Lush Glasgow City launches Hats Aff bath bomb inspired by local iconography

A bath bomb built around Glasgow’s cone-topped Duke of Wellington statue has landed as a shop-exclusive at Lush Spa Glasgow City, where the brand is leaning on place, not seasonality, to sell the story. Hats Aff costs £5.50 and is only available at the Buchanan Street store, a move that gives the release the feel of a souvenir, a gift and a local inside joke all at once.

The product was co-created by the Glasgow team and is Lush’s second bath bomb to come out of that store, after Nae Stressie. Lush has already said Nae Stressie became one of the location’s better-selling bath bombs, and a 2024 description placed it as Glasgow-store only, underlining how the city team has become a real product engine rather than a simple retail outpost.

Hats Aff reaches for Glasgow identity in a way that a generic limited edition cannot. Its name nods to the long-running habit of topping the Duke of Wellington statue in Royal Exchange Square with an orange traffic cone, a ritual that has outlasted official attempts to stop it. In 2013, Glasgow abandoned a plan to raise the statue’s plinth after more than 10,000 people signed a petition, a proposal reported to cost £65,000, with local officials saying cone removal cost about £100 each time. The statue itself was erected in 1844 outside the Gallery of Modern Art, and later academic commentary has described the cone as an informal emblem of the city, showing up in art, humour, advertising and branding.

That is the strategy Lush is betting on here: a city-exclusive product with a built-in share hook. The bath bomb is not just scented; it is coded. Lush says the fragrance is inspired by a famous fizzy Scottish drink, blending citrus and orange with berry sweetness, then finishing with ginger and clove. For shoppers, that turns the release into a very specific Glasgow object instead of another interchangeable fizzy sphere in a crowded bath-bomb calendar.

The company is also using the launch to reinforce the scale of its bath-bomb business. Lush says bath bombs were invented in 1989 by co-founder Mo Constantine, and the brand sold over 21.2 million of them last year. Against that backdrop, a single city-only product at 98 Buchanan Street, described as Scotland’s first Lush Anchor store, makes sense as more than a novelty. It is a reminder that in bath bombs, the strongest drop may be the one with the clearest sense of place.