Here’s What Happens When You Use a Bean-Riddled Massage Bar in the Shower

Here’s a reminder to read the labels on your beauty products: last summer, a number of people apparently mistook a Lush massage bar for soap and used it in the shower or sink. Then, as Buzzfeed reports, this happened:

That’s Lush’s “Wiccy Magic Muscles” massage bar, which just so happens to be filled with viable adzuki beans. The hard little beans in this “spicy massage bar,” as Lush describes it, are intended to “work into the muscles like firm fingertips.” Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your opinion on shower beans), they also work their way into drains.

When asked for comment, Lush co-founder Helen Ambrosen told Buzzfeed the bathroom sprouts “…just go to show how fresh the ingredients really are.”

You might be more familiar with these beans than you realize. The adzuki bean (also known as Vigna angularis, the red bean, azuki bean, and aduki bean) is the same bean that appears in many, many, many Asian desserts. Ever had red bean ice cream, Chinese sticky rice cake, or bean paste mochi? You’ve eaten adzuki beans (although the ones you ate were almost definitely not bathed in somebody else’s skin cells and used soap). 

How does something like this happen? Well, beans love moisture, and they also love being left alone. Even dried beans are viable for a long time (up to three years), and can be sprouted with very little effort. The sprouts themselves are nutritious, and make a great addition to salads and sandwiches.

If you’d like to sprout your own, you can do it the roundabout way—that is, buying and misusing a massage bar—or the easy way, by dropping a few beans and some water into a jar.  

[h/t Buzzfeed]