None Of Your Beeswax

Plant butters? A strange title, but what else could it be? It’s not plant-based butter, no, not the same thing. Let’s make up our own term for these solid blocks of fat, extracted from plant seeds, that moisturise the skin and hair.

Plant seeds are full of fats (and starches and nutrients) so that they can produce a shoot that will have enough energy to rise out of the soil and proceed with photosynthesis. It is these fats that have been consumed for millennia, pressed from the seeds by humankind to become well-known vegetable oils such as sunflower, rapeseed, coconut or palm oil. For plant butters it is the same thing! Except that, in their case, the fat is solid at room temperature, creating a 'butter'. The most famous example is cocoa butter in chocolate.

Shea, illipe, murumuru, cupuaçu, kokum - these are a few of the many plant butters we purchase from around the world, trying to find the most regenerative sources. Having multiple butters at hand helps in times of shortage, but more importantly, it allows for a wide choice of aroma, texture, melting point, and effects on skin and hair. At Lush, we love diversity… in all aspects of the business!

Moisturising

Protective

Conditioning

Emollient

At Lush, we have a team of creative product inventors who love to try new ingredients, and a team of hard-working buyers who relentlessly try to fulfil their wishes. The tricky part is finding a supplier that meets our high standards and strict non-animal testing policy. Each of our seven manufacturing sites worldwide has its own team of buyers and therefore, its own unique sources for plant butters. 

Learn more about some of our lesser known butters and their sources by clicking on their name below:

Illipe butter

Murumuru butter

Cupuaçu butter

Kokum butter

Waxes give cosmetic products a pleasant texture and feel while protecting the skin and hair.

Initially, wax is a substance that resembles beeswax. It’s usually a thick and oily substance, sometimes solid at room temperature, sometimes spreadable. There are many types of waxes, which can be of animal, mineral or plant origin. Here, we’ll focus on the many vegetable waxes that Lush uses, such as rapeseed, rose, sunflower or candelilla wax, to name a few. 

The processes for obtaining vegetable wax are quite different depending on the plant's species and the desired texture and properties. Here are some examples:

Acids - Candelilla wax is infamous for being extracted from a succulent plant with sulfuric acid, a very dangerous material. Luckily, Lush creative buyers have found a supplier that has pioneered a new technique with the less harmful citric acid.

Hydrogenation - This process is frequently used in the vegetable oil industry, improving textures and shelf life. The transformation can range from the slight thickening of an oil, to its solidification into a wax. Soy wax is a good example of this.

Solvents - Take rose absolute. Like all absolutes, it is produced by soaking the raw material (rose petals) in a solvent such as ethanol. This results in a waxy paste called concrete which is ‘washed’ again with solvents to separate the wax from the fragrant rose oil. The oil is called absolute and is sold separately. The remaining wax has a faint scent and retains some of the plant’s properties, which is ideal for cosmetic use.

Benefits will depend on the type of wax but, as a general rule, they give our products a nice texture and shine. They sit lightly on the skin and hair to protect them, giving lustre and softness. Some waxes will be very fine to the touch and hardly felt, others will provide a strong conditioning sensation.

Each wax has its very own story! To find out more, 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.

Full of sugar and sunshine, the mandarin fruit may look small but it has big qualities.

Mandarins look a bit like small oranges, but their taste is usually slightly stronger and more acidic. The evergreen mandarin tree can grow up to six metres tall and belongs to the Rutaceae plant family. 

With an uplifting citrusy and sweet fragrance, mandarin oil clears the mind and gives a sense of wellbeing.

Mandarin’s juice and oils brighten the skin and add shine to the hair by encouraging the cuticle to lie flat and reflect more light.

Depending on the ripeness of the fruit when it’s harvested, the oil will taste and smell different. When the peel is still green, the fruit is low in sugar, and therefore the oil has a rather green and citrusy scent. When the peel turns yellow, the oil gets much sweeter, and, finally, when it's orange-red, it even takes on a floral note close to neroli.

Since 2005, Lush has sourced bergamot, lemon and mandarin essential oils directly from a family business producing citrus oils for three generations. Grown under the Sicilian sun without pesticides, the mandarins are collected by hand and pressed entirely with their peel.

We also sometimes purchase fresh fruits that can come from various locations. To find out more about them and their supplier, 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!