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We believe...

We believe in making effective products from fresh organic* fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics.

We believe in buying ingredients only from companies that do not commission tests on animals and in testing our products on humans.

We invent our own products and fragrances. We make them fresh* by hand using little or no preservative or packaging, using only vegetarian ingredients and tell you when they were made.

We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud.

We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again.

We believe our products are good value, that we should make a profit and that the customer is always right.

We believe that all people should enjoy freedom of movement across the world.

*We also believe words like "fresh" and "organic" have an honest meaning beyond marketing.

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We believe... We believe in making effective products from fresh organic* fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics. We believe in buying ingredients only from companies that do not commission tests on animals and in testing our products on humans. We invent our own products and fragrances.

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Article #1: Lush Cosmetics Does the Right Thing 

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Article #1: Lush Cosmetics Does the Right Thing 

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Lush Cosmetics separated from The Body Shop company in the ‘90s to build a popular franchise of stores involved in numerous important environmental and ethical campaigns. Not only is their chain of stores known for its true and important campaigns but Lush Cosmetics pays their employees above minimum wage in London, England. The owner believes his employees deserve a livable pay wage because of their hardwork and long hour shifts.

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Photo: lush, Street Party Ballistics
Lush Cosmetics is the green cosmetic company that split off from the Body Shop in the '90's. Still privately owned by the original founder, Mark Constantine, they sell environmentally friendly soap and paraphernalia in 700 shops across the world, as well as being involved in numerous important environmental and ethical campaigns.

Now they have joined the forefront of another one: paying a living wage to their London employees. That's different from the minimum wage; it is the wage needed to live in a big city. As Constantine said: "I take pride in being an ethical retailer, but my staff were putting in a 40-hour week for me, and then having to moonlight because I was not paying them enough."

The minimum wage is £5.93 (US$ 9.78) an hour in London and with the London living wage, it will become £7.85 (US$ 12.95) for these 200 employees. For the company it's an extra expense of £300,000 a year. Not a massive amount for such a huge business, but it marks Lush as the first retailer to take this public position.

As Constantine said "In retail, it is obvious that the people at the bottom of the chain do the real work, putting in long hours, and that they get paid very poorly."

Retailers Marks & Spencer (£7.82) and John Lewis (£7) have confirmed that they are in discussion on the subject. Constantine's message to them: "Obviously this is a much bigger step for you because you have thousands more employees than we do, but at the end of the day, it's about fairness and good business practice."

Image by B. Alter, Lush Knot-Wrapping
Wages--it's a taboo subject really. We worry about fair trade and ethical compliance in Africa and India, whilst our own friends and family work in the charitable and environmental field at minimum and substandard wages--for love and commitment. It's about fairness and equity for working people

The Evening Standard, a local London paper, owned by a Russian oligarch, has been supporting the London Living Wage campaign. They published a series of articles on the refusal of University College London to pay its cleaners a living wage. Suddenly the university turned around and agreed to pay it.

More on Lush
Lush Wrapping Reusable Japanese Style
Lush Founder Funds Heathrow Activists
Lush Philanthropy
As for Lush, it's a privately owned £215M business so Constantine can do what he wants and he has. He was a funder of the Plane Stupid campaign (against the expansion of Heathrow airport) as well as other environmental causes. In an interview he reminded readers "I'm not exactly a newcomer to fighting climate change: I don't hold a driver's licence, I ride a bicycle, and I've been an active member of Friends of the Earth since I was 21, decades before it was sexy to be green."

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Photo: lush, Street Party Ballistics Lush Cosmetics is the green cosmetic company that split off from the Body Shop in the '90's. Still privately owned by the original founder, Mark Constantine, they sell environmentally friendly soap and paraphernalia

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One possible way that Lush Cosmetics could improve its TSI is to inspire other companies and work within their own franchise to pay employees a realistic, livable wage like they do in London, England. In Canada minimum wage is liveable but in countries like the United States their minimum wage is not. Inspiring other companies to pay their employees better and following through in other stores throughout the world would be beneficial for the employees as well as their families and society as a whole!

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Article #2: Lush Cosmetics and the Humane Society Launch Global Campaign to End Cosmetics Testing on Animals

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Article #2: Lush Cosmetics and the Humane Society Launch Global Campaign to End Cosmetics Testing on Animals

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The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and LUSH Cosmetics have launched the largest-ever global campaign to end animal testing for cosmetics. The HSUS and HSI will also work with legislators, regulators and scientists to press for change. Consumers were urged to sign a petition to protest animal testing, in LUSH stores and on their website.

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The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and LUSH Cosmetics have launched the largest-ever global campaign to end animal testing for cosmetics. The campaign is rolling out simultaneously in 48 countries and more than 700 LUSH stores in the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Russia.

"The beauty industry continues needless animal testing and it's time for it to stop," said Kate Willett, director of regulatory toxicology, risk assessment and alternatives for The HSUS. "Consumers are largely unaware that some shampoos and lipsticks still involve chemical poisoning of animals such as rabbits and mice. Science has moved us beyond this and there is no place for cosmetic testing on animals in modern society."

The HSUS and HSI offices in Canada, Australia, Europe and India are joining with LUSH to end animal testing for cosmetics with nationwide consumer campaigns in each region. The HSUS and HSI will also work with legislators, regulators and scientists to press for change. Consumers are being urged to sign national petitions in LUSH stores beginning April 17, and online at humanesociety.org/becrueltyfree and fightinganimaltesting.com/na, to send a strong message to the U.S. government that animal testing for cosmetics needs to be banned.

Such testing is already banned in Europe and a further ban on the sale of cosmetics that have been newly tested on animals in other parts of the world is expected to come into effect in March 2013.

U.S. law requires companies to assure that their products are safe, but does not require animal testing, since safety can be assured by using established, safe ingredients and available non-animal test methods. However, some companies continue to produce new cosmetic ingredients and test them on animals.

"Animals should not have to rely on voluntary codes of conduct but should be protected by robust laws that force all companies to adopt humane methods to bring their products to market," said Brandi Halls, North American campaign manager for LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics.

LUSH, The HSUS and HSI believe that testing on animals to produce new cosmetic products or ingredients is unjustified. Animals are subjected to considerable pain and distress during toxicity tests. A large proportion of the animals used in cosmetic testing are laboratory-bred rodents, who receive no protection under the Animal Welfare Act.

Animal toxicity tests are also scientifically unreliable for assuring human safety because animals and humans can respond very differently to the same chemicals.

LUSH does not conduct or commission tests on animals and operates a fixed cut-off date for individual ingredients, requiring that they have not been animal tested by or on behalf of a manufacturer since June 1, 2007, at the latest.
Media Contacts:
The HSUS: Anna West, 240-751-2669, awest@humanesociety.org

Lush North America: Brandi Halls, 917.324.8570, brandi@lush.com

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LUSH Cosmetics, The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International Launch Global Campaign To End Cosmetics Testing on Animals

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The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and LUSH Cosmetics have launched the largest-ever global campaign to end animal testing for cosmetics. The campaign is rolling out simultaneously in 48 countries and more than 700 LUSH stores in the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Russia.

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Lush Cosmetics: Excellent Corporate Citizenship

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Lush Cosmetics: Excellent Corporate Citizenship

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Lush Cosmetics is the driving force for all cosmetic stores around the world in terms of there endless devotion to clean, ethical and environmentally friendly products. Lush parteners with many corporations and organizations to fight against wrong practices that occur everyday such as animal testing for beauty products and dangerous soaps or lotions that get washed down the drain. All of Lush Cosmetics’ products are all natural and won’t harm the environment like the competiting products. In addition they don’t only care for the customers, environment and animals but their employees are also valued and treated with respect. The owner of the company has said that people who work in retail are some of the hardest workers through their long hours of dealing with people and situations that cannot be predicted. In saying this he has increased wages to be about minimum wage so that the employees can live comfortably and be rewarded as they should for their hard work. These are only a few of the many examples of how Lush Cosmetics is demonstrating good corporate citizenship and is preventing harm everyday for all stakeholders and factors involved.

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Another way that LUSH Cosmetics can improve their TSI would be to push other companies to stop testing on animals, and choose a more humane way to ensure that their beauty products are safe to use. In my opinion, if some companies have a way of testing their products that is harmless to animals, all companies should be following the same procedure. It is useless to test on animals when we have access to other options.

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https://uk.lush.com/article/our-environmental-policy
In this article, LUSH explains how committed they are to keeping our environment clean. They talk about a few key things they do to promote a clean Earth. A few examples include their packaging, which is little to none. When packaging is absolutely needed, LUSH chooses 100% recycled materials to make their containers. Another thing they do to "stay green" is use raw materials only. If any LUSH products go down the drain, it is totally safe for the environment because everything is natural and doesn't pollute the waters.

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The final recommendation for Lush Cosmetics is to create more products of different scents and types to
compete easier with competitors in the cosmetic industry. By doing this it may push the other companies to also use environmentally friendly ingredients to try and compete with Lush in return. This could cause a positive movement and push which in turn would not harm anyone or anything.