacteristic of Lush plastic wrapper where the product had smushed all over itself – like a piece of rotten fruit in a plastic bag. I’d like to tell you that it smelled even remotely like rotting fruit but it was actually worse. The smell actually saddened me. It was incredibly medicinal and not in the herbal way that Wiccy Magic Muscles is, it smelt like a stagnant mossy pond. I tried and I tried but I could not for the life of me pick up any fruity hint in that mix of foliage.

Reluctant even to use it, I thought about what a waste it would be and cast my mind back to certain other soaps like Rockstar that didn’t smell that great until you got them lathered up under the water. I just went for it, I took a chunk out of the mushy blob and began to rub it over my skin only to find that it didn’t lather up very much at all. I expected this formula to be incredibly moisturising given its squishy smoothie format but I found it to have the reverse effect and it made my skin quite tight. The smell was overbearing and really unpleasant.

All in all this was bitterly disappointing and I’m not sure if the roulade style just isn’t for me or if The Enzymic had a scent that was too strong and not as described. I’m determined to give these roulades another go and might go for a more obvious fruity scent like the Blueberry Smoothie Roulade or Orange next time. I was really unimpressed by the plastic packaging too, it didn’t seem in line with the rest of Lush’s lovely eco-friendly ethos. I wouldn’t buy The Enzymic again and if you don’t like medicinal, herbal, foliage-like smells then I couldn’t recommend this for you. If you have dry skin, I wouldn’t recommend this either as it’s deceptively drying for some reason. Sorry for being a negative nancy. What did you guys think of the roulades? Hopefully you had better experiences than me!