Lush Life

I wanted to talk about my favourite shop, Lush.

I just love their stuff, it smells beautiful. It does the job. The shampoo bars wash my hair, last ages and don't irritate the dermatitus I get round my ears and the shampoo that I can use year after year with doing that, just doesn't exist elsewhere. Their bath products are fun and exciting and turn baths into a luxury treat. Thei shower jelly froths up on my sponge but doesn't leave my skin heavy with that soapy residue.... do I need to go on?

For me, the definition of 100% hand made and 100% natural don't enter in to it. Their products nuture and nourish me in ways the products in the chain stores do not and can not. And it isn't just me. My nephew gets eczema and their bath products do the same for him.....

I trust Lush as a company though, to be as far down the natural and hand made route as any main stream, high street company can be - and to keep pushing that boundary further and further. but they do need to make money! And I am no chemist so i can not comment on the ingredients.

They are a company with morals. They have charity products. They had leaflets about palm oil in their shops and removed it from their products (I think) before it became a hot topic. They recently started promoting the cause of the greyhound to.

Now I know some people walk in and are completely turned off byt the smell in the shop. And I admit I have very little sense of smell... but... the overwhelming smell is linked to another important aspect of their ethos. Waste!

Now this may be a bigger issue in the UK than some other countries where they sell, here we are a tiny island with a high population and all that waste has to go in holes in the ground. They make as many products as they can solid so that they can just go in a thin paper bag, which can be recycled and is made from recycled paper. The majority of the rest of their products go in tough, good quality black pots. These pots can be taken back and five returned pots gets you a free face mask. So this is a company that really, really tries. A company that shows the chain stores that you can reduce waste if you are creative and you care.

The effect of having all those toiletries semi-naked though, is that you can smell them all. There is nothing stopping the smell getting out. Imagine a chain store with all the bottles of perfume open? Now someone with perfume sprayed on too strong will make me sneeze.... Lush never does. You take home one tiny piece of soap and the smell isn't overwhelming.....

So yes, I love Lush. Maybe they do not go far enough in all areas for some fanatics out there. Maybe they do not tick the important boxes for some people, but they tick mine. Having a skin condition like mine where I have deformed sweat glands means that the wrong products block my skin up or coat it and then I get infected pores. Lush helps me and I love it. Do I need to say any more?