Chatting to a friend about my latest Lush purchase, it transpired that she is also hooked on Lush products. She recommended I had a look at Ceridwens Cauldron next time I was in the store, but my first thought was “how on earth do I pronounce that to ask for it?!”
When the staff member asked if there was anything in particular I was looking for, I just showed them the name written on a piece of paper to save the embarrassment of pronouncing it incorrectly …. I’m sure I can’t be the first person to do that.

Ceridwen’s Cauldron comes wrapped in a muslin cloth, and is designed to use whole. You drop it into the bath, and once it’s dissolved you use the cloth as a wash mitt. However, at £4.35 I felt that was a bit pricey to use in just one bath, especially if my skin didn’t approve of it, so I asked the very helpful staff member on the tills if she could cut it into quarters for me.

The top layer is packed with oats, while the base layer holds the cocoa butter. I chose to drop it straight into the bath and store the other three quarters in the muslin cloth. The only disadvantage to that being the mass of oats and daisies in the base of the bath after I’ve drained the water away. As long as you have a strainer on the plug to stop it clogging up the drain, and don’t mind wiping the bits from the bath afterwards, I can recommend using the melt like that!

As my hands and wrists don’t always approve of a long soak in the bath, I rub the base layer directly onto my skin, which seems to work a treat. My hands weren’t bright red when I got out of the bath, and they definitely seemed less dry as well.

It also was surprisingly good to use in that way on my legs after shaving – I didn’t feel I had to use any moisturiser afterwards, which is very unusual.

Although it’s not the cheapest of the bath melts, I would still recommend it; I found that a quarter was plenty for one bath, so that’s four baths for the price of one melt and £1.09 a bath sounds much better!

Update 2016: Lush policy states that they cannot cut these bath melts into quarters / half for you in the shop – they can only sell it in the form it’s designed (so the same goes for bath bombs). However, I’ve been able to cut Ceridwen’s Cauldron quite easily using a plastic knife.