Sticky Dates

Sticky, warm, and mouth-watering, carob lends a deliciously sweet aroma to our products, making it a gourmand-lover's delight. 

Whether it's used to give our lip scrubs a cake-like flavour or to add a nostalgically comforting aroma to our fragrances, shower gels, and beyond, carob should come with a disclaimer that you will smell so delicious you'll leave everyone craving a freshly-baked treat. 

Sweet, cakey fragrance, with notes of vanilla and dark chocolate

Naturally sweet taste

Antioxidant rich for skin support

A hardy evergreen plant that thrives in harsh, arid conditions, carob trees are native to the Mediterranean, especially Morocco. The trees produce hanging seed pods that turn from bright green to dark brown as they ripen. Pods contain up to 15 seeds and are usually wild-harvested.

Once shelled, the bean-like seeds inside each ripened pod can be ground into a powder and made into a gum also known as locust bean gum - a natural and vegan-friendly thickener and stabiliser. A by-product of carob gum production, empty carob pods have long been considered waste, however the pods have other uses that improve circularity of the ingredient. Roasted and ground into a powder, they can be used as a substitute for cocoa powder, or transformed via solvent extraction into a resinoid. Resinoids are popular perfumery ingredients, thanks to their sweet, spicy fragrance - one of reasons we love using carob in our products! 

Across the ancient Mediterranean, carob seeds were used as a countermeasure when weighing precious stones and gold. In the Bible, it was thought to sustain St John the Baptist during his hermitic time in the desert, giving the tree its pseudonym St John's Bread - a name echoed across several European languages. In Islam, carob juice retains cultural significance as a traditional drink served during Ramadan. A fitting nod to the origins of our bestselling carob queen Sticky Dates, which began as part of our seasonal Eid range. 

Head over to our page on carob resinoid to learn more about where we source this sweet treat.

Benzoin has been used in incense and perfumes for centuries. Its sweet, spicy and slightly earthy aroma brings comfort and calm to the mind.

Benzoin is a natural resin that can be collected from two types of styrax trees: Styrax benzoin, native to Sumatra, and Styrax tonkinensis, which grows in Southeast Asia. 

Resin is a natural bandage for trees. It drips from wounded trunks and hardens in the open air, protecting the wounds from possible disease, fungus, and insect attack. Resin is full of potent aromatic compounds, which probably inspired humans to try and make something out of it centuries ago. Some trees produce a lot of it, making it easy to harvest. Once hard, the resin can be burned pure, ground into powder, or refined with solvents to produce a fragrant extract called resinoid.

Its sweet, balsamic and powdery scent is a delightful sensory treat.

It soothes the skin and keeps it healthy and firm.

Its thick consistency creates a thin protective and conditioning film on the skin and hair, which helps prevent moisture loss and gives hair shine.

As a fixative, it helps other fragrance ingredients to blend well and last longer on the skin.

Lush purchases a tincture of benzoin from a UK-based company and a resinoid from a supplier in Laos. The latter works with 80 farmers who collect resin from Styrax tonkinensis trees, using traditional methods and focusing on quality. The trees are grown and harvested sustainably, and the forest is managed according to agroforestry principles. Farmers receive fair payments and labour security and safety. 

Find out more about each of our benzoin ingredients on their dedicated pages:

Benzoin Resinoid

Tincture of Benzoin

Benzoin Gum Powder

Or browse through two collections of iconic Lush scents: The sleepy range, which combines sweet benzoin and tonka with calming lavender, and our gourmand selection of irresistible fragrances.

Sandalwood is a distinctly reassuring and grounding scent; it creates the base of many marvellous perfumes.

Sandalwood is an umbrella name for many scented trees, all belonging to the Santalum genus. These evergreen trees can grow up to 50 feet tall and have to be at least 25 years old before the wood is ready for distillation.

The scent of sandalwood is warm, sweet and woody.

The oil is astringent, emollient and soothing to the skin.

It fixes other essential oils, naturally enhancing the longevity of a perfume.

There are about 10 different types of sandalwood acress various parts of the world. Its aroma can change slightly depending on the origin.

Because of its popular fragrance and importance in many rites and folk medicine around the globe, sandalwood has been overexploited and the harvesting badly managed for centuries, leaving some species endangered. Although regulations have been made by governments, the high value of the wood still leads to smuggling, counterfeits and corruption, making it very difficult to find sustainable sources and a good oil quality. After long investigations and adventures, Lush buyers have found a few reliable sources. To find out more about our 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!

Under the sea, forests of slimy algae grow, and they’re full of benefits for the skin and hair.

Soothing

Mineral-rich

Radiance boosting

Softening

Texturising

On this last point, it should be noted that certain seaweeds have gelling properties, especially agar-agar and Irish moss (from which a powder called carrageenan is extracted). When combined with the right ingredients, they can help create a wide range of textures and shapes for our products such as our shower jellies.

Lush was founded in Poole, a coastal town in southern England where it is still strongly rooted in today. Outside the headquarters, massive seagulls soar and cry, and salty waves crash onto the quay. No wonder the seaside has been such an inspiration for our products! It's also why we're not afraid to use strong-scented seaweed absolute in some of our fragrances.

Saying that we source them from the sea would probably sound a bit vague! At Lush, we purchase a lot of different algae from around the world - fresh, dried, powdered, and even distilled. To learn more about each of these, you can go through your product’s ingredient list and click on the one you’re interested in. You can also click on this list of curious names below for a sneak peek:

Toothed wrack

Bladderwrack

Sugar kelp

Wakame

Kombu

It pays to recycle with us! Return the packaging for this product to any a Lush shop and receive money towards your next purchase. Alternatively, return 5 qualifying items packaging for a free fresh face mask.

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.