Video: About Lush and Blogging [en]

[fr] Une petite vidéo puisque la TSR m'a posé un lapin (tournage prévu pour cet après-midi, reportage annulé mais on garde le plateau -- détails suivront) qui raconte ma découverte de Lush et ce qui fait que je pense qu'ils devraient se mettre à bloguer.

How do I call this? A Vlog? A podcast? A video podcast? A videocast?

Anyway, here’s a little about me and Lush and what makes me say Lush should get into blogging. Enjoy! Yes, I messed up with the date. We’re the 20th. Shows you what not having any regular schedules anymore did to my internal clock.

*Sorry, DailyMotion is taking a little time to get the video up and running. You can check out a [16Mb MP4 version of the video](https://climbtothestars.org/files/2006-11-21-stephanie-booth-ctts-lush.mp4) while you wait.*

Dailymotion blogged video
CTTS: Lush, Me, and Blogging
Video sent by Steph

It took me ten minutes to shoot, an hour or so to edit, and many many hours to figure out the right export settings and upload it to DailyMotion. I’m open to criticism (though I don’t like it, of course, I won’t lie) if you think there’s a way I could improve this.

Here are some links related to this video:

(If you’re reading my blog through RSS or subscribed in iTunes and the video isn’t coming through properly, please let me know.)

Lush in Lausanne [en]

[fr] Le magasin Lush de Lausanne est ouvert, à la place de la Palud. Rendez-vous-y sans plus attendre si vous habitez dans le coin!

Lush Shop Lausanne Lush finally made it to Lausanne! In case you didn’t know already, Lush makes me happy and I’m glad I don’t have to go all the way to Geneva anymore to get my fix of ethical-fun-organic cosmetics.

The new shop opened on Saturday, and the nice Scottish guy I spoke to in the shop today told me it was absolute madness, with customers queuing all through the shop to get to the cash desk. I was (un)fortunately away this week-end, so I had to wait until today to set foot in my new favourite shop. The place they found for the shop is just right, in my opinion. Place de la Palud is pretty much dead central (well, Lausanne city centre is pretty spread out, so many places are “centre”, which is quite nice, actually).

The shop is much less cramped than the Geneva one. They have good air conditioning, which means the typical “Lush shop smell” (all the fragrances blended together, yum!) which some find overwhelming isn’t very strong. They have the fresh face masks which to my knowledge are not available in Geneva, so I bought one to try — it’s in the fridge now. The Scottish guy (I didn’t ask his name; he’s in charge (?) of the Bern shop but is going to be over here every now and again to help the new shop get started) told me they were discontinuing the Ginger fragrance, which I like a lot, so I bought a vaporiser (oh my). I also found a few ballistics which I hadn’t tried: Dream On, Still Life and Romance in a Stone. Ballistics are usually tennis-ball sized bath fizzies. They’re much better than any others you can find at Body Shop or perfume stores.

The thing I really like about Lush, as a brand, is how refreshing the article descriptions and the Lush Times are. The style is direct, no-jargon, witty (and sometimes even a bit naughty). For each product, they’ll tell you what’s in it and why, how to use it and when. In the Lush Times (a good place to start if you feel lost in all those smells and colours, just go to your nearest Lush store and grab a copy), you’ll see photographs of real people using the products. Customer letters and quotes are sprinkled throughout the publication. Lush employees also appear as human beings, cited by name here and there when anecdotes are mentioned. All this makes it feel very “bloggy” to me (see what I mean?), even though their websites (ahem) could really use some help (and not just technical).

Never been to Lush? If you are unfortunate enough not to live in beautiful Lausanne, go to the site and click on your country’s flag if you see it (otherwise, click on the flag of the country closest to yours — it’s worth the trip). You can order online (the shipping fees in Switzerland are very reasonable, 8.- CHF per shipment) too if you wish. Lush products are great to use on yourself, but they make really nice gifts too (though some of the guys might not appreciate glittery stuff like the Fairy Jasmine ballistic), and they have vouchers if you’re not certain what to choose. Be sure to read through the product descriptions and allow yourself to be tempted.

Note: I’ve linked to the UK site even if it hangs and you’re not going to use it to order stuff for Switzerland because (a) this post is in English (b) the descriptions are so much better in English than on the French version of the Swiss site. I find Lush loses a lot of its charm during translation, sadly.

Back Home [en]

Back home in Switzerland. Got the cat back, but not the cellphone.

Switzerland is grey and dark and cold. No colours, no sun.

I’ve got my cat back (with a bit of extra weight, just like his mistress who now feels a little tight in her trousers), my brave little car started at the turn of the key, only one of my plants has died (it was already on the way down before I left), but my cellphone has been blocked.

I feel a bit dazed. The change has been brutal. I feel disconnected, as if my presence here wasn’t completely real — or worse, as if India was just some kind of weird dream, a sensation I sometimes have when I am over there. Something else I need to sort out at some point, I guess.

I’m not too sure what I’m going to do now. There are lot of things to unpack, an extra CD/DVD-rack to buy (!), a few things to type up, and lots of photos and videos to upload and organize. The flat still needs work, too.

I think I’ll take a Lush bath.

Bonnes résolutions [en]

Bonnes résolutions pour 2004.

Deux résolutions parmi d’autres:

  • aller chez Lush plus souvent
  • instaurer le karaoke du jeudi soir. (C’est bien parti!)

Je vais aimer 2004.