Sales: $1.0 billion

Comments: Revenues last year were about $1 billion for Lush, a company that stands by the positions it takes on myriad issues that impact the planet and the people living on it—from packaging reduction to social justice.

For example, in June, it teamed with Refugee Action to welcome refugees and asylum seekers to the UK—to counter what it called the “government’s racist anti-refugee language and legislation.” For the campaign, Lush created a bath bomb with “welcome” embossed on the outside.

Another limited-edition bomb was more personal for Lush. Earlier in the year, Lush focused on childhood cancer—a cause that is near and dear to the founding Constantines, as their seven year old grandson Dexter Constantine-Tatchell died last year after being diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a rare type of soft tissue cancer.

A limited-edition gold Dragon’s Egg bath bomb was created for International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. Sold across Lush’s websites and stores in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and the US, the bomb and the company’s campaign supported Dexter’s Arc, a platform created (in conjunction with the Alice’s Arc charity) to raise funds for non-animal testing research into RMS.

In May, Lush said it hit its fundraising target in the UK and across selected global markets for Dexter’s Arc.

Sales: $1.1 billion

Sales fell more than 6% last year, which the company blamed on covid-related store closures. There are more than 900 Lush shops around the world and the company has 12,000 employees.

In June, Lush Cosmetics launched “Pollinators Make It Possible” in collaboration with Pollinator Partnership, to demonstrate the various foods we all eat that rely on pollinators. The brand emptied its shelves and halted sales at a flagship location to demonstrate the crucial role pollinators play in the fresh ingredients used in Lush products.

In other news, after 15 years, Lush’s Charity Pot hand and body lotion has raised £61 million (more than $72 million) for grassroots charities across the globe. Created in 2007, Charity Pot hand and body lotion raises money for small charities, campaigning groups and other good causes. All of the retail price paid by customers buying Charity Pot products (minus the sales tax) is granted to grassroots organizations working for animal protection, human rights and environmental protection around the world.

In response to multi-faced media needs, Lush Cosmetics recently launched its first-ever podcast in North America. Called “Sound Bath: Conversations that Cleanse,” the host  is blues poet and storyteller Aja Monet.

Monet engages in conversations with society’s changemakers that disrupt and dismantle existing ideas of self-care and unpack big topics in mental, physical, social and environmental wellbeing.

The podcast reinforces the brand’s focus and commitment to wellness, followed by their recent global decision to leave popular social media channels due to their negative mental health impacts. In November 2021, Lush deactivated its Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat accounts in an effort to address consumers’ mental health challenges.

Sales: $1.2 billion

Like so many others, Lush is being heavily impacted by the coronavirus. In March, the company closed its stores in the US and elsewhere. At the time, Lush said it took immediate cost saving measures that included reducing non-essential activities, halting all travel and suspending recruitment. Further, the senior leadership team took a 25% salary reduction. But as the shutdown lingered, Lush cut its retail staff.

Some good news came in late May, when Lush announced that it was beginning to reopen shops in Canada and the US on a case-by-case basis. The company operates 264 shops in North America.  But two months later, Lush said it would discontinue 150 products following an internal review. The assessment was built on three questions: Does it serve customers’ needs? Is it No. 1 in its category? Is it part of a cosmetic revolution?

Not a company to keep quiet about societal issues, during June, Lush partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to host virtual Pride Month events with the mission of generating support legislation that would protect members of the LGBTQ community from discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public spaces and services.

In the wake of the George Floyd murder in the US, Lush North America (which operates as a licensee of Lush in the UK) said it would be contributing $250,000 to Black-led organizations at the Black Lives Matter movement in North America, and would also be dedicating $250,000 from the sale of its Charity Pot Body Lotion to support Black-led, community-based organizations across North America over the next three months.

As coronavirus spread, Lush sprang into action, partnering with rescue.org to support refugees around the world who are on the frontlines, keeping their communities safe.

In financial disclosure documents for the year ended June 2018, the company wrote: “For 23 years, we have made great products, with beautiful ingredients, we are transparent with our customers and we don’t sell fake benefits. We are not the number one cosmetics company, but for the sake of the environment, we really need to be. We believe that Lush has the potential to be a ‘keystone species’; a keystone species is defined as a species that has a disproportionate positive benefit on their ecosystem in comparison to their numbers.”

If Lush hopes to be the No. 1 cosmetics company in the world, it better get growing. L’Oréal has it beat by about $30 billion.