Our Values

Here at Lush we have never liked to call ourselves an ethical company. We find the term rather a difficult concept, because it seems to us that it is used to describe companies who try not to damage people
or planet with their trade practices – when surely this should not be regarded as ‘ethical’ but as normal business-as-usual.

All business should be ethical and all trade should be fair. Individual companies should not stand out simply by not being damaging or unfair. No company should be trading from an unethical position and society has a right to expect as the norm fairness and resource stewardship from the companies that supply them.

We always wish to conduct our business so that all people who have contact with us, from our ingredients suppliers through to our colleagues and customers, benefit from their contact with Lush and have their lives enriched by it. No company is perfect and we strive daily to get closer to the ideal vision that all Lush people share. We will always want and demand more from Lush, so that our business practices match our own expectations, our colleague and customer expectations and the needs of the planet.

See our positions and policies here.

In the Lush ‘We Believe‘ statement we say “We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on the products and making our mums proud.”

But in truth it is not just our mums that feel proud of our work, the people who work at Lush also feel pride and a sense of ownership of the achievements and core values of the company.  Our own pride in the company and our individual contribution to Lush leads to enormous levels of hard work and loyalty not often seen in companies and a trust from colleagues and customers that is hard to win.

We know that many people have come to work here because of our values.  For many, Lush is a place that best represents either their personal values, their priorities or their world view; a company that strives to do good business without exploiting people, planet or animals. In fact over time Lush has become an ecosystem of exciting and differing people and opinions. Our ability to create a warm and welcoming home, a safe environment where difference is accepted and fostered, is maybe our single greatest strength. We have attracted minorities who have come to us as a refuge from prejudice, bullying or marginalisation. This wide and diverse group all find a place in the tapestry of Lush where we can forge a role that has personal value and meaning, whilst contributing to the whole.

No matter your position, we are all needed to work together for the future, as in the past, to build on the foundations of Lush, to push forward in all aspects of creativity, commerce, customer service and business integrity. Keeping Lush vibrant, relevant and meaningful to its place and time in the world, means we must continue to innovate and change whilst keeping true to our values and ensure that Lush remains a place we all feel proud to work and contribute to.

Whether a customer or shareholder, we all expect Lush to innovate, adapt and rise to the challenges that an ever changing world throws at us – with a general expectation that standards should rise rather than fall.

EMPLOYEE CONSULTATION ON CORE ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

One of the principal aims of the Lush Employee Benefit Trust (the EBT) is to protect the core values that enable us to maintain our ethical standards. To that aim, we are putting processes in place via the EBT to ensure that decisions are not made which may breach or materially affect our ethical practice without first taking the views of the staff of all Lush companies into account. This also allows for us all to be thoroughly briefed about the issues behind any major proposed changes so that we can make a meaningful contribution to that decision and the leaders of the business can make an informed decision having considered all our views.

There are certain values or principles we regard as so core to our philosophy that they should not be changed without proper consideration and consultation. If the directors of Lush consider that any such change is likely (and it would not in any way fetter their discretion or cause any of them to be in breach of their directors’ duties or any duty of confidentiality to do so), they will ask the Trustees of the EBT (the EBT Trustees) to seek the views of the Lush Group Employees and will seek to take those views into account when considering what action to take in relation to that proposed change. When requested to do so by Lush, the EBT Trustees will ask all the Lush Group Employees then on the payroll of all the Lush Group companies in all the countries where Lush carries on business whether they consider the proposed changes to amount to a breach or material change in our core ethical principles. 

These core ethical principles are:

No Animal Testing

Lush will never conduct or commission animal tests. Furthermore we will always choose to buy ingredients from suppliers who do not test on animals. Where there are laws and regulations which make non-animal testing difficult or impossible to achieve, we will challenge and campaign for true cruelty free legislation in all markets.

Lush is a Vegetarian company

Only vegetarian ingredients will be used in products. We also commit to ensuring that there are always some vegan options in our range.

Company tax policy

We commit to paying the proper amount of tax on time in all countries where Lush operates. A copy of our current written tax policy is available on request.

Lush is a campaigning company

Lush actively campaigns on the issues of Animal Rights, Human Rights and Environmental Protection. All Lush licensed territories are expected to campaign at least once a year on one of the core values through their shops and website.

Fair Wages for staff

Lush commits to exceed government minimum standards of staff wages and conditions in all countries in which it operates.

All Are Welcome, Always

Our statement of intent ‘All are welcome, always’ is our guiding principle on diversity and inclusion for staff and customers, where we hope to always be a place that embraces everyone. Lush will always aim to employ and promote people on the strength of skills, abilities and potential without prejudice or discrimination of any type.

Commitment to Transparency and External Audits

Lush will contract regular third party audits of its Animal Testing Policy, its ethical and environmental practices as well as regular business audits.

EVOLVING ETHICAL VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

There are some core values in addition to those set out above, which are equally fundamental to the Lush ethical ethos, but which would be defined differently over time, being affected by new advances in technology, differing world situations and newly available inventions and solutions. These core values will have targets and policies which change from time to time to reflect these advances and changes. 

A Living Planet

Lush believes it’s a part of the natural world, therefore its impact – be it through the ingredients we use, the way we manufacture and transport goods or how we generate energy – must give back more than it takes.

Fair business dealings with our suppliers

We believe fair trade is a trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade, engaging actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practices of conventional international trade.

Keeping product quality, core values, customer satisfaction and making a profit of equal importance

Lush believes in the right to make a profit, but when making major business considerations and adjustments, all aspects of Lush’s core values will be discussed and kept in mind. A balanced Lush business will always try to find profit whilst upholding the core values.

Fresh and Handmade

We aim to have an innovative, effective range of products produced by hand using fresh ingredients with an end goal of completely eliminating the use of synthetic preservatives.

Naked products

Our goal of minimising the use of packaging means that we will always strive to invent and perfect naked products.

Digital Ethics

Lush will always endeavour to behave with an ethical conscience in our ever-evolving digital estate.  We embrace open-source technologies in everything that we design, build and release. We give back our
research and code to open communities. We commit to using conflict material free commodity hardware that has high output but a low energy consumption powered by renewable green energy across the group, where possible. We ensure that all of Lush’s staff and customer data is encrypted, secure and transparent. Our Customers and Staff have the right to know what information we hold about them.

Renewable Energy

The past reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear for the world’s energy needs has caused problems. We will seek out and favour advances in new energy sources and solutions as they become available.

Recycled Materials

If we can’t make everything naked, then the next aim is to ensure that those products that do need packaging use the best and most innovative minimum impact, recycled or reused materials that are available.

Environmental policies

Lush will always seek to challenge itself over all its uses of the world’s resources. We aim to reduce and minimise our impact with policies that meet the needs of a changing and constantly evolving world situation. We will challenge and target ourselves in areas such as air transport, energy use, materials into landfill, recycling rates, pollution and waste outputs.

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

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

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 in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again.

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

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

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

Eating an apple picked straight off the tree is of course best for a healthy body….

..and fresh, handmade cosmetics are much like food in the way that they provide goodness to feed your skin.

The finest fresh ingredients have a far more nutritious and effective action on the skin, hair and mind than long-lasting, heavily preserved beauty products. Fresh raw ingredients which have not broken down or aged have ACTIVE properties, especially the vitamins, minerals and enzymes with wonderful benefits.

Essential oils are also most potent and effective when freshly extracted from the plant or flower source. Natural ingredients, plants, clays, butters and essential oils have been used for hundreds of years because they have a proven history of effective, safe use and are much kinder for the environment. In contrast, science, chemicals and claims of miracle formulas may sound exciting and offer promises of anti-aging etc but how safe and effective are they and what evidence supports their claims?

At Lush we have been working with fresh produce for many years and have vast experience of how to formulate, manufacture and look after products that incorporate whole fruits and vegetables, organic wherever possible.

We have discovered 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. At Lush we minimise the use of synthetics and preservatives. We take special care to ensure we use only the safest and mildest preservatives we know. Our fresh masks are as nutritious as fruit smoothies for the face – 100% natural, totally unpreserved – they are the centre piece of our shops.

We believe that customers have the right to know exactly what is in the products they buy, and our ingredients are therefore quantitatively marked on all labels. Our products are suitable for both vegetarians and vegans – this information is clearly marked on labels for customers to chose which products are suitable for them.

Over years of gaining knowledge and expertise, and listening to our customers needs, we have created a comprehensive range of carefully formulated products that are as fresh and effective as they are pleasurable to use… and many are lots of fun!

Making Lush products involves:

-Careful ordering of ingredients from ethical sources to ensure freshness and quality.

-Products made by hand, with care and attention – to maximise quality and minimise wastage.

-Batches honestly labelled with date and makers names – transparent information for customers. Products made to order, little and often, so they reach customers when they are really fresh.

-No stock piling of ingredients or large stock- holding of products – get products out to shops and Mail Order fast and fresh.

-Controlled factory waste stream – reduce and recycle.

All of our products are Fresh: made and available for you to buy in less than 21 days, with a ‘made on’ date as well as a ‘use by’ clearly shown on our iconic batch stickers.

This is what makes Lush different. Last year we bought:

-132,000kg of sea salt

-23,000kg of lemons

-11,400kg of bananas

-11,000kg of limes

We really do put the whole fruit in! Besides natural ingredients being fresher by nature, they have usually travelled less, as they need to arrive sooner.

The fresher the ingredients, the more nutrients they contain.

Fruit, for example, receives a constant flow of energy from the tree: the minute it leaves the branch it starts to decompose. The sooner we use it, the higher its nutrients and the greater the benefit to your skin or hair.

Fresh is the cornerstone of Lush products. We not only tell you when you should use your products by, but when they were made, to make sure you know exactly how fresh your cosmetics are. Where possible we always use fresh, seasonal ingredients that are ethically sourced to make sure we know exactly where they come from.

We believe fresh is better; do you?

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

Our products are made in spaces that look more like big kitchens than manufacturing sites. We have many more people working in our factories than we have machines. We produce cosmetics with our personal touch, creating local jobs and using local resources. Our factories are happy places where the product makers take care in their work and are proud to have their faces displayed on the packaging of the products they made. We don’t think of our factory workers as backroom staff, but as the kitchen stars who whip up fresh, amazing products with speed and finesse every day.

That is why we add stickers to our packaged products, to show customers the name and face of the person that made their product, as well as when it was made and when it goes out of date.

-We proudly display our faces on each product that we make by hand, and that’s every product, globally.

-We tell you when they were made, so you know just how fresh they are.

-When we invent new products, we don’t need new machinery, we simply need to train our staff to make them. With every new skill our compounders gain, they work their way up to being Master Compounders.

These lovely folk have to train and be signed off in 20 different departments, which can take up to 2 years to complete. We currently have 14 fully trained Master Compounders in the business, and we’re constantly looking to train more in all global manufacturing sites.

In Manufacturing we have a culture of training as many people as we can to make our products. There is a constant training plan in place for all our compounders to be continually up-skilling and learning new product ranges and about our raw materials.

There is also a massive focus not just on compounding when it comes to handmade, but also on our production assistants on the factory floor, as they press, shape and wrap our lovely products into the final finished item. Over the years, handmade in production has become more skilled as the products have become more complex, detailed and intricate.

Being a vegetarian company is important to us and we are proud of what we have been able to achieve.

Lush was founded on the vision that cosmetic products didn’t need to use animal fats or their by-products to be effective, and that animal testing was entirely unnecessary as well as unethical. Currently, around 95% of our all year round (AYR) product range is vegan with more products being added all the time which is really something to be excited about.

From taking a firm stand against the practice of animal testing itself to sourcing or inventing safe alternatives, it has been a large and continual part of Lush’s ethos to ensure that the ingredients we buy are sourced responsibly, sustainably and free of any nasties such as genetically modified organisms (GMO) and, where possible, pesticides.

All of the ingredients in Lush products are from sources required to sign our strict policy before supplying us and so are guaranteed not to be tested on animals.

Fruit, vegetables and grains are non-GMO and the honey we use is from sources that we are confident treat their animals with respect and care, and are the most sustainable, responsible sources available. We are always looking for ways to
improve, and so meticulously review our sources, and work closely with farmers to improve animal welfare. It’s never a case of a done deal and a ticked checklist – we like to visit the sites personally and regularly.

We like to trust the expertise of the farmers and communities we buy from. The honey used in Fairly Traded Honey shampoo is sourced from a supplier in Zambia who uses traditional techniques that have been passed down through the generations of their community. They are in tune with the bees and live alongside them in a mutually beneficial relationship, building eco friendly hives made from bark high up in trees to keep the hives safe. They never use pesticides or herbicides and the bees collect nectar from nearby, uncultivated forests which gives the honey a rich and smoky aroma.

All of our products are made in an environment free from animal flesh and are not tested on animals. Where possible, we use or sometimes even invent safe alternatives to animal products.

Keep an eye out for the official Vegetarian Society and Vegan Society logos on the pots. Life is too short to be reading long labels so we’ve made it easy.

This, along with a clear list of ingredients, means you can be totally certain you know exactly what you’re buying and that the product is suitable for you.

We price our products carefully to reflect the cost of the ingredients inside. 

We don’t hike the price of our products year round to cover the cost of holding regular discount sales. We don’t have special offers, two-for-one tempters or free gifts. The only time we discount our products is our clearance sale of seasonal Christmas specials. We sincerely believe proper product advice and a personalised service can bring greater savings to a customer than gimmicky offers.

Most bathrooms are full of unwanted product bought in error because the packaging was eye-catching or there was a tempting offer at the shop. All of them bought from endless aisles carrying a bewildering array of products. With nothing to guide you but generic packaging descriptions, you get home and find it’s not what you had hoped or that it doesn’t suit your skin, hair or lifestyle. You end up with bathroom cabinets, window sills and shelves full of unwanted stuff, taking a pit-stop in your bathroom on its way to landfill.

Providing personal service is the best environmental practice. If we can get you connected to the appropriate product for your needs, you get really good value for money, we get a regular customer, the consumption of unneeded product falls and money is no longer wasted.

It’s an old fashioned idea of service that we have always practised at Lush. We listen to your needs to find out how you like your skin and hair to feel, to learn how and when you like to bathe or shower, and then recommend the products that are best for you. This style of service fell out of use with the rise of self-service and supermarkets. Personalised shopping gave way to aisles of products that customers have to browse and choose from, with only as many words as can be crammed onto the packaging as the guide to which product would best suit them.

Some time ago a TV company asked us to cost a typical shower gel for a consumer programme. In doing this it became obvious that the packaging was a larger part of the manufacturing cost than the contents, and that the bottle, label and lid cost more than twice the shower gel itself.

With very little packaging, solid products like soap, bath bombs and massage bars need very little to protect or contain them. This is what makes Lush different:

Bottled products contain a lot of water, which is cheap to buy. Naked products contain effective ingredients that cost more.

Not using expensive packaging gives us a big saving. So we can invest that into extra staff and training.

No water helps make the product self-preserving…Neither you or the earth want a lot of worrying preservatives.

We use Fair Trade, natural and organic ingredients. This puts the cost up.

We spend the savings making high quality fragrances. This means using essential oils, absolutes and concretes.

At Lush we pride ourselves on our creativity, and this doesn’t stop with our products. Since the beginning our aim has been to use the best, safest and most beautiful ingredients.

We have discovered that if you want the best ingredients, you have to go out and find them yourself in the wider world.

Our dedicated Buying team works tirelessly to ensure that’s what we get. Often this involves a great deal of creative thinking and finding solutions to problems, such as sourcing the finest essential oils and absolutes, the best natural raw materials, safe synthetics, 100% recycled packaging or removing Palm oil from our products. Lush has a very strong commitment to the communities and areas from which we buy our ingredients.

We feel that our ingredients should be bought in a respectful way safeguarding the environment and the social impact.

Lush supports Fair Trade and Community Trade initiatives. We find out what impact our buying has on the people and environment and make responsible decisions regarding from where, from whom and how we purchase ingredients and packaging for Lush.

Ethical Considerations when buying

• Workers rights – unions, collective bargaining, health and safety, freedom to leave, fair pay, working hours, discrimination, no child labour.
• Environment – organic, sustainability, endangered species, production emissions onto land and water, use of resources to process ingredients, no Genetic Modification…
• Animal protection – No animal testing of ingredients. Vegetarian ingredients only.
• Transport – The distance ingredients travel, minimum air freight, packaging materials used.

Suppliers we support

For many years we have had a policy of aiming to purchase our materials direct from producers: the farmers, growers and processors, wherever possible, in order to learn the true story of each ingredient. This means that our buying team travel the world visiting suppliers, to meet the people involved. We see first hand how the ingredient is grown, harvested, mined, processed, etc. This allows us to get a better understanding of the raw materials, where they come from, how they are produced, what potential labour or environmental issues might arise and what might impact the cost of the materials (seasonality, crops, climate, etc).

Purchasing our materials in this way, with face-to-face communication also  helps  us foster good, honest, long-term productive relationships with the producers/suppliers and guarantees uninterrupted supply of good quality materials to make our products. We are able to ensure our suppliers understand the needs of our business and we also understand the constraints of their operations. Through buying direct from producers we are also able to support and help finance some really worthwhile and forward-thinking projects worldwide that make us proud.

When the Buying Team are not travelling the world and working out in the field, they provide regular updates, reports and presentations of information on:

• The sources of raw materials that we buy to make our products
• Fair Trade and community trade projects
• Suppliers lists
• The status of ingredients
• Sharing their experiences on buying trips (often very challenging!)
• This is constantly evolving as the Lush business grows and we nurture more relationships with suppliers all over the world.

Child Labour

Our stance on child labour is aligned with the ILO standards. We believe the minimum working age should not be lower than the age for completing compulsory education locally. We insist that our suppliers do not engage in any employment of child labour. Should suppliers become aware of any child labour taking place, we would expect them to engage in supporting a training and transition programme to support the child back into education.

We have been fighting against animal testing since before we opened our first shop, and the fight continues today. Animal testing is poor science and its results are irrelevant for humans.

Instead, we test our products for safety and effectiveness on human volunteers – real people. We also use in vitro test methods, using human cell-cultures and microbiology.

Lush do not test on animals, do not use materials that contain animal derivatives that are unsuitable for vegetarians and only buy raw materials from companies that are not involved in the use of, or commission the use of, animals for testing and have no plans to do so in the future. We believe that animal testing is not acceptable. We recognise that customer safety is of importance but that this can be assured without the use of animals.

We will not knowingly purchase ingredients from suppliers that have conducted, commissioned or been party to animal testing after our fixed cut-off date 1st June 2007, unless the supplier commits to conducting no further animal tests in the future, and to using acceptable in-vitro alternatives.

In-vitro refers to the technique of performing a given procedure in a controlled environment outside of a living organism.

Whilst we recognise the unavoidable exception of UK and EU REACH legislation (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals), Lush wishes to continue to encourage suppliers to test for safety using non-animal testing methods and to fund the development of non-animal test methods.

We have built Lush from day one using this policy – and we believe this shows that it is possible to invent, manufacture and bring to the market an entire range of products without any involvement in animal testing. Our founders launched this policy in June 1993, whilst still running their previous company, Cosmetics To Go. So when they started Lush in 1995, it began life using this policy and has stuck to it ever since.

Since Lush started in 1995 our animal testing policy has been that we will never conduct animal tests on our finished products and will only purchase ingredients from companies that do not test on animals. In
2013 we were delighted when the EU Cosmetics Directive came into full force, preventing the manufacture and marketing of animal tested cosmetics within Europe.  As a company that operates in 40 countries, we would like to see such strong legislation in every region, not just the EU – and we promise to never stop campaigning until animal testing is a thing of the past, not just in some countries but worldwide.

Still Fighting Animal Testing

The strength of feeling against this unscientific and cruel practice has not diminished over the years, which means that it is safe to say that Fighting Animal Testing is not just a Lush position and policy, but is a lifetime goal and the core value of our company. Lush will continue to fight animal testing worldwide – to speak out against it, to join with animal campaign groups to publicise it, to lobby against it and to educate around the issues – until animal testing is a thing of the past.

Our Fighting Animal Testing commitment means that Lush has a variety of positions and policies that both govern our own actions, to ensure that our business practices are free of animal testing, and reach out to the wider world to help eliminate the use of animals in testing worldwide.

Human Biology Based Testing Methods

We campaign against animal testing, trial products on people and develop in vitro testing methods in line with cell culture testing company XCellR8.

Finally, we have reached a point where some human biology based tests are recognised by The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This will mean that all the historical data that is derived from animal testing, and still relied upon by cosmetic companies, can eventually be replaced by data that is relevant to humans. Investigation into the hard work being done to get non-animal testing methods validated and approved for regulatory use, shows that although there are those striving to achieve this, there are still not enough companies using these methods.

In 2013, XCellR8 won the Lush Prize for Training and began modifying and developing cell culture tests for both Lush products and raw materials. This will mean we can start to build that foundation of knowledge and experience in human biology
based testing that needs to exist in order to get more companies and authorities to drop animal tests altogether.

Here at Lush, we use a range of relatively simple ingredients to make our products. We know our ingredients to be safe, however cell culture testing means that products and ingredients which are intended for humans, are actually tested on humans.

REACH

REACH is European chemical legislation that governs the import and manufacture of chemicals within Europe.  REACH mandates animal testing in certain conditions, so is of concern to all animal campaign groups and also to companies which strive to adhere to an animal testing free policy.

The REACH legislation was the largest piece of legislation passed by the EU and so complicated that even after it was law it was not clear how it would be implemented.  It is an evolving piece of legislation and an example of an external pressure on our non animal testing policy.

It’s starts with invention

Our commitment to non-animal tested (or cruelty-free) cosmetics starts at the invention stage. Our product creators work with natural ingredients and a small selection of synthetic ingredients with a safe history of use on humans. In fact, a number of our ingredients have been used in cosmetics for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, carrying a long history of safe use.

We avoid using new ingredients that require animal testing by law. Under product safety legislation, ingredients that have no history need to be fully tested before they can be put on the market – some of that testing could end up being done on animals.

Some companies claim that without animal testing, innovation in the cosmetics industry is impossible. After 30 years of developing products with only known, safe ingredients, we still haven’t run out of ideas; it just takes a little creativity.

Human Volunteers

We still need to ensure that our newest creations will be safe and effective for our customers, so we test our finished products on human volunteers. Here’s what that looks like:

1. We test our products in house first – each one of them needs to be good enough for us before it goes out the door.

2. We prepare a batch of our new creation and send it to a sample of volunteer testers. We have around 350 independentvolunteers on our panel across the UK, covering different skin and hair types.

3. After using the product, each volunteer fills out an extensive questionnaire that asks if the product was effective, what they liked
and disliked about it, and whether it caused any adverse reaction.

4. The product testers then send back any multi-use product that is left over for microbiology testing.

5.The results are collected and analyzed by the inventors – sometimes the feedback is great, sometimes they need to go back to the drawing board. These results are also incorporated into the safety dossier of each product. As we go forward, more and more in-vitro information about the ingredients and the finished products are included in this dossier, too.

6. The dossier is then reviewed by safety assessors. They will either certify the release of the product, request more testing or make recommendations for changes.

7. As the product hits the shelves, as part of our on-going monitoring program, we collect and review customer feedback from around the world.

Microbiology

There’s quite a broad range of microorganisms in cosmetics, especially fresh cosmetics.

During the development of a new product and during the regular production cycles, we collect samples and analyze them to make sure that the level and nature of the microorganism won’t interfere with the safety or the effectiveness of the product.

We perform a general “aerobic plate count” on nonselective agar medium. This is a little dish with a thin layer of agar (a clear jelly extracted from seaweed), sometimes mixed with PH indicators or other vegetarian nutrients such as sugar. The microbiologist puts a drop of product on top, incubates the dish and sees what grows.

We accept that there may be some organisms present, but nothing potentially pathogenic or harmful. We also look at yeast and moulds to see how the product will last.

We’re proud to say that our products are proven to be safe and effective, all without the use of animal tests. We hope that by setting this example, other cosmetics companies will the the pledge to use only cruelty-free methods to test for safety.  

In 2018, Lush updated our We Believe statement for the first time, ever.

We are so convinced that restricting freedom of movement is so damaging, both for people and ecosystems that we have added the declaration “We believe that all people should enjoy freedom of movement across the world” to our ‘We Believe’ statement.

Many of Lush’s current staff and employees of the future consider themselves global citizens, and we will continue to fight for their right to freedom of movement.

We employ staff globally and inclusively. Our UK factory is based in Poole where 45% of our current staff are British and 55% are not. Every August to December we employ an additional 1,400 people to meet Christmas demand and deeply value and depend on people from outside the UK filling these roles. With only 3,000 people in the entire Dorset county currently claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance, we otherwise have a very small pool of local people to fill these roles.