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And how far across the planet were they shipped to get to that Chicago store?

Niamh,

That's a good question. The factory for the Chicago store is in Toronto - only a little more than 500 miles. According to USGBC anything manufactured within 500 miles of it's destination is considered 'regional', and resource efficient. While it's not made down the street, or even in this state, compared to most commercial alternatives this distance is actually not bad at all.

I wish Lush would use essential oils to perfume their products.

I really love LUSH, my only argument with them is that although there is a store within a couple hours drive of my house (upstate NY), when I order off the web my packages are always mailed from Vancouver! There's no need for my soap to travel 3,000 miles!

ive been using lush products exclusively for about two years now and i have to say i live by that store and recommend them to everyone! i love that you can smell lush before you even get there. i was in london over christmas and i actually did smell the store and looked up and there it was haha.

I've found that it's quite easy to avoid the synthetic fragrances in LUSH--one of the creators has stated that just because it says fragrance, unless it is labeled in black, it is a secret essential oil blend.

I love LUSH and I'm glad they are taking the initiative to remove a lot of the SLS from their shampoo bars, which are my favorite.

I have tried Lush and not been impressed. Their skin care products are loaded with potentially irritating essential oils - they're still clinging to the "if it's natural it must be good" paradigm that Body Shop moved past a long time ago. Check out the review of this line at the Cosmetics Cop site:
http://www.beautypedia.com/Brand/Lush/149.aspx
I would never use their skin care products on my face.

The bath bombs are pleasant enough, but far from worth their cost - $7 is way more that I'd pay for anything that's going into a single bath.

I am a huge Lush fan. I realize that they are controversial as a green biz but I can’t resist. I try to make good choices there though. I never order from the website and stock WAY up when I am in a town where there is a store. Also, I ask that they don’t wrap my bar soap or put my things in baggies, instead I bring a produce bag and throw everything into it. Another tip, you do not need to use a whole bath bomb on a bath. I usually break mine and use it in three baths; they are so fragrant a little goes a long way. I just finished my first bar of the solid conditioner (jungle I think) and it lasted at least 8 months! And I have hair past my shoulders!

glad to hear the tip about breaking up the bath bombs. I recently bought a bunch of them on my first trip to LUSH and got home to realize they were only good for one soak, so sad!

I really enjoy Lush products yet I am not only confused, but disturbed by their use of parabens only in the liquid products sold in the US. They have made use of other preservatives in their production for everyone else, why not us? Zero packaging in bath products can be very hard to come by so I do use a few of the solid products and bring my own reusable container to bring them home.

They do use a lot of essential oils in their products.

For a tip- I order from the UK website and it's actually much cheaper. The products are priced lower there


Their statement about parabens, from Auntie Pamela, who works there is here (I might add they use minimal parabens- hence the expiration dates on their products):
http://forum.lush.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=49460&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30

But if you can't read that:
----
And to repeat: there is nothing better than parabens with which to replace parabens.
People remove parabens from their products just because parabens are getting all the bad press and attention focused on them. They put in different preservatives which don't have the long term records that parabens to, or disguise them in other ingredients so you can't read that they are there, or they irradiate their products (and will absolutely will not do that!).
No-one says parabens are nice; preservatives are not nice; it's their job to kill bacteria which makes things go mouldy.
If a product is liquid it needs a preservative, or a method of preserving like freezing. Many, many 'new' preservatives are used to replace parabens then just get taken off the market five years later when they are proven to be unsafe.
We have decided to stick with what we know. We don't like them but we really HATE the alternatives.
New Scientist is very well respected but it follows trends like all other scientific journals (see the book Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland for a good explanation of this). If parabens are a popular topic them papers which cover this are more likley to get published.

At Lush we are yet to be convinced that there is any safer preservatives than methyl and propyl paraben. That is the only reason we use them. Try as hard as you like to get us to remove them, but until anyone comes up with a better one - we ain't shiftin'.

We are, however, making more and more products with no preservatives at all like Jellies instead of shower gels, Body Butters instead of body lotions, solid conditioners and shampoo bars instead of liquids. That's the way we do it.

I hope that's clear, but I expect I'll find it cropping up again. If you like, you can cut and paste this into a useful place and bring it back out whenever you see the point arise again. Saves me writing it out again.

Yours ever,
Auntie Pamela.