Lush

Fresh Handmade Cosemetics
Product Review

   On their website, Lush lists its company's core beliefs. The first is, “We believe in making effective products from fresh, organic fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics.”
   Their second core belief is, “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.” They go on to say, “Preservatives are by nature poisonous.”
   This sounds like our kind of company, right? We thought so...
Imagine our surprise when Lush sent us a number of samples, among them their Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub, which happens to contain FD&C Blue # 1 and FD&C Red # 28, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Cocoamphoacetate, Lauryl Betaine, and synthetic perfume.
   Why send it to us? For that matter, why make it? Lush does have some good ideas. It sounds like they want to make things the right way. But their primary focus is on fresh more than natural or organic. Why not both? Why have one foot in and one foot out?
   Oh, yes. Back to the issue of the product review for Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub. Sorry, no review. We don't take chemical baths.

Angels on Bare Skin Cleanser

Lush's website says Angels on Bare Skin is the perfect, all-round cleanser. “Ground almonds gently exfoliate, rose absolute tones and lavender oil soothes. A pea-sized amount mixed with water in the palm of your hand to create an even paste is all you need. The result: angelic skin!”
The product looks a bit unusual. It's like a rolled up chunk of clay, and it looks very “earthy” – but this is OLM, and we dig this kind of stuff. Does it work? Yes, it does. And it was not a problem for our sensitive skin testers. After using this product our faces felt soft and clean. It works, but it doesn't work any better than the average product. And the fact that it does not list

all of its ingredients (what's in the perfume?) really bothers us.
The ingredients listed on their website are ground almonds (prunus dulcis), glycerine, kaolin, water (aqua), lavender oil (lavandula hybrida), rose absolute (rosa centifolia), lavender flowers (lavendula hybrida), *limonene, *linalool, and perfume.

Breath of Fresh Air Skin Toner

Lush says Breath of Fresh Air Skin Toner re-hydrates dry skin with soothing, nutritious, rejuvenating ingredients like real sea water, natural spring water, aloe vera gel, patchouli oil, rosemary oil and seaweed absolute. “A

spritz after cleansing softens and balances, while a spritz any other time of day refreshes and renews.” Unlike the Angels on Bare Skin Cleanser, this toner has no perfume listed on the website as an ingredient, but it does have Methylparaben, a synthetic antifungal.
This toner feels good to the face, refreshing, and cooling, and it does moisturize. Most of the other products we have tried of similar nature will “wear off” leaving your skin feeling dry and

itchy. Not this toner.

Vanishing Cream Facial Moisturizer

Lush says “This low fat moisturizer has minimal oil, making it perfect for those with acne, oily skin or a spotty T-zone (forehead, nose and chin). Light-as-a-feather Vanishing Cream sinks into the skin quickly… Vanishing Cream really does make skin

troubles, well, vanish.” Ingredients listed in black include stearic acid, cetearyl alcohol, triethanolamine, methylparaben, and propylparaben. Our testers evaluated this product by

putting it on one side of the face only. A few hours later all testers found that side drier than the other. One of our testers said, “Normally, I would go put more moisturizer on, but now I know that this stuff actually caused the dryness!”
Lush has a variety of all natural products on their website, and again, we are surprised by their decision to send us anything that wasn't

all natural to test. The one product which did meet our standards for ingredients was also the best according to our testers.
We do hope Lush continues making all natural, fresh, products and discontinues the products that contain artificial colors and preservatives.

Lush

Lush Review

Issue 6 | December/January 2008/09

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