Responsible for bringing the bath bomb into homes and onto Christmas lists across the UK, some say you can smell a Lush store before you see it.
As the unofficial sponsor of fancy bathtimes, the store’s infamous window displays spew whimsically named products such as Sex Bomb, Keep it Fluffy and Angels on Bare Skin, and are often so bright they almost require sunglasses.
And when it comes to being green, the high street staple is even more eco-friendly than dads when they separate rubbish from recycling on the evening before bin collection day.
Since it launched in 1995, Lush has accumulated over 104 shops in the UK and Ireland, and over 886 worldwide in 52 countries. But it all started as just a dream shared by friends Rowena Bird, Helen Ambrosen, Paul Greaves, Mark and Mo Constantine, and the late Liz Bennett.
And it nearly never happened at all.
Their Lush journey was first put into motion when Mark and Liz met working at a Dorset hair salon in the early eighties and soon started their own herbal hair and beauty clinic, creating fresh homemade products, including henna, scalp treatments and skincare, which were sold to The Body Shop.
Mo, who was married to Mark, soon came on board, and over the next few years, Rowena, Helen, and her friend Paul joined the team as they launched beauty brand Cosmetics To Go in 1990.
Setting themselves apart from other beauty retailers, the gang would send orders out on the same day they were placed — something almost unheard of 25 years ago. However, despite being ahead of their time, Cosmetics To Go was over before it properly began due to a computer flood and overtrading.
‘We were too generous,’ Rowena admits, with the benefit of hindsight. ‘We gave free postage and packaging, and always put a stick of rock or something in the parcel. Talk about giving away your profits!’
After the crash, the group separated, but Rowena, 65, tells Metro that they quickly discovered being a part of other people’s companies was never going to work out for them. ‘We all gravitated back together. It was almost against our will,’ she adds.
In the beginning, there were shampoo bars
The friends put their energy into creating their first shop in Dorset, which they eventually called Lush and what followed were long hours working at 29 High Street, Poole, with their first product being a solid shampoo bar. (The bath bombs soon followed).
Helen would make products upstairs and pass them down to Rowena, who’d place them on the shop floor. She remembers they hung theatrical velvet curtains on either side of the products – many of which are still for sale, such as Ultrabland, Butterball bath bomb, and the Dream Cream body lotion – to make them more enticing.
Inspired by wine shops, the daily offerings were written on blackboards — still very much a Lush feature. Such was Rowena’s commitment that when they opened their second venue in Covent Garden, she lived above it so she could be there constantly.
Each of the friends naturally fitted into their space in the business, which still dominates the vegetarian beauty products space.
‘Mark has the amazing vision, Mo is incredible at manufacturing, Helen has perfect attention to detail, Paul is IT and security, and Liz looked after training and development, nurturing staff to learn and grow. She strongly believed in promoting talent from within and developing Lush as a learning organisation,’ explains Rowena. ‘Me? I do whatever is required. The variety of jobs I’ve done in my time is phenomenal.
‘I am a jack of all trades and a master of none, which is my strength,’ she laughs.
‘When we started, it was fax machines and no mobile phones. We worked hard for basically no money, as we couldn’t afford to pay ourselves.
‘My financial input into the business was from a credit card, and I had no idea how I’d pay that back, which was challenging but I learnt that when things are tough, there’s not a big black hole that’s going to open up and pull me in, instead I get through it.’
It took three years of graft before Rowena finally paid herself an £8000 annual salary and eliminated her debt: ‘I remember walking up the high street thinking “I’m so rich, I can buy anything”.’
Staying true to their values
Although Lush had to rein in some of the founders’ generous tendencies, they weren’t interested in abandoning them completely. For instance, staff are encouraged to upsize products free of charge or sneak a bathbomb into a customer’s bag.
‘Our margins are probably smaller than most other companies of a similar size, but we’re not worried about that. We respect the right to make a living, but it’s always been about more than that,’ Rowena explains.
Just last month, they launched the Liberation bath bomb to celebrate trans lives after the Supreme Court ruled that sex is defined by biological sex under equality law. It sold out in a week, with 75% of the sales price donated to organisations advocating for trans rights and the remaining 25% covered the costs of producing them and taxes.
‘Trans people are getting a tough deal, and the people in the community who work with us said they need the support. We felt it was important to stand with them publicly,’says Rowena.
Although she is proud to feel like she’s always been on the right side of history, not all their choices have been celebrated.
When a group of women, who’d been tricked into relationships with members of the police force, reached out to ask Lush for their support in 2018, they agreed. Shops were adorned with fake police tape and slogans such as ‘police have crossed the line’ and ‘paid to lie’ to highlight that for over 40 years, a secret unit of undercover officers spied on 60 law-abiding female victims, who were often simply involved in campaigning for environmental causes.
The Police Federation called Lush’s campaign ‘an insult to the hard work, professionalism and dedication of police officers throughout the UK’, while they also received a barrage of criticism from customers.
‘We got a lot of flak and backlash for that. It was Marmite,’ admits Rowena.
‘Sometimes people don’t initially want to hear things, but education is important.’ Often, the world catches up, Rowena says, and highlights that ITV did a programme about this exact subject a few weeks ago (The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed).
Another key part of their ethos is that Lush does not buy from companies that carry out, fund, or commission any animal testing, with their products instead being tested on human volunteers.
Of course, not everyone is a fan. Reddit has several threads which aren’t so positive – some question if the brand is still as relevant as it once was, while others simply state ‘I hate going to Lush stores’.
Further criticism has come following Lush’s move away from social media, after stating that they don’t feel comfortable with the safety issues surrounding it.
While their reasoning is somewhat honourable, it’s an interesting choice in an increasingly digital world, with many companies, such as M&S and Stanely, using the platforms to speak directly to customers and show their authenticity.
The decision has left some consumers saying they feel a ‘disconnect’ with the brand. ‘Genuinely, though, I don’t know if anyone is using this anymore,’ beauty content creator Maddie Evans recently said on TikTok. Others said they ‘completely forgot’ about Lush – ouch!
Then there are the completely unfounded accusations that their bath bombs can give users thrush, UTIs or yeast infections.While there is no medical evidence to prove that they are responsible, that does nothing to slow the discourse.
How Lush got its name
‘We were originally going to be called The Cosmetic Warriors from The Temple of Temptation, but realised that was quite a lot to fit on a label,’ says Rowena.
To find a replacement name, they asked the general public to help. In their first catalogue, they placed a question mark on the cover where the name would usually go, and asked people to write in with their suggestions.
‘Mrs. Elizabeth Burnett from Edinburgh sent us the name Lush Gardens. We weren’t sure about the garden bit, but loved the word Lush, so we just went with that,’ she recalls.
‘It’s short and punchy. It’s one of those words that was starting to be used by the youth as well. It has the meaning of growth, richness and abundance, which was everything we wanted to.
When asked if there were any close seconds, Rowena says: ‘We thought about Keep It Fluffy, which is one of our perfumes, but the second place was so far behind Lush.’
Weathering the storm
Despite their critics, Lush has played the long game, and Rowena simply says it feels ‘amazing’ to have been around for 30 years. ‘When you hit a milestone like that, you think, “Goodness, where has the time gone then?” It’s made me reflect on how the business began and how different the world is now.’
Indeed, they were reminded of this during the ‘damaging’ pandemic, something they are still recovering from. ‘We were scared it could be the end of us,’ she says of the loss of profits from being unable to open physical stores for months.
On the same week that the government ordered the closure of the shops in 2021, original founder, Bennett, died from lung cancer. Mark called it a ‘week from hell, although you don’t realise that at the time when you are going through it,’ in a written article for The Times. The team say that Bennett’s influence is still everywhere in the Lush brand.
Today, Rowena enthusiastically holds up the new red and pink Lush packaging to the camera on our Zoom call, and it’s clear that she hasn’t lost her love for the beauty industry, which began when she was just a child.
Her interest was first piqued by her glamorous Auntie Penny, who wore false nails, eyelashes, and bouffant hair. ‘She had the most amazing dressing table, because it was full of makeup and bits and bobs. If I were staying at my grandparents, then Auntie Penny’s room was my playroom. I’m sure she was really cross with me there, but I loved it,’ she recalls.
As she got older, Rowena would wear coloured tights, wigs and never leave the house without makeup, insisting it was for her and not others.‘I’m not as wacky now,’ she insists, as her pink bob glistens in the afternoon sun.
When asked if she still has any dreams left for Lush, Rowena says, ‘Mark jokes that in 30 years we’ll have our first store on Mars, but I just hope that the company is still here and that people are still finding it an oasis of kindness. I want the people working at Lush to enjoy themselves and feel part of a family.’
What about herself? ‘I have considered retiring and visiting every country in the world,’ she adds. ‘I could leave now… but I just can’t because I love Lush so much.’
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk
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