Lush

What a strange day. The sky has been a dark grey all day. (I am an authority on weather now that I work on the 27th floor). It’s kind of exciting when it’s so grey. It feels like we’re in a different country – it’s hard to believe it’s the same place as the sunny, boiling Sydney of yesterday.

I was upset this morning. First of all, the cat decided to do her early morning meowing thing, which of course I ignored, and I’d had a disturbed night’s sleep anyway as it had been storming and lightning all night. Then I discovered that I’ve lost my Lush bag. I was collecting stamps – each time you use the bag, you get a stamp, and when you get to the fifth stamp, you get a free piece of soap, hurrah! And I was on three stamps, so I was nearly there.

I adore Lush. I love it mainly because their products seem to be based more on natural products rather than plasticky synthetic stuff, so it really does feel wholesome when you’re using it. The other reason is the environmental benefit – they use a minimum of packaging. A lot of the stuff I buy comes wrapped in grease-proof paper and nothing else – for example, their solid shampoo bars. I get such a huge kick out of using something that looks like a bar of soap, on my hair! I do like seeing my products stacked on the rack in the shower, all little bars of stuff and only I know what they are. There’s something off-putting about chemically shampoos, face washes etc that come packaged in thick plastic bottles with garish advertising all over them. I just cringe when I think of all the landfills there must be, full of cosmetics packaging. It’s all so unnecessary.

I remember I had a school teacher when I was about 11, who used to say how vain and selfish women were for using hairsprays and other things that released CFC’s into the atmosphere (it was the 80’s). I expect he’d say the same about all the other packaging that (mostly) women consume. I personally am inclined to place the blame on the companies for producing it. I mean,

- women love nice-smelling things, especially if they claim to make you look better;
- they are further encouraged in this by clever marketing – and as someone who’s been privy to hundreds of overheard mobile phone conversations on buses, I can assure you, most women are not very bright;
- if they want to buy the aforementioned nice-smelling products, they are forced to buy horrendous amounts of packaging.

Well, they’re not forced to, because now we have Lush, but I’m talking about pre-Lush times. You could either help destroy the environment, or you could grow dreadlocks and not moisturize and generally look like a dog. You can choose to do your tiny piece to maybe save a tiny bit of the environment, but you have to forgo personal hygiene and any chance of attracting a man. My school teacher might have argued that this was overdramatising things, but I believe that while men enjoy the way good-looking women look, they have no idea what goes into making them look that way. Honestly boys, we don’t get of bed looking this way. (Well I do, but that’s a story for another day).

So now, we have Lush, and a girl who wants to do something for the environment without dropping out of society can now do so. I would encourage everyone to shop there. I hope women support the shop, and anywhere else that packages their products responsibly. It’s not much of a contribution, but the individual has to do what he/she can and hope that one day our leaders will give a shit and actually lead us in this. I don’t like how individuals are pressured by environmental groups, encouraged by governments, because then we’ll think it’s solely our responsibility and ignore the damage that business is doing, supported by governments. For example, I was reading some blurb that came with our electricity bill; it said you could volunteer to switch to green electricity, for ‘only’ $1 extra per day. Now, if you add that up, it’s a lot of money per bill. But, I thought to myself, we can’t be selfish, we’ve all got to do our bit, this is no time to be mercenary. The ice caps are melting! So I was thinking about this, and a couple of days later I was in Bondi Junction (the ugliest blot on Sydney’s urban landscape), walking past the shopping centre. The whole place was lit up, almost as brightly as during shopping hours. There’s a gelato shop at ground level, and not only were all the shop lights on, but they have an enormous sign saying ‘gelatissimo’ or whatever the place is called, again, all lit up and probably visible from space. This was at about midnight and nobody was about, except me and a few vagrants. And I thought, not very highly-paid individuals such as myself, are actually considering paying a few hundred extra dollars on electricity per year, voluntarily, because we’re so worried about the state of the environment, and people like this ice-cream shop company are still burning fuel like there’s no tomorrow, just for advertising, just in case somebody, somewhere might be convinced to eat an extra bloody ice cream one day and their owner might make an extra couple of dollars. And the politicians are still happy to whinge about how carbon credits and how China or somewhere might get one up on them, or half up on them, or a quarter up on them or whatever, if we stop gushing poison into the atmosphere. I’d like to send them all back to the school playground where they obviously belong, and then release a really nasty bully on them.

But I digress.

I love Lush so much, I’ve often thought I could be an excellent sales rep for them if ever they wanted one. Rarely does someone believe 100% in the product they’re selling, but I would! I’d also be lot less annoying than the people they currently employ in Sydney. These identikit sales girls (and occasional boys) all look like this: ‘funky’ hair (often dreadlocks), facial piercings, groovy make-up, scary ‘friendly’ smile. A typical trip to the shop goes like this:

You enter.
Bouncy girl #1 approaches you with more enthusiasm and warmth than your own mother would if she hadn’t seen you for six months: “Hoy-ee, can I help you with anything?!!” It’s kind of sweet, but you’ve had a hard day at work and you really don’t have the energy….
You: “No thanks, it’s fine, I’m just browsing.” You’re now free to browse for five minutes. You pick up a moisturiser.
Bouncy girl #2: “Hoy-ee, can I help you there?!!
You: “No thanks, I’m fine.”
Bouncy girl #2: “Oooh, is that the Fair Trade foot cream?!! Have you used it before?!!”
You: Yes.
Boucny girl #2: “Ooooh, it’s absolutely lovely, you’ll love it, mmmmmm, I love using it, it makes your feet so soft.”
You: “I know, and I’m about to buy some.”
Bouncy girl #2: Picking up a solid bar, “Or have you tried this one?!! Ooooh, MMM, it’s just SO GOOD!!”

You get the gist. They’re a nice bunch, and sometimes it’s nice to chat with them about the new products, but they’re just so relentless and on some days I’m exhausted and really not in the mood!

One day, I decided to go to the branch in the Queen Victoria Building on my lunch hour. It’s three stops away from North Sydney on the train, and while I didn’t have to rush, I couldn’t afford to dawdle either. So I threw some lunch down my throat and got there as quickly as I could so I could browse. When I arrived, the shop was strangely low on stock. A beaming bouncy sales girl told me they were closing for renovations at the end of the week, and so they hadn’t renewed their stock for a bit. Still, I started browsing, since I’d made the effort to get there. However, I couldn’t find anything from my list. I said no, thank you, to a couple of girls who asked if they could help me, and when the third one appeared I broke and told her I was looking for the ‘Breath of Fresh Air’ toner. She told me where it was, and then said it was sold out. And then, she said, “Have you used it before?” I said I hadn’t, but it sounded good in the catalogue, and I had really hoped to buy some today. “Oooooh,” she said, “it’s just so lovely, it makes your skin feel so soft”. “So the magazine said. But you don’t have any.” And so it continued. She did that with several products, forcing me to tell her what I wanted and then trying to sell them to me, even though none were in stock. It was weird. It’s like they couldn’t break their programming. They didn’t know how to go on in that situation.

Anyway, Lush is excellent and lovely despite their freaky shop dollies, and I hope they never change (except their staff chill out), and last week I spent $100 and got an $89 gift box free, so I am a happy shopper! I just wish I could find that bag.