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Lush Cosmetics products fight animal testing, are the freshest cosmetics online, promote ethical buying, are 100% vegetarian, all handmade, and come with no packaging. Starting with an interest in natural beauty products, Liz Weir and Mark Constantine started Lush Cosmetics, experimenting with various ingredients to innovate and with a focus on issues close to their hearts, like fighting animal testing. With that, a buying policy was developed: they were never going to buy from suppliers that test on animals and they will keep funding work that highlights alternatives to animal testing.
Although Lush Cosmetics found its start through fighting against animal testing, one of their most prominent sustainability successes lies in their fight against mica. To promote social and economic sustainability, Lush Cosmetics has removed mica from all their products over child labor fears, exposing the mica mining exploitations that occur throughout the makeup industry. In short, mica is a mineral that gives sparkle and shimmer effects to cosmetic products. Most of the cosmetics industry’s mica supplies is mined in India through child labor, often causing injuries and death to children as young as 4-years-old.
When Lush Cosmetics realized that they are no longer able to guarantee transparency regarding mica in their supply chain, the company switched to synthetic mica, a human-made, environmentally-friendly materials synthesized in a lab. Random checks on suppliers to assure local practices will be conducted by Mark Constantine himself. Starting January 1 2018, Lush Cosmetics was completely mica-free. For more information about Lush Cosmetics’ relationship with mica, visit: https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_faq-lush-and-mica.html.
Exposing cruelty, turning ocean plastic into packaging, how much impact being “sustainable” really makes, and the future. These are just several of the sustainability focuses Lush Cosmetics revolve around. Through individual efforts and partnerships with organizations such as The Ocean Legacy Foundation, Grades of Green and Beagle Freedom Project, Lush Cosmetics is on its way to becoming one of the most sustainable (and nice-smelling!) cosmetics brands of today.
From an Ingredient Finder and How to Choose a Bath Bomb to How to be a Trans Ally, Lush Cosmetics’ Stories page (https://www.lushusa.com/stories) will provide insight to how to utilize Lush Cosmetics to their fullest potential. One of the most influential stories, in my opinion, is this: https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_is-sustainable-enough.html -- definitely worth the read.
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Sources:
https://www.lushusa.com/charity-pot.html
https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_is-sustainable-enough.html
https://www.lushusa.com/stories
https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_a-lush-legacy.html
https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_faq-lush-and-mica.html
https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article_all-that-glitters.html
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/lush-removes-mica-child-labour
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