Lush Cosmetics Review

Lush Cosmetics: Their Story

One of the most popular cosmetic brands worldwide that adhere to the idea of producing all-natural and hand-made products, and most known for its commitment to fight animal-testing, Lush Cosmetics is now making its way on becoming the top sustainable cosmetic brand in the market today. But before all the fame and glamour that embraced the company, Lush was also a product from its own humble beginnings. Before the creation of Lush, there was Constantine & Weir and Cosmetics To Go.

Mark Constantine and Liz Weir were the ones behind the success and started the business since they are both interested in natural beauty products. In the 1970s, Constantine & Weir produced hair products for local salons and herbalists including the Body Shop, which later gained popularity during the 1980s. Body Shop’s owner Anita Roddick bought best selling formulas from Constantine & Weir which made the two decide to start anew. This was when Cosmetics To Go was founded producing colorful and unique cosmetics like bath bombs, solid shampoo bars and massage bars with a full commitment of sourcing all natural-ingredients and alleviating animal-testing. However, they ended bankrupt after six years of operations.

Learning from its failure, the company was re-establish and named it Lush as being like “fresh, green, and verdant”. In 1995,  they created the first-ever Lush shop in Poole, England focused on simple shop designs and naked products made from natural ingredients. Now, they have stores in 49 countries around the world and is now getting praise for its sustainable cosmetic products. 

The Boom of Sustainable Cosmetics Companies

Makeup and other beauty products are known for their harmful waste from its plastic packaging and containers. With the growing environmentalist sentiments, many are calling for more sustainable beauty brands. In this day of age, sustainable cosmetics is becoming one of the trends that almost all customers patronize.

This paved the way for the rise of greener cosmetic companies pushing for all-natural cosmetic products. Here are some of the sustainable cosmetics companies:

Banyan Tree Essentials is an Asian cosmetics brand that features ingredients like honey, lotus, and jasmine rice to their products and also uses recyclable plastic and paper materials for their packaging.

Ilia Beauty is another brand that boasts its greener practice for sustainable cosmetics. Ilia believes that not all synthetic ingredients are harmful so they combined natural ingredients with some synthetic ones to produce effective beauty products. Its packaging incorporated recycled aluminum and paper, glass components, and even printed with vegetable-based dyes.

What makes Lush Cosmetics so popular?

The real reason why people are so obsessed with Lush is because of these several factors.

First, Lush company has been in the business for almost 25 years and has been producing large amount of products to millions of users around the world. It has already set up its mark in the market.

Secondly, what makes it more popular is its colorful and vibrant appearance which made it once viral on social media, especially the video of brightly colored blobs jiggling is too mesmerizing to watch. Also, its colorful bath bomb has made bathing in tubs a must-try for everyone.

Third and more importantly, Lush is making products from natural ingredients which makes it more reliable and trusted. Customers always prioritize safety over anything else.

Also, the company is very serious in promoting sustainable cosmetics practice by eliminating plastic materials on their packaging and production. They also encourage other companies to fight animal-testing of cosmetics. These are all the reasons why Lush is very popular in the market.

Is Lush Cosmetics’ production process sustainable?

Aside from its all-natural ingredients, Lush is eyeing for greener environment with its sustainable production through more eco-friendly packaging. In the recent Sustainability in Packaging Europe 2019 conference, Lush unveiled their plans:

to fight animal testing,

use more fresh fruits and vegetables as ingredients,

conduct ethical buying in markets,

produce 100% vegetarian products, with 80% of its line also vegan,

produce its products by hand,

and employ naked package-free products.

Some of its recycled materials to be used are aluminum cans, PET bottles and cotton bags. These are all sustainable production processes.

Is Lush Cosmetics cruelty-free, vegan?

In Lush, cruelty-free, vegan is defined as using vegetarian ingredients and committing to a strict anti-animal testing policy. In the fight for cruelty-free cosmetic practice, the company does not test their cosmetics on any kinds of animals and does not buy any materials or ingredients from suppliers practicing or supporting animal-cruelty or animal-testing of beauty products.

Conclusion

As consumers, we should not limit ourselves from the products being offered by Lush. Yes, their products are all-natural and animal and eco-friendly. Buying products from Lush is like getting paid for the job that you like. But even without Lush, we should learn how to do sustainable self-care routines.

You could begin by just choosing which brands are more sustainable in terms of fashion, for example. Tentree promotes sustainable clothing with their products.

In terms of self-care at home, you could just rely on doing it by yourself with natural home ingredients instead of relying to those packaged sheet masks. You could also upcycle food scraps such as lemon peels into scrubs. The key is being creative and intuitive into what is best for your overall wellbeing.