Of the many and varying cosmetics on the market, LUSH cosmetics and bath products stand out for me as a favourite brand because of three important qualities: sustainability, high quality, and social conscience. These characteristics have helped the brand to build loyal customer relationships across different groups and stand out against the ‘green’ claims of other cosmetics companies.

LUSH are a company that have built their reputation and their brand identity on the idea of creating products that are both sustainable and luxurious. The media has frequently indicated the difficulty of the “green” claim of different cosmetics brands, pointing out the indefinable quality of claims such as “sustainable” and “natural”; one editorial, for example, wrote in 2011 that “At first glance, sustainability seems just as confusing as other green claims. Everyone seems to have their own spin” (Romanowski, 2011, n.p.). LUSH stands out because they make it easy to see the tangible results of such claims. Their website states that “We … believe words like ‘fresh’ and ‘organic’ have an honest meaning beyond marketing” (LUSH, 2015, n.p.), and the company takes pains to demonstrate this to customers by providing extensive and easy-to-follow information on ingredients, sourcing, packaging and transport issues within the company.

At the same time, the company makes these characteristics attractive: LUSH products are always beautifully packaged and presented, and are renowned for their beautiful smells and bright colours. It is a feature of their astute marketing strategy that cardboard packaging and newsletters made of recycled paper present an appearance not simply of utility and virtuousness, but also of luxury, making customers feel that they are not only doing something worthwhile, but treating themselves at the same time. Combined with this commitment to real sustainability and to a high-quality product, is the social conscience and active campaigning on important social issues that are a feature of the company. In the UK, LUSH made headlines in 2015, for example, when the launched a controversial campaign that combined support for sustainable packaging with positive messages about the female body: “The GoNaked campaign was promoting not using plastic packaging for products, and body positivity in women, but offended some viewers” (Staufenberg, 2015, n.p.). Although this type of involvement in social issues can be controversial, it is an indication of the company’s real commitment to social change for the better. These three reasons taken together are why LUSH remains my favourite cosmetics brand.

LUSH has also been successful at building loyal customer relationships across different groups, largely because customers are attracted not only to their niche social policies and transparent marketing strategies, but also to the high-quality and luxury of the products themselves. The use of the GO Naked campaign is a good example of the way in which LUSH uses genuine social awareness as a marketing strategy to attract a wide and varied following of customers. The controversy sparked by the campaign not only placed the company in the public eye, but was also designed to appeal to women as real and imperfect – a message guaranteed to attract customers from many different groups through a single, unifying message about beauty. At the same time, LUSH makes a point of using marketing strategies that are so blatant and transparent, that customers simply cannot feel confused or manipulated by them: an attractive proposition compared to the covert manipulation some companies use to coerce female shoppers. For customers less interested in the luxury of their products, LUSH’s active and vigorous social campaigning for sustainability, fair trade, and other such global issues, attracts a loyal following from people in society who would like to see more successful companies behaving in a socially-responsible manner. Finally, the high-quality and luxury feel of the product attract loyal followers even amongst people who might otherwise be put off by the sustainability label: these products are designed to feel like a treat, and many customers become loyal followers simply because it is difficult to find another brand that can match this luxurious feel.

The LUSH brand can be favourably compared to other competitors in the field who use the “green” movement in their marketing campaigns. Two of these are Aveda and Johnson & Johnson, both brand-leaders whose products often market themselves as “natural” or “green”. However, a major disadvantage of these brands compared to the LUSH brand is the vagueness of these claims, and the difficultly for the consumer in knowing how far such claims can be trusted. In one media study, for example, Aveda are quoted as describing their company policy on sustainability in the following vague terms: “We see the sustainability challenge as one of protecting biodiversity” (Romanowski, 2011, n.p.). While these claims sound plausible on the surface, the lack of accompanying clear and easy-to-understand information about ingredients, sourcing and transport make it difficult for consumers to understand exactly how these claims relate to the product itself. Another media report indicates similar issues with Johnson and Johnson: “Health-care giant Johnson & Johnson pledged in August of 2012 to remove trace amounts of carcinogens and other potentially toxic chemicals from its toiletries and cosmetics by the year 2015.

The company had previously pledged to remove such ingredients in baby products by the end of 2012” (Vincent, 2012, n.p.). With this sort of publicity stacked against the company’s reputation as a make of “natural” and “healthy” products, it is easy to see the advantage of LUSH’s transparent sustainability practices and organic ingredients – particularly when those ingredients are clearly labelled for the consumer, and accompanied by published company information provided by the company explaining the ingredients, sourcing, and other “green” issues. LUSH’s total commitment to “green” as a brand identity gives them an advantage over these competitors who only superficially “green-wash” their products.

As can be seen from the above, LUSH remains my favourite brand of sustainable cosmetic because of their complete commitment to issues of sustainability, their policies of social responsibility, and the astute transparency of their marketing techniques.