FRESH HANDMADE COSMETICS

Not the lady, the fragrant antiseptic herb.

Firstly, we’d like to apologise about our silence. We’ve been preparing for our final Perfume Day presentation, which was on Thursday.

Thank you for waiting so patiently… and boy, it’s worth the wait. This entry is about our buying trip to the marvellous Morocco.

We visited our suppliers of Chamomile Blue Oi & Rosemary Oil and we were totally bowled over by their high standards and hospitality. 

We donned our Wellies again to visit the farm that housed a number of plantations. Here is some of the Rosemary, which provides the oil you can find in Squeaky Green Shampoo bar and Veganesse Conditioner.

Rosemary is an evergreen shrub, which can grow up to six-feet tall.  It is known for its antibacterial and antiseptic properties and is used in a wide selection of our Skin and Hair Care.

We didn’t have time to visit the farm that grows our Chamomile, but we were lucky enough to find some growing wild on our way to the farm.

This wonderful plant produces the gentlest of essential oils. Strikingly Blue in its colour, it is known for its anti-inflammatory and antiseptic qualities and can be found in an array of our products, including world-wide bestseller, Dream Cream.

Our hosts were incredibly hospitable and fed us very well. This was just the starter on our first night…

… and during our light lunch on the farm…

… Lucy found the biggest orange in the world.

The muddy conditions provided us with the film like experience of driving around the farm on the back of a Pick-Up Truck.

This wonderful experience, combined with our Perfume Tour of Deepest Darkest Dorset and LushFest, means that mud and wellies have become intrinsic to an inspirational and unforgettable Lush experience… a Lushperience if you will.

Thanks for reading! Our next post will be our long overdue Hair Care entry, with a cameo appearance from the Majestic Mira Manga.  

With love, as always, 

Brett Lucy and Mirk x x 

(Here we are with our hosts, the our wonderful Head of Creative Buying Agnes and our fellow trainers.)

Last week we had the great pleasure of touring the Lush Factory.

Meeting more of the faces behind the face stickers, seeing how everything is made… even getting hands on and having a go ourselves!

First of all let’s take a peek at some of our naked products…

Let’s Get Fizzical!

Did you know that on average the team in the Ballistics room press 25,000 Bath Bombs a day? Their Christmas best was 112,000 hand made in one day!

Foam sweet Foam

At the moment the wonderful team in Bubbles are busy with Mumkins and Brightside (amongst other bubbles)

There is a dedicated Mumkin team, who are currently carefully crafting around 3,500 Mumkins a day.

Soap For The Best

On the subject of limited edition products, Joe, Bart and the team in the soap room are having a cracking time making Easter Egg Hunt Soap- Each of those colourful rounds contains around 86 soap eggs!  That’s Eggcellent!

Massive thank yous to everyone who took time to show us around last week- It was brilliant!

Brett, Lucy & Mirek

xxx

‘Afternoon folks! Please excuse our silence the last week, it was haircare week, which called for some hardcore studying. We’ll update you on all things follicle in our next update, but in the meantime… this one’s a stormer.

Today we were lucky enough to take a muddy tour of Deepest Darkest Dorset, visiting some of the sites that inspired the new Gorilla Perfume Range.

First up was the Agglestone, otherwise known as Devils Nightcap.

Legend has it, the Devil was throwing stones at Corfe Castle. As he continued hurling rocks, in an act of frustration, he discarded his nightcap and it landed where the stone stands to this day.

In the right atmosphere, the Agglestone shimmers green with lichen and oakmoss, which Simon Constantine (chief perfumer, pictured above) wanted to capture in the fragrance.

Here are the trainers and the brilliant Simon enjoying the crisp morning at the Agglestone.

The Agglestone was used for centuries to make important life decisions. A question would be asked, the stone tipped and the position it landed in, would determine the outcome. However, the stone was tipped too often and lost its balance… but it still carries an ominous presence today.

Next up we braved a muddy, muddy field and visited Hellstone.

On the way we met some friendly cows who said hi…

In my head, all cows have Welsh accents… but I digress, please excuse me.

An ancient structure, the top of Hellstone weighs a colossal Sixteen Tonnes, which would have been manually manoeuvred. In the past, dead bodies have been found here and it’s thought that people would been put here to rest.

After visiting this breathtakingly beautiful spot, it was on to Holton Lee, home of the fabled LushFest and our very own Stone Circle.

For those of you who didn’t attend LushFest, the Stone Circle was many people’s highlight and a pivotal moment in their time working for Lush. Each stone was fragranced with a perfume from the new range and today we were lucky enough to re-scent the stones. The combination of the crisp wind and intoxicating perfumes made for a heady, magical experience. Here are the Hellstone and Flowers Barrow stones.

Just when my wellies recovered from LushFest, we undergo an new mud soaked and inspirational experience.

In creating the new range, taking inspiration from Pre-Historic England, Simon wanted to create perfumes that ‘smell like the Dorset Countryside, without smelling like cow shit’. A playful summation for a beguiling range.

Thanks for reading folks!

We’d like to end this post with a question: What are your favourite Gorilla Perfumes? Reblog with your answers!

Perfume is the point!

Brett, Lucy and Mirek x x

On Wednesday we met with co-founder Helen Ambrosen and product testing gurus Angela, Suzanne & Elina to find out more about how we test the products.

Did you know that there are over 200 product testers for Lush, who give feedback on all the new creations?

The Inventors and Product Creators work incredibly hard to make the best products with amazing effects for the skin, hair and mind- testing them all on themselves first!

Helen described how the responsibility of those creations never leave them. The Inventors and compounders work closely together along the way, with product quality and the customer experience always the focus. 

Join us as we continue Fighting Animal Testing.

Brett, Lucy and Mirek

xxx

This week is all about Emotional Brillance! Yesterday we were lucky enough to learn all about pigments with the always fabulous Co-Founder, Rowena Bird. After presenting us with personalised cupcakes, iced with our favorite colour,

she talked with passion about her love of colour. It began at the age of eight, when she used to nip down to Woolworths with her friend Maureen every Saturday and spend her pocket money on a ring and eyeliner (her appreciation of lipstick came later in life…)

On the subject of lipstick, today we made our own lip colour in the lab with the ever wonderful Jemma. Brett opted for an 80s black, Lucy a good, stong 50s red and alpha male, compounder Mirek opted for a darling Barbie pink. We hope you enjoy the trainers’ lipstick clad pouts!

After struggling to get the correct mixture of pigment (particularly colourblind Brett) we are genuinely in awe of how Ro and co can not only create beautiful and brilliant colours, but also seamlessly match them with an emotion you want to wear with pride.

Here are Brett and Lucy’s pigment pallets… Lucy has more of an eye for colour…

Thanks for reading folks and remember: Wear your emotions with pride!

Brett, Lucy and Mirek x x