UK & Ireland Retail
Updated: 16th May 2022
With news of all remaining Covid restrictions to be dropped in England, Lush has announced continuing to pay staff who test positive to self isolate and will continue with considerations and initiatives implemented to keep their staff and shoppers safe.
The following protections will be in place for Lush UK & Ireland customer-facing roles:
- Lush are encouraging staff to use regular lateral flow tests and also providing Sars-cov-2 Antigen Rapid to all its retail and manufacturing staff to enable them to test twice a week following the Government removing free access from 1st April.
- Lush are encouraging their retail staff who test positive to self isolate for 10 days, unless they have negative tests for two consecutive days from days 5 and 6 of isolation. They are continuing to support retail employees financially to self isolate for the foreseeable future.
- Lush will continue to maintain as safe a working environment as possible by encouraging staff to continue wearing face coverings, clean surfaces regularly, and wash their hands frequently.
Myself and many of us in the business have the privilege of choosing how we can manage our health and how we protect ourselves from Covid. However, in retail it’s a different story, staff don’t have this privilege. So the least we can do is provide support however we can. It must be a frightening time for them.
Lush CEO and Co-Founder Mark Constantine keeps staff wellbeing and safety at the forefront of business decisions, so is also allowing support staff (head office roles) the freedom of choice between home working, hybrid or full time office working.
On 28th February 2020 as the virus reached the UK, Lush announced it would be offering high street shoppers their own piece of soap to wash their hands on arrival at their local Lush shop at a time when many public hand washing facilities were closed.
This was also to promote hand-washing guidelines as advised by the NHS in the UK and other public health organisations around the world at the time.
However, this was not new to Lush. Being a pioneer of unpackaged, innovative cosmetics that often defy convention, for 27 years, customers have been invited to try before they buy in our now famous product demonstrations. Lush has been, and always will be, somewhere to wash your hands, (and moisturise them, too!)
Our soaps really are the best on the market, featuring a unique palm-free base, topped up with essential oils and fresh ingredients to benefit both your skin, and your mind. Using a Lush soap is a luxurious way to carry out the very necessary business of basic protective hygiene.
Since 28th February 2020, Lush’s campaign for handwashing with bars from its soap collection has generated sales of 1.4 million units of soap in the UK.
Lush’s Buying team has found a supplier who is based in the UK, and has confirmed that they are cruelty free. They use a laboratory culture process involving bespoke machines that synthetically manufacture tests at scale without animals involved. All of their antibodies are synthetically created, and they do not test the tests on animals. These tests are more expensive but are the best (or only) ethical fit Lush has found so far.
For further information or for interview requests, please email ruana@lush.co.uk.
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