We Reviewed Stoner Drag Star Laganja Estranja’s CBD-Infused Skincare Line

Drag and weed have been the pillars of my self-care during this epoch. So when I heard about a cannabis skin care line endorsed by the drag queen of cannabis herself, Laganja Estranja, I nearly shablammed with excitement.

Honey Pot CBD is a Cannabis Cup-winning brand of handmade, medicated topicals that recently teamed up with the noted cannabis advocate and drag megastar formerly known as Jay Jackson for a line of hemp CBD-infused potions.

WW auditioned all three products in the Honey Pot x Laganja Estranja skin care line: Blue Dream Cream Body Lotion, Super Lemon Blaze Hand & Body Wash, and a Sugar Daddy Purp Bath Bomb. The names imply strain specificity, but the intended audience appears to be stoner divas on Self-Care Sunday rather than devotees of particular medicinal cultivars. Regardless, each product showed value beyond mere spa indulgence.

My partner is a laborer who often clocks out from his shift with stiff joints and aching muscles, and CBD has been his most effective remedy. Always keen to try a new recipe, we slathered his shoulders and back with this lotion after a particularly draining night on the job. The lotion is rich but silky, with a medium-stiff consistency that doesn’t drip or feel at all oily. It massages into the skin with minimal effort, leaving a perfume of tart grapefruit, sweet cocoa butter and earthy hemp that, while robust in the bottle, is sheer on the skin.

My partner reported a minimal easing of superficial aches and pains after a while, but the biggest takeaway was how supple our skin felt after tandem massages. Our shoulders, hands and fingers all felt cashmere soft after our alternating applications.

I’ve since moved the lotion from the topicals shelf to my own high-femme beauty arsenal, and after a week of use, I can report that it not only quieted some lingering tendonitis aches in my wrists, it completely quenched every inch of ashy winter skin on my body—heels, knees and elbows included.

For a good chunk of lockdown, I’ve kept my hair conveniently locked into a grid of box braids.  As other braid wearers know, a braided scalp will begin to itch after a week or so. It’s a natural consequence of keeping the same hairdo for several consecutive days. Rather than go into wash day with a drugstore shampoo or a more chemically complex anti-itch variety, I decided to wash my hair—well, my scalp mostly—with Super Lemon Blaze Hand & Body Wash. A review of the ingredients (minimum sulfates, maximum oils) supported my theory that this potion would be appropriate, if not beneficial, for use on an otherwise healthy scalp.

I worked the medium-viscous liquid soap into the grid of knots across my scalp and felt instant relief. A combination of cocoa butter, lemongrass and rosemary oils extinguished the angrier areas with a cool tingle, and a relief that may have been supported by CBD kept the itching significantly diminished until the next week’s wash day. As a bonus, the tangy traces of bergamot oil left my whole coiffure smelling like a freshly brewed cup of Earl Grey tea.

As a body wash, Super Lemon Blaze performs on “normal” skin as expected. It’s got a slight tingle, and a light foam that rinses clean away. Those with skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis or persistent itching may want to check in with their derm before committing to a full 8 ounces of these medicated suds. My itching was remedied, but your results may vary.

As a working parent, my opportunities for medicated bath times are few and far between. When a soak becomes possible, I try to make it the most extravagant soak imaginable and, best-case scenario, that includes a big-ass bath bomb. At 8 ounces, Laganja’s Sugar Daddy Purp has the weight and perfume of a luxury bath bomb but is free from the dazzling color treatments that make extra large bombs such an Instagrammable experience.

But I prefer my at-home spa treatments to prioritize pampering over kaleidoscopic waterworks, so the lack of underwater psychedelia wasn’t a disappointment. This colorless bath bomb aggressively dissolved into a hot bath, leaving a shimmer of essential oil and a powerful perfume. Rainbow glitter baths have their place, but so do legitimately therapeutic soaks; this bath bomb is mostly on the therapeutic end of the spectrum.

Sugar Daddy Purp features 150mg of CBD in a pungent medley of lavender and lime oils. The main carrier oil for the aromatic bath fizzy is mango butter, which is rich in the terpene myrcene. Myrcene has long been associated with intensifying highs—conventional stoner wisdom implies that eating fresh mango before, during or after a smoke session will concentrate cannabinoids in a user’s bloodstream, resulting in deeper intoxication. Whether or not that theory extends to topicals dissolved in warm water was not to be discovered during this particular soak. After 30 minutes in the tub, I was rubbery and relaxed, but the same results could be had with a long hot bubble bath and a smear of CBD medicated lotion. Then, at least, I wouldn’t have to scrub essential oils out of my bathtub.