Honey

Honey is a fragrant, sweet, sticky liquid made by the hard-working honeybees.

The clear honey found in the Lush products that are made in the UK, Germany and Japan comes from Casa Apis, a cooperative in Brazil made up of 28 communities. Bees’ welfare is at the heart of their practice and the cooperative sees beekeeping as a communion with nature, a way to have better lives while helping to increase the bee population and land’s regeneration.

Our Australian and New Zealand markets have their own suppliers. Beechworth Honey supplies Australia. Through their daily work, the creation of an arboretum, charitable donations, and many other projects, they aim to support biodiversity, protect threatened habitats, and advocate for sustainable beekeeping. Cammells Honey, meanwhile, supplies New Zealand. This family-owned business prides itself on selling premium, unadulterated honey collected by experienced beekeepers.

In Lush’s best-selling soap Honey I Washed The Kids, our UK manufacturing site uses two other sources. One honey is from a network of British beekeepers, where all beehives are located on permaculture or wild lands with diverse forage all year round. The other one is Ethiopian, from a supplier committed to protecting the remaining forests of the country.

At Lush, we agree that the modern honey industry treats bees like farmed animals. To ensure their welfare is respected in our supply chain, we work with beekeepers who understand the importance of managing hives with consideration and of working in a minimally invasive way. We do not allow the use of harmful practices such as queen wing clipping or artificial rearing.

Where possible, we aim to work directly with beekeepers, but in any case, we ask for full traceability and adherence to our high standards. We actively encourage and select those who go beyond organic beekeeping and implement regenerative practices that positively impact local wildlife and the hives’ environment.

Humectant

Antimicrobial

Antioxidant

Protective

Conditioning

Nutrient-rich

Because of its remarkable antimicrobial and humectant properties, honey also contributes to the preservation of products’ formulae.

Bees collect nectar from flowers and carry it to their hives where the worker bees convert it into honey. Half a kilogram of honey contains the essence of about two million flowers and the colour, fragrance and properties of honey vary depending on the varieties foraged. Bees need to make thousands of round trips to collect nectar, and a single bee produces only about a teaspoon of honey during its lifetime.

Dreaming of lathering up with as much honey as possible? Here's a buzzing selection of Lush products for you!

Such a sweet biodegradable, natural exfoliator!

The name 'sugar' can be applied to any carbohydrate that has a sweet taste. In Lush's ingredient lists, it describes the sucrose obtained from sugar cane or sugar beets - the classic crystalline sugar you can find in most kitchens. It can be coarse, fine, white or coloured. We use this diversity to create innovative products that vary visually and have different effects or sensations on the skin.

It is a gentle scrub that removes dead cells to brighten, smooth and prepare the skin for other treats. (It’s particularly effective and yummy on the lips!)

It is a natural humectant, so it helps maintain moisture in the skin and hair. 

The human skin renews itself regularly, in cycles of 5 to 6 weeks on average (although this changes with age). New cells are created in the deepest layers of the epidermis and work their way to the skin's surface. Even though they usually flake away on their own, they sometimes stick around for too long, clogging the pores and giving a dull and tired appearance. This is when an exfoliant comes in handy. Coarse materials like sugar buff and cleanse the skin perfectly.

To find out more about each of our sugar suppliers, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

If you were about to exfoliate your lips (to make them extra smooth), wouldn't you be tempted to use sugar? Well, great minds think alike - our Lip Scrubs got your back. Or lips.

Jojoba (pronounced ho-ho-ba) is a good friend to your skin and scalp!

Jojoba oil is obtained by pressing the seeds of the jojoba shrub (Simmondsia chinensis). The plant is native to the Sonoran Desert in Northwest Mexico and Southwest USA, and its deep root system and leathery leaves make it well suited to droughts and intense heat. It can also be cultivated in areas suffering from soil erosion to help improve soil quality.

It is an excellent moisturiser and emollient for the skin and scalp.

It conditions the hair by lightly coating it, adding shine and manageability.

It also has an affinity with our own sebum, so it is readily absorbed by the top layer of the skin and helps balance sebum production.

To find out more about our jojoba oil suppliers, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

Vanilla is the unmistakable, uplifting and sweet scent we all know and love.

Vanilla beans (pods) are the fruits of the orchid Vanilla planifolia. Centuries ago, one could only purchase vanilla from Mexico, as the flowers required a local bee to pollinate and grow the precious pod. Thanks to the discovery of a hand pollination technique in 1841, orchids can now be cultivated in most tropical areas close to the equator. This step requires specialised know-how and must be carried out a few hours after the flower opens; otherwise, it will wilt.

Each blossom produces a single bean, which is normally harvested after eight or nine months. The beans then pass through a complex curing process before becoming the black-brown fragrant spice we all know. This process usually involves four steps: soaking in hot water, sweating in a warm environment, drying for a few weeks, and conditioning (packing in boxes) to develop flavours.

It has a sweet fragrance with uplifting, de-stressing and aphrodisiac qualities.

The sugars in vanilla act as humectants, which minimise moisture loss.

The spice is soothing, softening and antibacterial for the skin.

Its main aromatic compound, vanillin, is an antioxidant that helps the skin to stay firm and radiant.

Since Madagascar, the world's first vanilla producer, stopped regulating vanilla prices in the 1990s, its trade has seen ups and downs. The latest struggles began in 2012 when very low harvests caused demand for the spice to exceed supply. Since vanilla is a rather rare natural delicacy that cannot be rushed, the situation quickly snowballed into huge price increases (over 100%), poor quality and crime.

In 2016, the situation in Uganda (where we buy our pods) became critical and was reported to us in an article by Lulu, owner of the Ndali farm. Resellers and agents working on commission began buying vanilla that was not even cured properly yet. Vanilla pods must reach maturity and undergo the full curing process to develop all the notes of their wonderful taste and aroma, and to prevent mould. During price crises, crops are sold far too early, and pods can even be stolen from the fields before they're ripe. Farmers try to expand their crops to meet demand, and governments implement drastic measures. Eventually, when things finally calm down, farmers find themselves with too much production and prices drop tragically, as has been the case since 2019.

We love natural vanilla so much that we couldn't stop using it. Thanks to our dedicated team of creative buyers, year after year and month after month, we have found solutions to the market’s turmoil. Find more information on each source in the description of the main vanilla ingredients we use:

Vanilla Extract, combines several ingredients whose comforting scent enhances our perfumes and skin-soothing cosmetics.

Vanilla Pod Powder, which adds vanilla’s signature tiny black dots to our products.

Want to dive straight into our range of vanilla-scented products? They're ready for you.

Your order will be expertly protected against impact during transit by biodegradable Eco-Pops, compostable packaging nuggets made from potato starch! They're easily dissolvable in water or soil.

Fresh cosmetic ingredients are more effective on skin, hair, and mind than heavily preserved beauty products. 65% of our raw material spend is on natural ingredients.