The cosmetics shop with NO packaging
ECO-FRIENDLY cosmetics company Lush is launching its first ever packaging-free shop.
As part of the war on waste plastic, it will open a ‘naked’ store, where nothing at all is sold in any kind of packaging, on Market Street in Manchester today.
It is part of the retailer’s campaign against plastic, particularly single-use plastic which – as the Daily Mail has highlighted in its Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign – is clogging up waterways and destroying wildlife habitats.
Lush co-founder Mark Constantine said: ‘For too long we have had to suffer excessive amounts of packaging. The financial and environmental costs are obvious.’
Turning gels and liquids into solids is the secret to selling the toiletries without plastic. The result is an array of rainbow-hued cosmetics that look like bars of soap but are anything from solid shampoo and conditioner to face serums. Lush says one shampoo bar lasts for around 100 uses. Product inventor Alessandro Commisso said: ‘We have taken the ingredients of our shower gels, for example, and turned them into solid bars by removing the water and adding stearate, a fine white powder which thickens and hardens liquids.’
Solid products need to be activated in different ways from traditional toiletries. Mr Commisso said: ‘For instance, massage bars, facial balms and cleansers work with body heat. Other products need to be activated with water, like our shampoo bars. As soon as you rub them into wet hair, they’ll foam up like bottled shampoo.’ To make up for the lack of packaging, all the label information for each product is stored on a free app, called Lush Labs.
Shoppers can use their own containers to take purchases home, or the shop provides paper bags, metal soap boxes or trays made from recycled coffee pots.