Welcome to Lush

History

The Lush creative team has been working together since the late seventies when we first started to hand-make our own cosmetics. In 1978 we sold our first product to the Body Shop and in 1988 we set up Cosmetics to Go, in Poole, Dorset, by the sea on the south coast of England, where we surprised the bathing public by inventing products such as Bath Bombs, Shampoo Bars and Massage Bars and built a hugely successful, catalogue-based mail order cosmetics company the like of which had never been seen before.

Everyone makes mistakes. In a series of unfortunate co-incidences, culminating in a disaster, Cosmetics to Go went under and we had to sell what was left of the company.

In 1994 we picked ourselves up and started making cosmetics again. After all, it's what we're good at. Our first shop was at 29 High Street, Poole, where it is to this day, and we opened our second in London's King's Road. We were mobbed! We grew from there.

Today we have 100+ shops around the world, We also operate mail order businesses from the UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan.

We hand-make our cosmetics in Europe, Canada, Australia, South America, Singapore and Japan, in our own production facilities, so that every product available in our shops or sent to you by mail is as fresh as it can possibly be because fresh products work better and use fewer preservatives.

Our aim is to have the youngest, freshest products in the history of cosmetics.

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. Lush runs its own Supplier Specific Boycott Policy. There are clear benefits to this policy, which is different and distinct from the Fixed Cut-off Date policy employed by the Humane Cosmetics Standard (Leaping Bunny logo). Can the ingredients Lush use be tested for other purposes, but still used in cosmetics? While some other policies only preclude the use of ingredients tested on animals for use in cosmetics, the Lush policy means the company will not do business with any supplier that is engaged in any animal testing for any purpose, be it cosmetics, food, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc. All of Lush’s suppliers have to sign a statement saying that they adhere to this policy, and the statements are resent to suppliers on an annual basis and reiterated and signed for with each purchase order for ingredients. In addition, the entire supply chain is audited by an independent consultant to ensure that suppliers are in compliance with the policy.

Why do Lush not have a Fixed Cut-Off Date like some other companies?
Other policies apply a specific timeframe during or after which a company will not buy ingredients which have been tested on animals, but therefore do not offer a financial incentive for ingredients manufacturers to stop all animal testing because, even if they did, under a fixed cut-off date the manufacturers would still not qualify for any additional business from that company. The Lush policy actively encourages suppliers to switch from animal to non-animal testing methodologies by enabling them to immediately become eligible to supply the Lush when they stop testing on animals. This policy is like a traditional boycott campaign, in other words, stop doing the thing we object to (testing on animals) and we will call off the boycott (reward you with our business).

If you don't test on animals, how do you make sure your products are safe to use?
Lush feel that not only is the testing of cosmetic products and ingredients on animals unnecessary and unethical, but it is also scientifically unreliable, unable to adequately access the safety or efficiency of a product or ingredient, and may even allow unsafe products onto the market. We prefer to know that our products are safe for the humans that are going to be using them, so all of our products go through a rigorous assessment, and human trials using our panel of volunteer human testers. We prefer to use only natural ingredients with a proven record of safe use, and where we have to use synthetic ingredients we again use only those with a long and proven record of safe use.