It’s not very common to find a handmade soap and cosmetics company that creates organic, environment friendly and vegetarian/vegan products that smell great and leave your skin thirsting for more.

Lush is one of these rare finds. Lush is a handmade soap and cosmetics company that utilizes fresh ingredients, such as strawberries, lemons, and mint, with minimal preservatives in their products. The company’s products are 100% vegetarian, 70% of which are vegan; you can rest assure knowing that their products are not animal tested. Remember, Meatless in May!

Lush products are handmade with little or no packaging. Most products are sold completely naked, including their bath bombs, shampoo bars, bath fizzes, massage bars and solid facial cleansers. Products sold on store shelves are rarely older than a few days, and when packaging is needed, products are wrapped in post-consumer recycled, recyclable and/or biodegradable materials.

My favorite naked product is Lush’s Buffy Body Butter. It is at the top of my “gotta have it” list every time I step through the door.  The buffy body butter uses body heat to melt into your skin and is comprised of fair trade cocoa butter, crushed rice, almonds and aduki beans which exfoliate and moisturize your skin to silky-smooth perfection.  It is great to use on your elbows, shoulders and that gorgeous derriere.

Lush developed Charity Pot, a skin-softening hand and body cream made with fair trade cocoa butter for animal rights, environmental protection and humanitarian concerns.  100% of the proceeds will be donated to this charitable fund.  So you can have the soft skin fragranced with ylang ylang and marigold essential oils while knowing that you are helping someone in need.

While Lush continues to do great things through its charitable contributions and support of environmental activism, the continued inclusion of “safe synthetics” leaves something to be desired.  After all, there is nothing “natural” about sodium bicarbonate, stearic acid or propylene glycol.  We applaud Lush for choosing to use fresh, organic ingredients in its product lines and encourage them to do even more by removing these chemical ingredients from their ingredients list.  FYI, Lush does provide a list of all the ingredients used in each of their individual products online.

If you have any concern about a Lush product, you can type the name of the ingredient in the product into Cosmetics Database.  This database will populate symptoms and advise you of potential harmful effects you may experience from using a certain product.

If you would like to know more about Lush products’ ingredients, charitable organizations, and promise to aid international communities; please visit: www.lush.com

Tags: Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Eco Friendly Cosmetics, Green LA, Green Living In L.A., natural beauty, organic beauty, Skin Deep Data Base