lush- Is it really as good as it seems?

Glitter is everywhere, currently filling all our social media platforms. Everyone loves something shiny and pretty but what are its real effects on the environment?

Glitter in the past two years has gone from something just used at a festival to a constant trend. The increase in demand for the stuff has had more people asking the questions about its envorimental impacts.

Lush is popular handmade cosmetics brand, there values are all based around being ethically and good for the envomriment while producing high quality products.

Lush has a huge range of bath bombs (one of there most popular products). A growing selection of the bath bombs contain glitter. The product below features in there easter range and is called the Golden Egg.

In an effort to lower their environmental impact, the company has now switched out the normal plastic glitter (which doesn't biodegrade) with a mixture of natural mica (what makes it shiny) and agar (a seaweed-based derivative that keeps it together). This product is biodegradable and doesn’t contribute to the ongoing proliferation of micro plastics in our oceans.

'Mica is the name given to a mineral that gives sparkle to products. Depending how coarse or fine the mineral is it will produce different effects, levels of shimmer, and colours.

A shimmer effect is created when mica is coated with an oxide, most commonly titanium dioxide. Different colours are achieved by applying more coats of the chosen oxide' (LUSH.CO.UK)

BUT

"Natural mica is a naturally-occurring mineral. There are many types of mica and it can be found across the globe, however, over the years the cosmetic industry has given preference to Indian mica due to its quality. It is used across numerous industries in anything from car paints, inks, edible glitters, to cosmetics. Due to the human rights issues, namely Child labour, associated with the mining of natural mica, Lush has made a commitment to remove natural mica from its production as of 1st January 2019"

This ideates that the Glitter lush has been using up until this point has been involved in child labour. For a company which prides itself on its ethics why has it taken thus long to ban the product?

There still will be a envorimental impact caused by the glitter used in the Lush Bath bombs and products. As much as they make themselves out to be a perfect company still read Into what you're buying.