Soapsmith Bloomsbury Bath Soak

As beauty editors, we’re lucky enough to try lots of different things. We literally don’t have enough skin on our faces and bodies, or hair on our heads, to work our way through everything that lands on our desks – and there’s a limit to how many baths even we can take! So what happens is that we’ll find a favourite product, but (because we’re doing our jobs) we’ll move on. And memories, even when it comes to great beauty products, can be short.

But Soapsmith’s fab new look caught our eye, and as a result we rediscovered this wonderful bath treat – Bloomsbury Bath Soak – falling swooningly back in love. The fresh design could have come straight from The Jazz Age (we can almost hear the soundtrack from ‘The Great Gatsby’ film, just from looking at it) – but what’s inside is super-special.

Based on skin-softening, water-softening coconut milk powder along with Epsom salts, oat powder and cocoa butter, there are Dead Sea salts in there, too, and the blend diffuses in water to create an amazing, milky bath that is infused with essential oils – in this case, what smells like armfuls of roses, along with notes of honeysuckle and peony. (It’s designed to evoke the smell of the flowers in the Bloomsbury Square gardens – hence the name.) 

Soapsmith make all their products in Walthamstow, having progressed from the kitchen table to an old watch factory (and we’re all about giving airtime to beauty start-ups, whenever we can). They do point out that the bath soaks now come in (very generous – 500g) glass jars, now – as opposed to plastic containers, which means ‘handling with care’ in the bathroom. But we’re all getting used to that, now, as we seek to banish plastic as much as poss.

So: hello, old friend. Good to see you back. And looking – never mind smelling – really rather gorgeous… 

£25 – buy here

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