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Lush

Handmade cosmetic products

1001+ employees
  • B2C
  • Retail
  • Sustainability
  • Beauty
Dolphin Quays, Poole Quay, Unit 26b, Poole, Dorset BH15 1HU

Company mission

Lush's mission is to provide beauty lovers with handmade, wonderful cosmetics. It does this with a fundamental focus on sustainability, prioritising fresh ingredients, combating animal testing, and reducing packaging for its shower gels, bath bombs, shampoo, moisturisers and much more.

Insights

Female leader

8% employee growth in 12 months

Otta's take

Xav Kearney headshot

Xav Kearney

CTO of Otta

Cosmetics is simultaneously one of the largest, and one of the most polluting, industries in the world. But Lush doesn't believe good quality beauty products have to have such a damaging impact on the environment.

Instead, it sets itself apart by producing all-natural, and ethically sourced cosmetics. All of its products are handmade, vegetarian, and are not tested on animals, whilst still doing good to users' skin.

With this approach, Lush is aiming to make sure that cosmetics and environmental sustainability are not mutually exclusive, helping to revolutionise the hundreds-of-billions-sized cosmetics industry.

Benefits

  • 50% discount on Lush products and spa treatments
  • Discretionary and profit-based bonus
  • Pension scheme
  • Day off for weekday birthdays
  • Holiday purchase scheme
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Discounted rail and bus season tickets
  • Employee assistance programme
  • 6 months’ full pay for parental leave (primary caregiver)
  • Financial childcare support on return to work
  • Flexible working
  • Support groups, film nights, yoga and meditation sessions and more..

Company values

  • 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

Founders

Mo Constantine

(Co-founder & Inventor)

Mo worked as a legal secretary, before inventing for Cosmetics to Go. They invented several innovative and sustainable cosmetics products before co-founding Lush.

Mark Constantine

(Co-founder, CEO & Inventor)

Having worked at the mail order business Cosmetics to Go, Mark co-founded Lush in 1995, and works in Product Development and Business Operations.

Paul Greeves

(Co-founder)

Paul worked as a bio-chemist, before co-founding Lush. They have worked in several departments since then, including running Lush Labs and working in data security.

Helen Ambrosen

(Co-founder & Investor)

Helen started Lush with their fellow co-founders in 1995, since then she has worked as an Investor.