Lush's Emotional Brilliance



High Wycombe Lush Shop Front

This is my own little local Lush shop in the Eden Shopping centre, High Wycombe, is 20 minutes from where I live. Many years ago I would had to sit on a train for 40 odd minutes and travel across London to Covent Garden where I first discovered them (and yes this was before the mail ordering started!). I love Lush, the ethics behind the brand, the products, the staff - everything, my little dream when I was a youngster was to work for Lush.

They also had another make up side - Never 2 Busy 2 Be Beautiful which I adored just as much, the Covent Garden store was a treasure trove of make up heaven. I was very sad when they decided to close that side of the business down. You imagine my joy when Lush annouched that they was launching a make up range.

Emotional Brilliance has been 3 years in development by the same people who made the N2B2BB range of products. Every product is Vegan and uses as much natural product as possible, even the mascara of the range has one preservative in it (while leaving lashes naturally coloured)

What you need for being stuck on a desert island

There are two sides to Emotional Brilliance - the colour and the desert island products. The desert island products are the ones that you need if you were stuck on a desert island and could only take a few things with you. In the range is:

• Colour Supplement - A medium coverage foundation that can be mixed with a moisturiser to provide more of a tint ( I was matched to Light Yellow and mixed mine with Imperialis to provide a even base)
• Feeling Younger Skin Tint - Can be mixed with the colour supplement to provide a glow, or used a highlighter. A lovely soft non glitter/shimmer sheen. I looked more awake after using as a highlighter, a little goes a long long way! £12.00
• Charisma - For all those lovies who like a golden sheen, perfect for pales as it is a hint of bronze colour (no orange here) and be built up to look deeper. £12.00
• Emotional Brilliance - Is a translucent face powder that does look pinkish in the pot but goes onto the skin and disappears while leaving a crease free natural finish. £12.00

Then comes the colour.....

Clear your mind, spin the wheel and pick the colours that talk to you.

Focus * Motivation * Sophisticated

The first is Your Strength/Weakness mine was that I have strong Focus (a shimmer light blue/gold cream eyeshadow), and when I want something I'll go for it, but it can mean I can be too focused one thing and forget others. The second is your subconscious which was Motivation (A strong shimmer turquoise) telling me to do what I love and keep going. Thirdly was Sophisticated (a mink coloured creme for eyes or lips) as my aspiration, my want to be or how others see me.  

All the colours and word have been created by using colour therapy as its base, but also had word matching by Lush staff and customers. The titles fit the colours perfectly, Lush's intention is not to follow trends but to let customers follow who are are or want to be. It's very much leaving the customer in control and I embrace this.

All the colours are £14.50 each with 30 colours in total, but they can be used on any area so there is the ability of using colours on more than one area.

Who's that in the mirror?

I spent an hour with the Lush staff on a quiet Saturday morning so I can have a good play with all the range before they got really busy. I did fall in love with my colour Motivated, it a stunning turquoise teal shimmer that I wore as a liner for the rest of the day. There was also Fantasy - a true gold shimmer liner which was just breathtaking. Out of the whole experience I one thing I really really want is Feeling Younger Skin Tint, added a gentle glow that seemed to perk up my skin as soon as it went on.

The whole experience was fun, and that what buying make up should be - fun. I think Lush has once again pulled a range together that not only keeps it's holistic and cruelty-free ethics, but brings something to cosmetics that has been missing for a long time - joy and fun.

Thank you to the High Wycombe store for making the whole experience a really great one and welcoming one; Not only were they informative, polite, and honest, but made the whole hour fly by without realising.

Emotional Brilliance launched today in Lush shops across the country and online at www.lush.co.uk where you can also play the colour wheel.

So how are you feeling?

Feeling Spotty? This Might Help

My current skin care hero amongst its new family

As you call know I hit my thirties in April, however this message hasn't quite got to my skin yet as I still break out like a teenager. Not small ones either, the ones where wearing a paper bag becomes the go to accessory.

Witch Skincare a while back asked for bloggers to join the Flawless Friends club, I didn't in (however a lot of blogs I follow did so congratulations to them). As a thank you for applying they sent the hero product - The Blemish Stick. Now I used one when I was around 14 and found that it didn't work, that was purely because I used it once rather than multiply times.

Didn't get much opportunity to use it until a little raised area was coming up on my forehead by my eyebrow, you know the ones it's red swollen and incredible sore. I used this in the morning and evening with putting moisturiser on the area and let the witch hazel do its work.

Witch Hazel is a natural astringent that tightens pores, soothes and supports the healing process of skin. The Blemish stick not only contains this but alcohol to tighten (not for drier skins as this can dry you out further), and Glycerin that calms the skin.

Within a couples of days the redness and swelling was gone, even better the spot that threatened never developed. It goes on like a clear light balm and can even have make up put on top of it. I really like the fact that after 46 years that this still works like when it was originally created, as well as not being animal tested. They're latest release is a anti-blemish BB cream as part of their increasing make up range.

Read about it here http://www.witchskincare.com/

In The News - Urban Decay Reconsider China

Urban Decay have annouched tonight that they are not going to be selling their products in china (as taken from Urbandecay.com):

"After careful consideration of many issues, we have decided not to start selling Urban Decay products in China. While several factors were important in reaching this decision, ultimately we did not feel we could comply with current regulations in China and remain true to our core principles. We know there are many progressive consumers in China who would embrace an opportunity to purchase non-animal tested products - our hope remains that we have the chance to offer Urban Decay products to these consumers someday in the future.

Following our initial announcement, we realised that we needed to step back, carefully review our original plan, and talk to a number of individuals and organisations that were interested in our decision. We regret that we were unable to respond immediately to many of the questions we received, and appreciate the patience our customers have shown as we worked through this difficult issue.

Since our founding in 1996, we have been committed to ending animal testing in the cosmetics industry. As demonstrated by the renewed support we have received from organisations like PETA and the CCIC, this principle remains at our core. Urban Decay does not test its finished products on animals, nor do we allow others to test on our behalf, and we require our suppliers to certify that the raw materials used in the manufacture of our products are not tested on animals. Urban Decay is proud to be 100% cruelty-free.

If you have additional questions, please email us at info@urbandecay.com."
 For any business out there they will make the right decision for their business, after they annouched that they were selling in China the collective backlash was huge and much bigger than I think they imagined. My husband made a good point when I told him tonight, "Could the money they made in china make up for the money they would of lost worldwide?" and clearly with tonight's decision is no.

I do feel tarnished against Urban Decay now, if they had stuck by the guns in the first place I would of admired them more. The customer of today is far more wiser and knowledge rich than ever before, there is also far more choice out there. I really hope that their change of heart is because of the reaction of their customers voices rather than their purses.

The next days there will be lots of feedback about this subject (I'm sure I will read quite a few)  - The best I've read so far is from Jaynes Kitschen.

You can also read my previous reaction here - In The News - Is this a case of business before ethics?

In The News - Is this a case of business before ethics?

Another company has succumb to the business pull of china, Urban Decay announced a few days ago that they were going to start trading in China (Press Release). China currently allows animal testing on cosmetics as part of their "safety" control for their consumers. I have written in the past about Lush's Campaign about animal cruelty and the shock tactics they used. I reiterate now that I do not feel any need for this treatment, and am disappointed that this still goes on with the technology advances that there are currently.

Urban Decay follows Estee Lauder (and the companies they own like MAC, Bobbi Brown, Clinique etc.), Avon, and Mary Kay that has seen the potential market in China and decided that they want a chunk of it. In that part I do not see how they could avoid it. In the climate we are in China are a very strong economy and in that sense there is more dispensable income to be spent.

This is the thing that is not sitting well with me, Urban Decay was one of the first companies to get the BUVA (Press Release) on their product , which they have now been stripped of (other strippees include L’Occitane, Yves Rocher, and Caudalie). They also launched a campaign to stop animal testing called "How Could We?". They promoted a majority of their business on the fact that they were cruelty free, and that's why this bothers me. China are actually on the brink of signing to use non cruelty testing in the late summer (PETA), so couldn't they wait?

So my question is "How Could they?"

In The News - Lush's 'Fighting Animal Testing' Campaign

Between 1980's and 1990's the public found out that their lipsticks, eyeshadows etc where actually tested by cosmetics companies on animals to ensure they are "safe" for human use. As you imagine there was a huge public outcry regarding this, and whilst waiting for the legislation companies who wanted to shun this practice adapted their own code of coduct. This clearly stated to customers where they stand regarding the practice of animal testing.

So far so good, the companies have a volunteer register mark to show customers that they do not test on animals, but only in the counteries where no laws are needed to protect animals. In 1993 it became illegal to experiment on animals for cosmetic purposes in UK, and 2004 in Europe.

Now this is where the grey area starts the final product must not be tested on animals, but the ingrediants can be tested on animals and not declaired. In some asia counteries it still requires extra safety tests which can include animal testing.

Lush yesterday starting their new campaign in the most eye catching and talked about way they can. They are teaming up with the Humane Society International to spearhead they campaing to ban all kinds of cosmetic testing around the world. They are campagining for the all out sales ban (that is  that is due March 2013) to still go ahead; The European Comission are looking to either delay it or put a loophole for companies still to continue.

In Regent Street yesterday they set up their own lab, where they experimented on their own human guninea pig to show what animals around the world suffer every single day. Jacqueline Traide was tied up, force fed, experimented on with lotions and humilated to the public (she did volunteer and worked alongside artist Oliver Cronk). The main diffrence is that she got to go home at the end of it while most animals don't and die within these experiments.

I am not posting any of the pictures of yesterday events as I would think that some people would find it distressing (researching the whole of this article was distressing for me). However if you do want to read more on this and Lush's Campaign the links are below:

Daily Mail article on yesterday

Lush's Fighting for Animal Testing page This also includes how you can also support the campaign

Lush/Humane Society Press Release

With the development of techinology, there should be no reason for this to be carrying on. If you want to find out if what you are using is cruelty free you can check on Go Cruelty Free