I'm a chick (at least I was last time I checked). And as chicks the world over will attest to, we love shopping.

In fact, I don't think love is a strong enough word. I ADORE shopping. I CRAVE it. I crave the cleansing, cathartic effect it has on me as I spot, select, single out, stamp my claim and finally secure the items of my desire. The only way to get closer to serotonin heaven would be shopping with a block of Cadbury Breakaway clamped firmly in hand.

Yes, shopping is an id-like, tribal throwback thing for females. An extension of the hunter-gatherer instinct just crying out for expression in today's modern world.

Being an Aussie chick, and a summer-lovin' one at that, I require both clothing of a reasonably gorgeous nature, and enough bathroom paraphenalia to keep me sweetly-smelling and smoothly-sloughed throughout the entire summer season.

As you can see, my preferred way of achieving the latter is via Lush Cosmetics. All natural, preservative free, no animals, and they smell like heaven. As we don't have a Lush in Adelaide (anymore), I've had to resort to either ordering it online, or stocking up big on trips to Melbourne and Sydney.

So imagine my absolute delight at discovering (through sphinxy's product whoring, actually, check out the skin-so-named) that Lush have partnered up with Amazon in their brand new Beauty shop. At last! A path to wish-list heaven!

Or so I thought.

...imagine my absolute horror at discovering that Amazon don't ship Lush (and presumably Beauty in general) to Aussie yet. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Now. This provides a nice segue into a particular bug-bear of mine, namely Amazon and their severe lack of Aussie-shopness.

Now you might not like Amazon. There are plenty of people who don't. But for us poor product-deprived Aussie chicks, it provides some essential stuff we really can't get anywhere else (wish I could think of an example here but I can't), and as it expands, it seems to be doing more and more of it all in the one place. Fabuloso!

But I'm limited by what they'll actually ship to me out here in the antipodoean colonies. I know there's only 20 million of us compared to 300 million Americans and lord knows how many Brits, but come on. It's not hard to set up an Aussie arm. Other sites do it. And Lush actually has an online catalogue here in Aus. Wouldn't it be incredibly easy for Amazon to offer Lush to us Aussie chicks that way?

An added bonus is the fact that us Aussies are one of the most 'online' populations per capita in the world, with 62% of us online as at 12 months ago, and the number always increasing. One could reasonably assume that 50% of those are female. Who love to shop.

Hello? Lush has heard us. But is anyone listening out there in Amazon's online-shopping-land yet?