LUSH the famous known brand of fresh handmade cosmetics invited us lucky bloggers/vloggers to a night of pampering in their Swanston Street store for their first ever Melbourne Event!
Since LUSH has crossed my path and I have known about them.. it was TRUE LOVE and to then have my first date with LUSH, I was completely over the moon.
This blog post I am going to try things a little differently and step you through my night in pictures and right little comments under each picture as to what was going on in the photo... this should give you a sense of being in our lucky shoes on the night.
When we arrived we were greeted by the LUSH team at the door, given drinks and were able to have a chat with other bloggers/vloggers and check out the Swanston Street store.
The way that the LUSH stores are setup are utterly stunning, there is nothing like it! The fragrances before you even walk in the door are to die for and will allow your nose to lead you into the store to see what's going on in there.
Attending the LUSH event I had my two bestest blogging buddies with me as pictured above with some of the ballistics - Katt from Chanelxo and Erin from Baby, Beauty, Body & Beyond. We couldn't help but to snap up a mirror selfie and make it the first photo of the amazing night ahead of us.
Just some of the giant ballistic selection in the LUSH store. This is where we Katt, Erin & myself were lead to first... the gorgeous wall of ballistics. Covering our nose ends with powder we sniffed our close to all the ballistics.
Did You Know? You can give these ballistics in a really cool scarf - knot wrapping instead of wrapping paper it as a gift? Inspired by the Japanese art of Furoshiki you would give your gift in a scarf and best thing is it is known that the scarf is to be given back to the gift-barer but if you are happy to allow the receiver to keep the scarf then what an awesome reusable way to wrap your present!
You can see the knot wrap scarves that LUSH have to offer here: LUSH Gift Wrapping
The way the LUSH stores are set up are like no idea, serving their handmade cosmetics on plates, displaying an open product to awaken all senses by getting to see, touch, smell etc.
I love the realness to LUSH they create such a creative fun way to sell, display, name and market there product. For example the picture above - 'TINY HANDS' the name of the product, 'Solid Hand Cream' what the product is and the shape of the solid hand cream in the shape of a hand. What simple things that really do look and present well.
When I first found out that LUSH was always ranging cosmetics I was over the moon. LUSH also have this vibrant, bold color scheme to their cosmetic range that stand out, making those features of yours pop!
After the bloggers/vloggers arrived, had a mingle and a looksy we gathered around to have get more of an insight to LUSH. Babs opened up with a quick few words...
Above is the lovely Peta who gave us a massive insight to the ethics of LUSH.
There was so many things to LUSH I never knew and have made me love them even more.
Which I HAVE to include below and encourage you to all take the time out to read as it really did make me love LUSH ten times more then I already did and found it soooo interesting.
WHO IS LUSH?
LUSH is the ultimate beauty delicatessen. We consider ourselves a cosmetics grocer with our fresh, handmade, and inventive merchandise loaded with the finest natural ingredients; blocks of soap; a myriad of colorful spheres (the original fizzing bath ballistics) presented in-store like perfectly round apples; chilled fish counter-style cabinets displaying our unique Fresh Face Masks; prices by weight, greaseproof paper wrapping (if any wrapping at all) and use-by dates so it’s easy to see when your product was made, and by whom.
“The plan was to make cosmetics that were as natural as possible and to avoid using synthetic preservatives,” says Lush Managing Director, Mark Constantine. Every LUSH product is crammed with the highest quality - and importantly, organic wherever possible - ingredients; herbs, fruit, flowers, and essential oils.
Sixteen years after its inception, there are over 840 shops in over 51 countries worldwide. In Australia, there are roughly 300 people working for LUSH from exceptional sales teams to hand-making our products in the Sydney-based factory. There are 25 Lush stores across Australia, as well as our website LUSH.COM.AU.
FRESHNESS
Freshness is intrinsic to LUSH; it’s at the heart of our philosophy. We hand make highly effective, 100% vegetarian (and over 81% vegan) products for bath, shower, skin, hair and body loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables, gorgeous essential oils and minimal preservatives. Our fresh policy means we can minimise the use of synthetics and create high quality products on a daily basis. We have a strict shelf life policy, in that most products have a shelf life of five months and others like our face masks, have a shelf life of one week. They are so fresh, that when LUSH products reach the customer, they are literally weeks, days or even just hours old.
HANDMADE
LUSH’s products are made by hand. We invent all our own products, while creating local jobs and using ethically sourced ingredients. We even add stickers to all products showing who made it, the day it was made and use by date. Rather than rely on mass-produced, machine-made formulations and warehousing excess stock, LUSH makes products to order to ensure that everything delivered to our local shops and customers is as fresh as possible.
NO EXCESS PACKAGING
LUSH has spent decades developing effective solid products. Why? Because solid products don’t need preservatives or excess packaging, they’re kinder to your skin and the environment. You can buy about 44% of our product inventions naked (packaging-free), including bath bombs, shampoo bars, bubble bars, massage bars, body butters and solid facial cleansers - reducing the amount of preservatives required and packaging sent to landfill. Consider this; if everyone in Australia used solid shampoo bars, then the waste of nine million bottles a year would be prevented from entering the environment.
MINIMAL PRESERVATIVES
Of the 300 products we make by hand, about two thirds are unpreserved. To achieve this, we use fresh ingredients and minimal amounts of water. Since about 30% of our products are liquid and contain water, they require some preservative to prevent bacteria from growing. The two preservatives we do use (methylparaben and propylparaben) are the safest, mildest ones we can find, and have been used in cosmetics and skin care for 60 years. Using more or stronger synthetics would mean compromising the benefits to your skin and we don’t want that! Each year, we are also constantly re-developing and re-inventing our current range to strive for minimum or no preservatives.
STILL FIGHTING ANIMAL TESTING
Lush is an active campaigning company that aims to change the current cosmetic landscape to eliminate all forms of animal testing. We believe that our products should be effective, fun and safe for you to use. We believe that the most effective and humane way to test the safety of both the ingredients we use and our finished products are through modern non-animal tests and a panel of human volunteers. We never test our products and ingredients on animals, or engage with third-party suppliers to test on our behalf. LUSH also will not buy any ingredient from any supplier that tests its materials on animals for any purpose. All our suppliers must sign a statement saying that they adhere to this policy, and the statements are re-sent to them on an annual basis and reiterated on each purchase order for ingredients. In addition, the entire supply chain is audited by an independent consultant to ensure that suppliers remain in compliance.
ETHICAL BUYING
At LUSH, we want to know where our ingredients come from and how they’re made. It’s the responsibility of our Creative Buying team to get out there to show us how this happens. Our creative buying team travel
worldwide, visiting our suppliers to trace the ingredients, to meet the growers and producers, and ensure care for the environment and fair conditions for workers. They have been to places like Ghana, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and the Australian outback in search of the very best ethical and sustainable ingredients for our customers. We believe that what we buy should have a positive impact on the community from which they are harvested.
CAMPAIGNS AND CHARITABLE GIVING
We are, and always have been, a campaigning company. We believe in standing up for animal rights, protecting theenvironment, and supporting humanitarian causes. We also care deeply about how these issues affect our staff, customers and the communities in which we live and work. With over 30 stores in Australia and New Zealand, we have a unique platform to create positive change in our world, we lead by example and this empowers our staff and customers to become agents for change in our communities.
Charitable giving is at the heart of our business, and we believe it’s our responsibility to advocate for the environment, animals and people in need. In 2007, we invented a beautiful hand and body lotion called Charity Pot. 100% of the purchase price (every single cent, minus the taxes) goes towards supporting humanitarian, environmental and animal rights causes locally and around the world.
OUR UPCOMING CAMPAIGN ABOUT ASYLUM SEEKERS
We believe that the current treatment of people seeking asylum in Australia is not good enough. There are many myths that surround the issue of asylum seekers arriving to Australia by boat. We want to use our shop floors as a tool to start conversations with people, bust some of the myths and share facts, and will we be running an in-store and online campaign from 2nd to 9th October in Australia.
On Saturday October 5th 2013 we will be holding events at our flagship stores in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne! From 11am until 2pm we will have musicians from the ASRC performing, we will also have experts on the issue of asylum seeking in our stores to speak with our customers about the issue and how they can help, come and join us!
During the week of the campaign we will be asking our customers to sign a postcard addressed to Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison asking for a fair policy that upholds asylum seekers human rights. Customers can also show their support for asylum seekers by painting their hand purple and placing their print on our windows. Customers can also purchase our Soap of Hope. All proceeds will go to helping the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre support refugees and asylum seekers.
Amy was then next to speak to us all and went over all the goodies that were in our goodie bag giving us a good in depth understanding of what they all were and how to best use them... see below for the goodies that we all received.
After the demonstration we were all given a container of the freshly made product to take home!
Inside this goodie bag we were gifted with:
Sex Bomb Ballistic
A comforting smell that gives you that saucy pamper feeling nice and sexy afterwards.
The little detail in the middle of most LUSH ballistics are rice paper and biodegradable.
Ultrabland
Cleansing product that takes off your makeup. Only a small amount is needed on your finger and run it all over your hands so you can see a gloss oil look and then rub all over face.
Ro's Argan Body Conditioner
First ever Body Conditioner which was released by LUSH - don't let false advertising tell you otherwise like Nivea have claimed in their TVC.
Click here for my past review:
Bubblegum Lip Scrub
It's sweet, its pink and scrubs! I've never thought much about a lip product that cares for your lips other then lip balms, glosses etc until I was shown this one.
It's just like sugar for the lips! Placing a small amount on your finger, rub all over your lips with a bit of pressure - this scrub is buffering the dead skin and once you have rubbed over the lips you can simply just lick the product off!
Popcorn is the other lip scrub currently out but keep those eyes peeled for the christmas release one coming shortly!!
Dream Cream
This is the biggest product for LUSH. Excellent for ezcema, psoriasis etc as it soothes the skin.
Click here for my past review:
Honey I Washed The Kids Soap
The best selling soap for LUSH. There is no soap actually in this soap, completely gentle and good on sensitive skin giving that skin a good clean was without the stress of irritations.
Angels On Bare Skin
Cleansing wash that is used with simple ingredients that the medieval would have had.
Not only did we get a goodie bag but we were told to tell the LUSH team before we left 3 products that we would love to try out and take home with us! How extra lucky we were!
I choose:
Watch my blog for upcoming reviews on the LUSH products!
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