Aside from making products you can smell from about 10 feet away, Lush is known for having a strong ethical policy when it comes to its cosmetics. The company doesn’t test on animals, all the products are vegetarian and they’ve removed palm oil, they support Fair Trade and workers’ rights, and they’re committed to reducing plastic waste with plastic packaging-free Naked products.
Lush sold more than 16 million Naked products in the last financial year and now over half of Lush’s total range is Naked. That means cosmetics like solid deodorants, solid facial oils, solid body butters and solid hair colours are available with zero plastic packaging. The solid shampoo bars are particularly popular; a 55g bar lasts for up to 80 washes, approximately three times longer than 200ml bottle, meaning that every bar saves up to three plastic bottles from landfill. Lush has sold 41.3 million shampoo bars since July 2005, saving 124 million plastic bottles from being binned.
You can even cut plastic from your makeup bag with packaging-free lipstick refills (you just remove the peelable wax coating and slot into an old lipstick holder) and 100% vegan solid foundation, available in 40 shades.
Swapping to plastic packaging-free products is such a small and simple change but it really does make a difference. As Ruth Andrade from Lush Regenerative Impact and Earth Care has said, “The Great Pacific Garbage patch is a part of the ocean that is completely covered in plastic waste brought together by different currents. Just the shampoo bars sold by Lush since 2005 (as far back as our counting goes) have saved the equivalent of 4% of the garbage patch. Imagine if everyone made that easy swap?”