Product Knowledge
Our soap base and where it comes from!
Our in-house (So made in the UK!) soap base is made from Fair Trade organic cocoa butter, extra virgin coconut oil and organic castor oil, mixed with sodium hydroxide to induce a reaction called "saponification".
After identifying the reason; you fill out the SKU, FULL IDENTIFIABLE PRODUCT NAME, AMOUNT IN OR OUT and INITIAL for this product. This process is for...
What is a Write Off?
This is the year LUSH opened its first doors in Canada!
What is 1996?
A source for our Patchouli ingredients
Indonesia! Lush funded the establishment of Gayo Lues Permaculture Centre in 2015. We strategically chose a 10ha site which was adjacent to the Gunung Leuser national park. The primary forest is subject to illegal logging for the cultivation of patchouli and citronella for essential oil production. The vision was to demonstrate how patchouli could be grown on land outside of the national park without having to fell precious forest and destroy endemic wildlife.
LUSH caring and investing in understanding the impact of our buying (ingredients + packaging, etc) has on people and environments, in order to make responsible decisions. Our ingredients should be bought in a respectful way; safeguarding the environment and the social impact as much as possible while supporting Fair Trade and Community Trade initiatives.
What is Ethical Buying?
This is what gives our jelly and gummy soaps their texture.
Carrageenan Seaweed! Bonus: also very hydrating for the skin.
What is the differences in staff process between an NDD/SDD and BOPIS
NDD: Next Day Delivery - handled by third party and needs to only be packaged and handed over by staff; updating the system is done internally by the third party (door dash). PHOTO OF RECEIPT for driver.
SDD: Same Day Delivery - handled by third party, USUALLY only needs to be packaged and handed over by staff; INSTACART may require item picking with driver in store. PHOTO OF RECEIPT for driver.
BOPIS: Buy Online, Pick(up) In Store - Packaged handed over, and updated manually in system by staff. IF the update is missed and the order expires, the customer is not charged regardless of if it's been picked up or not. RECEIPT DELIVERED ONLINE.
We (as far as I can tell lol) INVENTED these forms of products.
What are shampoo bars, and bathbombs?
A source for our Rose ingredients
Turkiye! There are more than 16,000 varieties of rose in the world today, but the Damask rose is one of the most ancient, widely grown variety.
This fragrant rose oil is obtained by steam distillation from the fragile pink petals and comes from Senir, Turkiye
Our rose oil and absolute supplier has over 30 years of experience with roses. Flowers need to be collected from morning hours till midday, otherwise yield will be poorer. All roses are picked by hand and one picker is able to get up to 100kg of flowers per day, which is just around 25 grams of oil per person.
To produce one kilo of oil we need to use over three millions rose petals (around 4 tones!)
This type of farming is used to help restore the soil, water and biodiversity of the land, which allows farmland to become more resilient to climate change.
What is Regenerative Farming?
This type of ingredient is what makes bubbles happen!
What is a surfactant? (Look for ingredients with the wording SULFATE, other examples are: Sodium Hydroxide, Lauryl Betaine, Sodium Laurel Sulfate, Sodium cocoamphoacetate, etc)
Displaying For Sale product using their Made on + Best Before dates, ensuring the OLDEST (made earlier than the rest) is in the front most position of a product allocation on the sales floor.
What is FIFO (First In, First Out)
This product is named after the Very First Lush Store!
What is 29 High Street (located in Poole, England!)
A source for our Tonka ingredients
Brazil! Lush buys tonka beans directly from Kayapo communities of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Fallen fruit is picked up and broken up one by one for harvest. We help to preserve more than 11million HA of Amazon forest and supporting more than 600 people.
Our "plastic wrap (think FUN wrapper)" is actually made of this material.
what is a biodegradable, compostable cellulose?
A: Adds water content, works deep in skin and hair.
B: Adds oils, locks in existing water, works shallow in skin and hair.
A: What is HYDRATION
B: What is MOISTURIZING
This process is important to keep products moving through FIFO on the floor correctly and we don't end up with tons of AGED write offs! As well as protecting the integrity of certain naked products.
Reading stock box labels for their dates/orders and double checking the dates on the items currently displayed while stocking, and checking under the displays for new stock before pulling from un-opened boxes in the back.
Bath and Bubbles need to be organized in the under bunks without overflow to the shelving, or cramming too many together.
Naked products in general should be removed from their displays so newest items can be placed at the bottom.
How much, how many?? But it's Lush stores globally.
~<870 stores across ~>50 countries and growing!
Japan! The Lush Japan buying team source this oil from a collective of farmers in the Fukushima area who are rebuilding their community after the devastating nuclear power plant disaster in 2011.
Why do we even care about being Palm Oil Free, and what's wrong with Palm Oil?
Lush has been working on removing Palm Oil entirely from it's ingredient range (both direct and derivatives) since 2008 with steady progress ongoing into 2026. The reason we don't want to use it boils down to it being overproduced, over-farmed, and these farms are destroying forests due to the lack of biodiversity and care for the land around the farm.
We do not use palm oil straight, though we still have derivatives in the form of:
Ammonium Laureth Sulfate (palm kernel), Cetearyl Alcohol (palm kernel), Cetearyl Alcohol & SLS (palm oil), Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate (palm oil), Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate (palm kernel oil), Glyceryl Stearate & PEG-100 Stearate (palm kernel), Glyceryl Stearate SE (palm oil), Glycol Cetearate (palm oil), Laureth 4 (palm oil), Lauroyl Sarcosine (coconut, palm kernel), Lauryl betaine (palm kernel, palm, coconut), Polysorbate 20 (palm kernel, palm), Sodium Cocoamphoacetate* (palm kernel, palm, coconut) *palm-free version used when possible, Sodium Laureth Sulfate (palm kernel), Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate (coconut, palm, palm kernel), Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (palm kernel), Sodium Stearate* (palm oil) *palm-free version used when possible, Stearic Acid (palm oil).
GORGEOUS IS SO EXPENSIVE.. WHY.
Cold pressed oil (Evening Primrose, Avocado, Wheatgerm, and Grapeseed in this case) retain more nutrients and benefits though it's a much slower process. Additionally, more ingredients in this moisturizer have certified fresh organic than many others in shop (Evening Primrose, Avocado, Lemon Juice, Wheatgerm, Orange Juice, Grapeseed, and Pineapple Juice.)
You've identified a $ bill is likely fraudulent, how is that handled?
If staff are uncomfortable, double checking with a floor leader or manager, and then step 2 of letting the customer know about the situation; with the recommendation of taking the bill to a local bank to have it double checked if necessary.
Before LUSH was LUSH (Pre-1995), our founders had this mail-order cosmetics business.
What is Cosmetics to Go?
LUSH purchased hectares of land in the Sumatran forest to help stop the over-production of THIS oil
Palm oil! (We still have it in our products, in palm-oil derivatives such as: Stearic Acid, Cetostearyl Alcohol, Sodium Stearate, etc)
What is our glitter (Synthetic Fluorphlogopite) made of? Bonus points for knowing why and when we changed it.
It is made up of plastic-free sedimentary mineral components, which means that it sinks and settles at the bottom of the water system. It is not biodegradable but considered environmentally safe.
Bonus: Can't confirm natural mica mining meets LUSH's standards of being cruelty free. We USED to use natural mica powder up until 2018 when we made the swap! (new information of child labor practices in the field, LUSH isn't taking the chance.)