5 Easy Swaps For Your Pocket and the Planet

Good news: being kind to the planet doesn’t mean being tough on your wallet. At Lush, we believe it’s possible to make fresh, handmade products that last longer, leave less behind and smell really, really good without trashing our planet in the process.

Written By: Ruth Andrade - Environmental Partner, Lush Cosmetics
Read Time: 3 Minutes

This Earth Day, we’re dishing out five simple bathroom swaps that save you money and cut waste — plus a few extra benefits to your routine.

1. Bring it back scheme: Your empties are worth something.

Done with your Lush plastic packaging? Simply give it a rinse, bring it back to any store and we’ll knock 50p off your purchase. Or if you fancy a freebie, bring back five pots and you’ll walk away with a free fresh face mask. Terms and Conditions apply. 

Once the packaging is back in our hands, we’ll sort it, clean it and reprocess it into new packaging. 

2. Turn down the heat: Better for your skin, your wallet and the climate.

Washing your face, hair and body in cooler water is one of the simplest things you can do to lower your energy use at home and it turns out your skin will thank you for it too! Water heating is responsible for 15-18% of our home energy use so these small actions help. 

Hot water can strip the skin’s natural oils and potentially disrupt the skin microbiome —  the delicate ecosystem of beneficial microorganisms that protect your skin barrier and keep it healthy. Washing with cooler water helps this balance. Who knew a small temperature shift could help you be kinder to your skin?

3. Shampoo bars: Ditch the bottle, bag the savings.

Most liquid shampoo is largely water, but our bars are not. Concentrated, long-lasting and plastic-free, a single Lush shampoo bar can deliver up to 80 washes for short hair  — around 50 on average — at as little as 13p per wash! That’s some serious savings for your strands (try saying that three times fast). And with one bar able to save up to three plastic bottles, you can understand why they’re the best travel companion.

4. Self-preserving products: Less is legit more

Most cosmetics formulas like creams, shower gels and haircare rely on water-based solutions. Lush takes a different approach. We use high concentrations of active ingredients, low-water content and no synthetic preservatives to make our products self-preserving.

Which means: Concentrated products, full of active ingredients and no synthetic preservatives going down the drain.

Looking to learn more?

Read the full article on What are Self Preserving cosmetics to Lush or pick up a few Self Preserving products.    

5. Knot wrap: The last gift wrap you’ll ever buy

Lush Knot Wraps are reusable fabric wraps inspired by furoshiki — a Japanese tradition of wrapping gifts in cloth — where the fabric is returned to the giver and used again..and again…and again. Wrap your gift, pass it on, and invite the recipient to keep the cycle going. Think of it like a never-ending game of pass the parcel.