Donations and campaigns
In 2006, the REACH legislation was proposed by the European Union and contained legislation that Lush believed would increase animal testing. The cosmetics company wrote to its European customers and also ran an in-store marketing campaign, asking for postcards objecting to the legislation be sent to MEPs, a move which resulted in 80,000 Lush customers sending postcards.[59] In December 2006, Lush protested outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg, by attempting to dump horse manure outside the building.[60]
Lush is a supporter of direct action, animal rights operations including Sea Shepherd.[61] Lush has been a supporter of anti-taxation-avoidance grouping UK Uncut[62] and became the first multinational high-street retailer to secure a Fair Tax Mark in 2015.[63]
In 2007, Lush started openly supporting campaigning groups by sending a dozen cheques for £1,000 each, including road protests groups such as Road Block and NoM1Widening, Hacan Clear Skies (anti-aviation group), and Dump the Dump (which is fighting against an incinerator).[64][65] In 2011, Lush supported OneWorld's track Freedom for Palestine, which led to backlash from Israel advocacy groups, such as StandWithUs.[66] Lush has since said it supports collaboration between the two nations especially in almond farming. In 2012, Lush had a performance artist endure ten hours of animal testing in the window of their Regent Street store window as part of their 'Fight Animal Testing' campaign.[39]
Lush Cosmetics donated £3.8 million to charities in 2014.[67] In 2014, Lush supported the first Hen Harrier Day, with all its UK stores prominently highlighting the illegal persecution of hen harriers on upland grouse moors.[68][69]
Following the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, Lush launched a campaign titled All The Wild Things, with proceeds from the sales of the koala-shaped soap bars would go to relief efforts aimed for Australian wildlife affected by the bush fires.[70][71]
In 2024, Lush announced that it had raised £100 million in charitable giving since 2007. It also announced that its charitable giving stream, Charity Pot would be discontinued.[58] To follow, Lush announced the launch of Watermelon Slice soap, with profits going towards childhood mental health services in Palestine and Flame Fighters soap with profits raised to support communities in LA and the Amazon recover and protect from forest fires.
On 3 September 2025, Lush announced that they closed all its shops, website and factories in the UK for one day in solidarity with the people of Gaza, with the message "Stop starving Gaza" on the company's website.[72][73][74][75]
#Spycops campaign
On 31 May 2018, Lush launched a campaign aimed to highlight previous abuses by undercover police officers in the UK. The company put up window displays in its stores with a mock-up of a police officer in and out of uniform alongside the tag-line "Paid to lie #Spycops". In some stores replica police tape was put on the shopfront windows with: "Police have crossed the line".[76] The campaign attracted criticism on social media due to its "broad brush" approach which appeared to suggest that all police officers were liars and involved in a cover-up.[77] Calum MacLeod, chair of the Police Federation and the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, criticised the campaign.[76] Lush responded that the campaign was "not an anti-state/anti-police campaign" and that they were aware "police forces of the UK are doing an increasingly difficult and dangerous job whilst having their funding slashed". They also stated that the campaign was "not about the real police work done by those front line officers who support the public every day – it is about a controversial branch of political undercover policing that ran for many years before being exposed."[78]
