Q: What do you think of Lush products?
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A: With eyes shut, you can find a Lush store from three blocks away thanks to the overpowering aroma of these soap shops.
And though, yes, Lush does stuff its vegetarian beauty collection with a solid portion of natural ingredients like papaya juice, mango oil and coconut oil, I wouldn’t call the line all-natural.
Many of Lush’s products contain irritating sulfite sudsers, controversial paraben preservatives and artificial dyes. Product-for-product, though, they have fewer synthetics than mainstream competitors like the Body Shop and Aveda.
Since no natural scent can be smelled from 60 feet away, your nose has already confirmed that Lush does lace its goods with partly synthetic perfumes, and unlike the competition, Lush hasn’t announced it’s free of hormone-disrupting phthalates. though Lush reps say their scents are free of hormone disrupting phthalates.
Last year, the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association lobbied to have a Swedish branch keep its doors closed, calling the scents wafting from the store “a health hazard.” The Body Shop also uses fake scents, but both the Body Shop (as of 2009) and Aveda claim to be phthalate-free.
If strong scents don’t bother you, the champagne-popping good news is that Lush has recently taken a leadership role in ousting palm oil from its soaps, shower bars, bath bombs and more.
Considering palm oil plantations are responsible for clear-cutting heartbreakingly large swaths of Malaysian and Indonesian rainforest, this is very happy news.
Lush has actually taken the initiative to write to 300 other companies, encouraging them to make the same move. Lush hasn’t eliminated all palm-based ingredients (you’ll still find sodium palm kernelate in its soaps), but the company says it’s working on it.
Ousting all things palm is probably the wisest PR move, seeing as how the Body Shop landed in hot water last month when it was revealed that its organic Colombian palm oil isn’t so ethically sourced after all.
The UK’s Guardian outed Body Shop’s Colombian partner, Daabon Organic, for evicting a farmers’ co-op from their land to make way for a palm plantation. The farmers are now pushing back with the legal backing of a UK charity.
Another upside to Lush is that it has more packaging-free items – including solid shampoo and conditioner bars, toner tabs, bath bombs and bubble bars – than other high-profile brands.
In fact, 70 per cent of Lush products can be purchased “naked.” (Whether people walk out the door with them naked, or bagless, is another story.)
And since the solid products last longer, one shampoo bar replaces three 250 ml plastic bottles.
Lush’s pots and bottles are made from 100 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic. If you return the black pots, Lush will have them recycled.
The Body Shop, unfortunately, cancelled its refilling program a few years back, and Aveda, well, never had one (though it does have a cap recycling program, since few recyclers process caps).
Lastly, unlike the rest of the Main Street players making natural claims, Lush hasn’t actually gone corporate. While Aveda was gobbled up by Estée Lauder in 97 and the Body Shop went to L’Oréal in 06, Lush, with 600 stores around the world, still has some indie cred.
Are any of these companies the greenest of the green or the purest of the pure?
Well, no. For that you’ll have to head to a health store and ask for brands with high certified-organic content. (Those with 95 per cent or more organic ingredients come with the USDA Organic seal on the front.)
But if you’re trying out a packaging-free diet and don’t get a headache walking into the store, Lush might surprise you.
Got a question?
Send your green queries to ecoholic@nowtoronto.com
