Ingredient

Charcoal

Charcoal deeply cleanses the skin and gives a gorgeous glow. Its soft, dry texture means it gently exfoliates, cleanses and polishes teeth, and helps to absorb excess oils. In deodorants, it effectively absorbs sweat and limits the growth of body odour producing bacteria. 

Unlike most of the UK's charcoal (which is imported) the charcoal we use is produced close to Lush headquarters in Dorset, to encourage local industries and make sure it has less environmental impact.

Making charcoal is an ancient industry, which is not much practised today. Trees such as oak, ash, hazel and chestnut are grown in coppices managed by the Forestry Commission. These are then piled up and seasoned for some time before being stacked in kilns and burned for up to sixteen hours until the wood is carbonised and ground into a fine black powder.

While the larger pieces are sold as fuel, Lush buy smaller pieces to ensure no charcoal is wasted. They are then ground into a cosmetic grade fine powder. The UK produced charcoal is of the highest quality being of about 90% carbon (that’s the stuff that makes charcoal so effective).