LUSH is a cosmetics company that produces and sells a variety of handmade bath products and toiletries, including facemasks, soaps, bath bombs, bubble bars, hand & body lotions and hair treatments. LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, was first started in 1995 in Poole, England before making their way down under in 1997. LUSH is headquartered in Poole, England. The company started with core beliefs of manufacturing fresh handmade products from natural materials and essential oils for personal care. Lush has more than 650 stores and several factories in over forty countries around the world while having mail order operations in twelve countries. It has construction facilities in the UK, Italy, Japan, Canada, and South America. It makes its products by hand in its own production facilities and distributes them to its own retail stores and no where else. It is a privately owned company with its growth mainly based upon partnerships and franchising.LUSH was founded by Liz Weir, Mark Constantine, Mo Constantine, Rowena Bird and Helen Ambrosen. Each bringing their own unique and incredible talents to the business.For more than 20 years, LUSH has been creating fresh handmade cosmetics for customers all over the world. However it wasn’t always this way. Mark Constantine and Liz Weir (now Bennett) first met in the early 70s working at a Poole beauty salon. Mark was a trichologist (an expert in the science of hair and the scalp!) and Liz, a beauty therapist. Both were interested in creating effective beauty products. So in 1977, they started a business of their own — Constantine & Weir.Mark and Liz developed a small operation hand-making herbal hair products for local herbalists and salons. With the help of Mark’s wife, Mo, they would concoct batches of products made from their own recipes.
In six short years, the innovative CTG business unfortunately found itself in receivership. However, the team picked themselves back up and we soon saw the birth of LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. The independent status also allowed them to focus on the issues close to their hearts. Staunchly against animal testing, they developed a buying policy that ensured that no supplier tested on animals — a pioneering policy that still stands today. They also funded the important work of those looking for cruelty-free solutions to cosmetics testing without the use of animals.A visit to a London delicatessen also sparked the desire to use fresh ingredients in the cosmetics that they produced, and an emphasis on cutting down on preservatives within the range.
LUSH’s debut was understated and humble after the hard lessons from the CTG venture. The first shop was simply designed with the day’s specials written on chalkboards in the 29 High Street space. Frivolous packaging was nowhere to be found, and all money went into buying fresh, quality ingredients; it was the beginning of the signature LUSH look that still exists today. In fact, the Lush products we see today aren’t much different than the very first products in Poole.
Sustainability represents the greatest challenge for contemporary design. Designers and manufacturers can no longer satisfy themselves by simply giving people what they want. Consumer‐driven design is implicated in the crisis of unsustainability that we now face. Designing for sustainable consumption requires us to view products as a means for more sustainable patterns of living, rather than as ends in themselves. Models such as the Cradle to Cradle design protocol offer promising routes to a more sustainable materials economy. Eco‐modernist approaches which seek to modify our present model of production can yield relatively minor eco‐efficiencies, however. There can be no sustainable consumption in a consumer society. Design for sustainability is therefore design against consumerism, and requires us to become active citizens rather than passive consumers. The implications of sustainability for design history are equally significant. LUSH’s mission is to make their products by hand with fresh natural fruit and vegetarian ingredients, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics, little-to-no preservatives. They are staunchly against animal testing, even refusing to buy material from producers that test on animals, and seek to minimize packaging to reduce waste and lower costs for better products. LUSH aims to have the freshest personal care products in the history of cosmetics.Lush makes its products by hand and prints its own labels and even produces its own fragrances.LUSH aims to produce good value products according to its customers’ demands.LUSH believes that fresh and natural have an honest meaning beyond marketing.
Lush Cosmetics is known for being one of the first companies to unite makeup and environmental responsibility. All of Lush’s makeup and body products are vegan and made with the environment in mind.Not only their products but also their packaging is highly environmentally friendly. The company makes it clear that the goal of Lush packaging is to eliminate as much packaging waste as possible and keep any material usage to a minimum. At least half of their products can be purchased without any packaging, such as their soaps, bath bombs, and shampoo bars. By weight, 90% of Lush packaging is made from recycled materials.
In terms of its graphic design their brand and their packaging are easily identifiable with bright and bold colors which certainty serve the purpose of product and brand differentiation, but what is really great about LUSH is their approach to package design and the ingredients in their products. All of their packaging features an expiry date as well as extra information including time and date the product was made and the name with illustration of the person who made the product.
LUSH also launched a “carbon positive” packaging solution; one that eliminates plastic altogether, does not involve cargo shipping, and removes additional carbon dioxide from the air. Carbon positive is not the same as net zero emissions; it means that an activity actually creates an environmental benefit by removing additional greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Through a collaboration with non-profit organisation Eco Interventions, Lush sources regeneratively-grown cork oak from Portugal to create cork containers that will be shipped via commercial sailboats rather than cargo ships. For each cork pot, Lush will pays the non-profit 5 Euros, which goes to provide forest owners the necessary resources to cultivate re-plantable oak trees without pesticide use. Transporting goods by sail cargo is a good fit with our ethics and ambition to reduce harm to the planet as its largely carbon neutral.
LUSH offers over 300 luxurious beauty products. LUSH body products for bath, body, hair and face are safe as they are completely made of fresh materials, cruelty-free, vegetarian, minimally preserved and minimally packaged. Lush produces many different types of cosmetic products, including, face, hair, hands and feet, all the way to bath and shower products. Lush creates solid products instead of liquid soaps or shampoos to reduce packaging waste and the need for preservatives. Some examples of Lush’s solid products include bubble bath bars, shampoo bars, hair conditioner bars, solid shower gel, and massage bars. LUSH tries to keep its products fresh and that is why produces products in batches for individual stores to preserve freshness. In order to maintain this standard of freshness, LUSH takes off the product from store shelves that’s older than 4 months. Lush lists their product ingredients in English, Japanese and many other languages. Many LUSH products are labeled with a use-by date and who made that product. Less than 30% of LUSH’s products contain animal ingredients such as beeswax, honey etc
- No animal testing: LUSH is firmly committed to a policy that restrains testing products and ingredients on animals, discourage suppliers to do so and also prohibits buying from suppliers that test any material on animals for any purpose. In fact they test their products on human volunteers. LUSH supports wildlife by buying pure organic ingredients.
- Green Policy: Environmental issues are at the centre of the company. The company uses the money it saves from less packaging on making sure the customers are getting the most natural materials money can buy. LUSH also discourages the use of packaging as its destroys the environment. Lush’s naked campaign is part of this effort and such events are carried out in 30 cities across the UK. Another strategy of LUSH in the effort of saving environment is the use of recycled products.
- Another policy is to use as little preservatives in the products as possible. This is why the company produces solid products to reduce the use of water. Besides that all the packaging of lush are biodegradable and reusable.
- Also you can return five clean black pots to any Lush store in exchange for a free fresh face mask.Which is later chipped down and remold into new black pots in a closed recycling loop.
Lush has done an excellent job outlining their priorities to the environment, animals and people in need starting right at the roots of where they get their ingredients. They have what is called their “Ethical Buying team” whose responsibility is to travel worldwide, to visit their suppliers to trace the ingredients, also to meet the growers and producers, and ensure care for the environment and fair conditions for workers. This is a incredible example of how they work towards the idea of sustainability. Because their products are handmade, they are optimizing.More companies need to be implementing not just carbon or climate neutral, but climate positive solutions. This can be done by switching to renewable energy, eliminating waste, utilizing local production, and offsetting carbon footprints through funding reforestation projects to counteract any residual emissions from the manufacturing and transportation process. Lush is a supporter of direct action, animal rights operations including Sea Shepherd, a group that works to protect whales, seals, and other aquatic animals[Source: Wikipedia].Everything is handmade, which means they. provide a lot of jobs and is good for environment. Climate change is a big issue in present contexts a lot of companies/factories have been and still is the main issue of climate change which has effected our planet earth.Nowadays, people pay closer attention to the matter of environment and its protection. One of the reasons why our planet’s ecology suffers is the negative influence of industry.Due to the rapid development of different industries, environment is effected. In the meanwhile, we have a huge need for industries. We have to find a reasonable way out for stopping the destruction of our environment but keep industries work effectively.It’s easy to say that we should protect our nature. However, it’s more complicated to make these words come true. Due to a numerous number of different daily needs, factories, cars, and other things we steadily kill our nature. Multiple factors pollute the air, water, and soil. We lose natural resources and cannot recover them. It seems that humanity leads itself to self-destruction.Our planet lives through various catastrophes and they aren’t of natural origin. They are caused by humanity. Different industries cause the degradation of land quality, spoil the water, cut rainforest, emit hazardous pollutants into the air, induce acid rain, and global warming.It has been part of our daily life so we cannot imagine or adjust our life without. it but least we can do is promote more brand like LUSH which supports reusable, bio degradable, recycled,and environment friendly.
