Lush’s story begins with a small cosmetics business in Poole and a question about who owns the products a retailer sells. Its founders had developed formulations for the Body Shop before that company bought the manufacturing rights. When their non-compete agreement ended, Mark and Mo Constantine and their co-founders opened a new shop, making cosmetics with freshly purchased fruit and vegetables. Lush would grow into an international retailer, but its early history helps explain why its products, sourcing and campaigning became closely linked.
From a supplier to a shop of its own
Mark Constantine and Liz Weir met while working in the beauty industry in Poole in the 1970s. They went on to develop and sell natural hair and beauty products, supplying Anita Roddick’s Body Shop when it opened its second shop in 1977. The pair became the retailer’s biggest supplier. In the early 1990s, the Body Shop sought ownership of the formulations behind many of the products it sold and bought Constantine and Weir out, paying £6 million for the manufacturing rights. A non-compete agreement kept the two from entering the market again until 1994.
Lush’s company history dates its founding to 17 June 1994, while its first shop opened in 1995 at 29 High Street, Poole. That distinction matters: the opening of the shop is not the same date as the company’s founding. The business was established by Mark and Mo Constantine, Liz Weir, Rowena Bird, Helen Ambrosen, Karl Bygrave and Paul Greeves. Its name came from a competition among readers of the shop’s newsletter.
The Poole shop made fresh cosmetics using ingredients including fruit and vegetables. The business soon opened shops in London, at Covent Garden and on King’s Road, before expanding abroad. Its first store outside the UK opened in Vancouver in 1996; further international openings followed, including in Croatia and Australia in 1997, Brazil in 1999 and Dublin in 2000. Lush’s headquarters remain in Poole, and its manufacturing facilities are spread across several countries.
Products, ingredients and the question of testing
Lush sells cosmetics for the face and hair, as well as soaps, creams, shampoos, shower gels and lotions. Its bath bombs became one of its best-known products, while its broader range includes skin, hair and body care. The company describes its recipes as vegetarian; the supplied account reports that 95 per cent are also vegan. Some products contain ingredients such as honey or beeswax, so the distinction between those terms is meaningful.
The company’s position on animal testing has shaped both its buying policy and its campaigns. It says it does not buy from companies that carry out, fund or commission animal testing and tests products on human volunteers. In the 1980s, the founders worked with the organisation now known as Cruelty Free International, then BUAV, on an ethical testing standard for cosmetics. Lush’s policy also extends to suppliers and raw materials. The company has said that this stance can mean it will not sell in some markets, although the account notes an exception connected with European Union REACH legislation.
Ethical purchasing is not a simple label that settles every question about an ingredient. Lush introduced a palm-oil-free soap, Greenwash, in 2007, using a blend of sunflower, rapeseed and coconut oils. It then changed UK and overseas production away from palm oil towards that blend, reducing its purchases. However, the supplied account says that some products continued to contain palm oil or derivatives. From 2017, Lush campaigned against palm-oil production associated with habitat destruction in Sumatra and, from 2018, bought two plots of land bordering the Leuser Ecosystem for reforestation.
Packaging is another visible part of the company’s approach. Lush sells some products without packaging, a practice it calls “naked”, and limits packaging elsewhere. In 2018 it introduced a Naked skincare range, including solid facial oils and cleansers. The company’s choices have not ended the wider environmental questions around cosmetics, but they have made packaging and ingredients conspicuous parts of its retail identity.
Retail, giving and public campaigns
Lush’s growth has brought its approach to a large international business. The supplied reference records 886 stores in 2024 and operations in dozens of countries. It is privately owned, with a small number of shares available by invitation. Rather than spending on television advertising or celebrity endorsements, the company says it relies heavily on user-generated content and the experience of its shops. Staff have also been permitted to give products to customers through what Lush calls “random acts of kindness”.
Campaigning has been a more direct way for the company to communicate its values. In 2006, Lush opposed proposed European REACH legislation on the grounds that it would increase animal testing. The company encouraged customers to send postcards to members of the European Parliament; the supplied account says 80,000 postcards were sent. Lush also protested outside the Parliament in Strasbourg. Its support for animal-rights and other campaigning organisations has included public contributions to groups and causes, making activism part of its business profile rather than a separate corporate message.
The company has also used its shops to draw attention to issues. In 2012, a performance artist spent ten hours in the window of its Regent Street shop as part of an animal-testing campaign. A 2018 campaign about undercover policing provoked criticism for appearing to cast all police officers as liars. Lush said the campaign concerned a controversial branch of political undercover policing, not frontline police work, and suspended the window displays temporarily for staff safety before resuming them. The episode illustrates both the attention a high-street campaign can attract and the risks of communicating a complex issue through a blunt slogan.
For many years, Charity Pot linked a product to small organisations working on environmental conservation, animal welfare and human rights. In 2024, Lush announced that it had raised £100 million in charitable giving since 2007 and that Charity Pot would be discontinued. It announced other purpose-linked soaps, including products whose profits were to support childhood mental health services in Palestine and communities recovering from or protecting against wildfires. Such initiatives show a continuing use of retail sales to raise money, while the end of Charity Pot marks a change in the programme rather than its uninterrupted continuation.
Expansion and change
Lush continued to experiment with how it presented products. It launched the perfume brand Gorilla Perfume in 2010, a collaboration between Mark Constantine and his son Simon. In 2014, the perfume business opened a standalone shop in Islington. The experimental brand B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful began in 2003, opening its first shop on Carnaby Street before expanding overseas; its shops closed in 2009. In 2019, Lush opened what the supplied account describes as its largest store, in Liverpool.
The company’s choices have sometimes meant withdrawing from familiar channels. In 2021, it removed its Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok accounts, citing concerns about effects on mental health and body image. This made its no-advertising policy more than a claim about avoiding conventional paid campaigns: the company also chose to leave several major social platforms. Its international business has faced disruption as well. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, Lush temporarily closed shops in North America, Australia and the UK. The supplied account records continued staff pay during the initial North American closures, followed later by job losses in Canada as the business faced the pandemic’s impact.
Those changes sit alongside a less celebratory part of the company’s record: labour disputes and criticism of working conditions in overseas operations. The supplied account describes Australian back-pay owed to thousands of staff, concerns raised about injuries at a Sydney production facility and a union-organising dispute in North America. These examples complicate any easy equation between a company’s ethical branding and every aspect of its employment record. They are relevant context, not proof that the company’s stated values have either been fulfilled or abandoned.
Why Lush deserves a place in British Legacy
Lush deserves a place in British Legacy because its history connects a recognisably British high-street business to changes in cosmetics retail. Founded in Poole and still headquartered there, it grew from the experience of product makers who had supplied another retailer into a company with shops around the world. Its founders built a business in which the look and texture of the products, from fresh ingredients to package-free formats, were part of the customer experience. The company’s expansion took that approach well beyond its Dorset beginnings.
Its legacy is also visible in the way it has made particular business choices public. Lush’s policies on animal testing and ingredients, its experiments with packaging, and campaigns staged through its shops have brought ethical questions into ordinary retail spaces. Its giving programmes have channelled money towards causes and small organisations, while its 2024 announcement of £100 million in giving since 2007 provides a concrete measure of that activity. The record is not a simple success story: disputes over labour conditions and criticism of campaigning show why claims about ethical business should be examined rather than accepted as slogans. Lush remains significant because it has made those questions part of its public identity—and because its British origins, international reach and sometimes-contested choices offer a substantial case study in how retail can try to combine commerce with advocacy.
Sources
Lush (company), revision 1371023590
Adapted in part from Lush (company) by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.