Retro Beauty: Bath Pearls

Back when I was much, much younger and much, much poorer, luxury was being able to go to the Body Shop and choose as many as ten bath pearls from the little baskets dotted around the shop.  I used to hoard the jewel coloured spheres, using them sparingly in every other bath, mostly just admiring how pretty they looked heaped up in a dish in my bedroom.

Bath pearls have fallen out of favour in recent years; oils are now presented in glass bottles, and single-use bath products tend to be in the form of ballistics.  Indeed, a touch of Googling to see if they're still available has mostly turned up a new variety of in-bath lighting rather than the more familiar oil-filled globes.

If you're an avid fan, you can still find them at a few online stores, including Bubblelush, where they cost 20p each - scandalously expensive according to my inner 11 year old, but quite reasonable by modern single-use bath product standards.

Do you have fond memories of collecting and using bath pearls?  Were the "classic" spherical pearls your favourite, or did the star- and animal shaped varieties make it into your collection too?