A Trip to the Mall: LUSH Sticky Dates and Grass

So the cold was pretty much mild- it never really got to anything really terrible, for which I am thankful. It did allow me to stay in bed for a day and drink Simply Limeade. which was nice. Yesterday (Sunday) however I needed to actually do stuff. My sheets, towels and pillows needed to be laundered, the car needed to be driven for at least 45 minutes to charge the batteries and keep things lubed, and I needed to replace the tip on my Apple Pencil, which had mysteriously disappeared. And since there was much talk of LUSH lately, this meant a trip to the Mall.

Los Angeles is a city noted for it’s malls. Several of them I am sure you recognize from the movies: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, and Terminator Two (among others) were filmed at the infamous Sherman Oaks Galleria while the Westside Pavillion was in Clueless (and was the place where Portia charmed a boat-load of samples out of some legendarily crusty Macy’s SAs) but both of these are defunct. The Beverly Center is still there, but long past it’s prime when Bette Midler and Woody Allen swanned around in Scenes from a Mall or Tommy Lee Jones strove to save it from a Volcano with Anne Heche. The Grove is pretty much where it’s at these days: I personally don’t like the place. The cheesy ersatz faux Ohio town square theme kind of bugs me. I mean, excuse me but 90% of the population of LA fled places like that, why are you recreating it? It’s open-air, which is the fashion right now: Santa Monica Place peeled it’s roof off several years ago to great fanfare, and freezing breezes off the Pacific 10 months of the year, while the Grove’s sister, The Americana at Brand swelters under the Valley heat from March to mid-October. So that leaves Century City. Not that they’re perfect. I wrote a long if not exhaustive (you might have been exhausted by the end of it) bit on the history of the place when talking about Rose Jam. Suffice it to say that in the past 20 years it’s doubled in size, having added second and third stories, which, with the original footprint of meandering corridors now gives it the air of the sets from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, just with a Rolex store, a Tiffany & Co., and a Bloomingdales. To give you an idea of that it used to look like, the Mary Tyler Moore Show filmed an episode there:

One of the stores they go by is Judy’s, which was the go-to place for girls and their Mom’s to buy hip-but-not-too-hip fashions. They supplied Suzanne Pleshette’s wardrobe during the run of the Bob Newhart Show. Mary is likely wearing stuff from them.

So in any case, I went to LUSH. I do have to compliment the staff at the place. They’re young and fun and very attentive. One of the girls showed me a cranberry wash that she said was a limited edition that was very nice and quite a bit more that cranberry- there were almonds and spice which were quite lovely. There was also glitter, which was for me less so. The SA was thrilled with that aspect. When you’re 22 you can pull off pink hair and glitter in your soap. Me? Not so much.

But onto the (finally, I’ll bet you’re thinking) onto the subject.

Sticky Dates was the one that got me in the door. Cinnamon was the one who got me interested in this and she’s right: It might not be for everyone. It’s sweet dates macerated with vanilla and honey with just a touch of that buzzy feeling that SL Miel de Bois has to it. Not enough for you to feel that Mr. Tiddles and his pals dropped by to whizz in your shower; just enough to keep the whole thing from toothache. It’s an LE which I usually hate, but I think this small bottle will last me a good long time.

Grass on the other hand is far more accessible. It is the fantasy smell of a newly mown lawn, which is the best (if only) upside of actually doing your own yardwork. It does a great job of capturing that green, heady smell and the more you lather the more there is to it. I think I smelled hay and citrus and maybe a bit of cilantro in there? In any case I loved it and I might need a big bottle soon.

Both of these have some carry-over scent on skin after showering. Enough that you might want to think about using them if you’re planning on wearing a particular perfume. Sticky Dates would be great on a day when you feel like wearing one of those stewed-fruit SL’s while Grass would be lovely with a spritz of Futur.

These are available to LUSH in several sizes starting $12.50 for the 3.3 ounce bottle. I purchased my bottles from the LUSH store in Century City.

Photos: Mine, Wikimedia Commons, and Pexels.