To LUSH or not to LUSH Collab

Two posts in one day..ooh yeah!

A few weeks ago, LUSH were hosting their “Great Preservatives Debate” online and I got chatting to Sarah (Sugarpuffish), Tamara (Rainbow Feet) and Paula (Naturally Paula) during the “debate” and we all decided to collaborate and write a post with alternatives to LUSH products that have ingredients that aren’t suitable for us green bloggers such as SLS, parabens and the other crap that they put in their products!

I wasn’t ever really a fan of LUSH until the Northampton Blogger Meet where I was told about their new “Self Preserving” range which doesn’t include any synthetic preservatives (i.e. parabens). During the “debate”, LUSH spoke about how this “revolutionary” new concept was hitting their stores and how they would love if all of their products were “preservative free”. However when water is added to a product, it requires a preservative so they’re working on taking out the water from products where it isn’t necessary.

After the Northampton Blogger Meet, I came home with one of their Self Preserving Mask of Magnaminty, The Griiiiinch Deodorant and one of their Colour Wheel colours. The mask is great, I have to say. The deodorant gave me a rash(!!!) and the eye colour has been sitting in my drawer ever since I was given it because it has parabens in it. (I will pass it onto my sister so it doesn’t go to waste!) So my thoughts on LUSH are that they are sort of heading in the right direction but they’re not doing it for the right reasons. Okay, they might be listening to consumers and taking parabens out however they still have the original Mask of Magnaminty on sale which means they’re not that bothered about preservatives otherwise they would simply just have the SP one as it does the same job and I don’t think most consumers would notice a difference anyway! The fact that they think its a “revolutionary” discovery to be preservative free is just a load of bollocks. Pardon my French. The “debate” wasn’t really a debate, more of a “We’re going to tell you all this about our products” and the woman answering some of the questions pulled a face at my question even though I was right and it was their ingredients list that was wrong….yeah, not impressed LUSH, not impressed!

So anyway I’ll stop ranting now and get onto the post! We’ve all decided to take a few LUSH products and find alternatives from truly natural brands!

I chose the Mask of Magnaminty and substituted that for the award-winning Essential Care Organic 2-in-1 Purifying Mint Mask which is a clay that you mix in with water or whatever you choose which means it will last a hell of a lot longer than LUSH’s 4 month “self preserving” mask. I haven’t actually tried this but I love the sound of it! The mint would be cooling and refreshing and help to de-clog pores. The ingredients are Green Clay, Sucrose**, Ascophyllum nodosum (Seaweed), Equisetum arvense leaf extract* (Horsetail), Mentha Spicata Oil* (Spearmint) and Mentha piperita oil* (Peppermint).
*Organically grown/produced (min. 23% of product)    **Organically grown and sourced from Fairtrade certified suppliers

This ingredients list is much simpler than LUSH’s Mask of Magnaminty (I have chosen the Self Preserving but it does still contain Perfume):
Honey, Kaolin, Bentonite Gel, Talc, Glycerine, Ground Aduki Beans, Evening Primrose Seeds, Peppermint Oil, African Marigold Oil, Fair Trade Vanilla Absolute*, Limonene, Perfume, Chlorophyllin

Saponification of Cocos Nucifera *(Coconut) Oil, Zea Mays (Corn) Oil, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe) Leaf Juice, *Milk, Sucrose (Sugar), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Fruit, French Rose Clay, Palma Christi (Haitian Castor Oil), Activated Charcoal, Lemon Essential Oil, Anise Essential Oil and Fragrance.