‘Lush – injecting fun into beauty with innovative products made from natural ingredients’. The London Guide, 2006 Self-appointed cosmetics grocer Lush is the ultimate beauty delicatessen. Think handmade, natural and fresh merchandise; butchers’ blocks of soap; a myriad of orbs (fizzing bath ballistics) that are presented in-store like perfectly round apples; chilled fish counter-style cabinets displaying our unique Bio Fresh face masks; prices by weight, greaseproof paper wrapping (if any wrapping at all) and best-before dates. “I’ve always loved the way fruit and vegetables are displayed in a grocery store,” says Mark Constantine, Lush’s Managing Director, who set up the company in 1995, in Poole, Dorset, with a close-knit team with whom he has worked for some 20 years. The Lush head office continues to be based in Poole and there are currently 89 shops in the UK, with over 650 worldwide. As well as the global business that Lush has become, the team of co-founders have also launched a sister company - B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful, an Aladdin’s cave of eclectic gorgeousness and wonderment specialising in colour cosmetics and fragrance. B is the only UK company to carry an entire colour cosmetics line that is suitable for vegans. Lush currently has over 650 shops worldwide and are present in over 44 countries, with manufacturing sites across the world.
 

Freshness is intrinsic to Lush – it’s at the heart of our philosophy. It means we can minimise the use of synthetics and it means that we can create wonderfully effective products when the ingredients are at their most potent. When Lush products reach the customer, they are literally weeks, days or even just hours old. No product in any of our shops is more than 6 months old. We’ve been working with fresh produce for many years and have vast experience on how to formulate products that incorporate whole fruits and vegetables. At Lush, we believe that using the whole fruit or vegetable is infinitely more beneficial than isolating a property and removing it from a fruit, vegetable or natural material and adding it to a cosmetic product to try to recreate its function. Of the 233 or so products manufactured by Lush, around 154 are unpreserved. Those that do contain preservatives are liquid products containing water, such as moisturisers and lotions, and require some preservatives to give them some shelf life. Lush uses minimal levels of 2 preservatives in its products (as opposed to 5 or 6 like some of our competitors), the safest and mildest we know - namely methyl and propyl paraben.
 

Lush have spent years - nay decades - developing solid products that work really effectively. Why? Because solid products don’t need preservatives or excess packaging, which is altogether kinder for the environment. Simple really. During the 12 months to June 2007 we sold, in the UK alone, over 8.4 million naked, unpackaged items. That includes solid shampoos, solid conditioners, solid massage bars, solid hair dyes, solid deodorants and solid bath oils etc etc.
 

We believe that the best way to tackle recycling is to not create the waste in the first place. Lush try to remove it at the design stage, then if there is any waste we will aim to reuse it. If we can’t reuse it anywhere, then it will be recycled. We have been able to do this by considering the need for packaging at the design stage. Lush probably uses less than half the packaging materials a comparable cosmetic company would use just by selling products without packaging. Our bags and catalogue, The Lush Times, are printed on recycled paper containing no chlorine.
 

Lush buys 25 tonnes of organic fruit a year and 50 tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables a year, both organic and conventional, locally sourced (weather permitting!) It is important to us to source and buy the very best ingredients we can find, as we want you to enjoy using them as much as we enjoy making them. We like to spend more money on the quality of ingredients than anything else, so spend less on things like packaging. Which is why we can afford to offer our customers high quality products for reasonable prices.
 

We prefer people to make our products in big kitchens, as opposed to faceless industrial machines. This philosophy also works out to be much more energy efficient – it’s better for the environment to fuel people with food than it is to power big industrial machines with electricity. We like to produce cosmetics with a human personalised touch, whilst creating local jobs and using local resources. It gives us our unique edge and enables us to keep an eye on quality. You should be able to spot a fake a mile off! To reinforce the message, we’ll even add stickers to all products telling you who made it - along with when each product is made and when it goes out of date.
 

Here at Lush we believe that our products should be effective, fun and safe for you to use. We believe that the most effective and humane way to safety test both the ingredients we use and our finished products are through modern non-animal tests and a panel of human volunteers. Lush are firmly committed to a policy which not only precludes testing its products and ingredients on animals, or engaging with third-party suppliers to do so on their behalf, but we will also not buy any ingredient from any supplier that tests any of its materials on any animals for any purpose. This policy is unique in its field and is pioneering a new way to stop animal tests for cosmetics. In 2006 Lush ran a campaign in all their EU stores, urging customers to sign postcards to MEPs asking for animals to be kept out of REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals). Over 68,000 cards were signed. Being against animal testing was a founding principle and will continue to be an intrinsic value of Lush.
 

100% not tested on animals
100% suitable for vegetarians and approved by the Vegetarian Society
  76% of Lush products are suitable for vegans and approved by the Vegan Society
100% fresh, handmade products. Made with organic produce where possible.
  69% of products are preservative free
  57% of products are unpackaged
 

Winner of the RSPCA Good Business Award 2006, for animal welfare ethics
Winner of a 2006 PETA Trailblazer Award for work in animal welfare
Winner of the RSPCA Good Business Award 2007 - Outstanding commitment for achieving higher standards for animal welfare.
Winner of a Green Award for the solid shampoo bars in the ‘Best Packaging’ category. 2008