Rowena Bird

By Hend Seif El Din

As C&W developed into the successful mail order brand Cosmetics to Go (CTG), the Gigaku range Rowena developed combined many adventurous colors and best sellers, proving her eye for commercial success. Rowena worked closely with designers and her co-creators, to establish the very first Lush Cosmetics stores. Her sheer determination, know how and love of ‘getting things done’ meant that soon Lush was well on the road to success. Rowena was also responsible for overseeing the development of the LUSH SPA. The first SPA opened on London’s Kings Road in April 2009, with three others following in the UK. The first international SPA opened in Tokyo, a Paris LUSH SPA opened in May 2011 and one opened in Korea in August 2012. Furthermore, she also spearheaded Lush’s latest product invention – Emotional Brilliance. A new approach to color cosmetics, Emotional Brilliance offers emotional support through the art of color. She still manages Lush’s Rest of World team, finding foreign partners to take Lush into new markets

When did you first feel drawn to the world of beauty and makeup?

From the age of four when I would play with my mum’s lipsticks and hairbrush and my aunty Penny’s dressing table.

Where did you first start learning how to make makeup?

I trained and qualified as a beauty therapist before joining the creators of Lush in their small manufacturing company of the time, Constantine and Weir (C&W). It was here I had the privilege of working and learning from Stan Krysztal, who was a great cosmetic scientist (who worked on ranges for Nivea and Mary Quant cosmetics) in the 1980s. Under Stan’s guidance I developed a make-up range of my own called Bodkins. C&W supplied fledgling cosmetics brand of the time, The Body Shop, with some of their best selling products. As C&W developed into the successful mail order company Cosmetics to Go (CTG), I developed the Gigaku range, which allowed me to embrace my passion for adventurous colors!

How did you come up with the LUSH concept?

Lush emerged from the demise of a previous venture, Cosmetics To Go, which collapsed through a combination of over-trading and flooding. Three months later, the same team had created an inspired new venture, which was without a name until a Mrs. Bennett from Glasgow responded to a plea for suggestions.

The plan was to make cosmetics that were as natural as possible and to avoid using synthetic preservatives. Thus every Lush product is crammed with the highest quality – and importantly, organic wherever possible – ingredients: herbs, fruit, flowers and essential oils.

As well as pioneering the freshest ever cosmetics, Lush has an ecological message. The majority of products have little or no packaging, with the creative team constantly rising to the challenge of making innovative products in solid formulations that don’t require bottling.

Was it difficult to find partners who share the same ethics and/or philosophy?

Nope, they employed me! We are together due to history and have evolved into the group we are.

What would you say defines LUSH?

Honest, ethical, fresh, unusual and unique. We are also a campaigning cosmetics company – we stand up for and fight for the things we believe in. We like the fact that our store windows worldwide can be used as billboards for the causes we support, which range from fighting for animal rights to human rights.

Something really close to our hearts is putting a stop to animal testing, for any purpose. We feel that not only is the testing of cosmetic products and ingredients on animals unnecessary and unethical, but it is also scientifically unreliable, unable to adequately assess the safety or efficiency of a product or ingredient, and may even allow unsafe products onto the market. We prefer to know that our products are safe for the humans that are going to be using them, so all of our products go through a rigorous assessment and human trials using our panel of volunteer human testers.

Lush encourage and support the development and validation of non-animal testing methodologies and will actively campaign for their use instead of outmoded and cruel animal experiments. In June 2012 we also launched the first ever Lush Prize to help bring an end to animal testing in the wake of the continuing failure to ban these practices.

The Lush Prize is a £250,000 global annual prize – the biggest prize in the alternative testing sector – and will reward groups or individuals working in the field of cruelty-free scientific research, awareness-raising and lobbying. The idea is to incentivise people into achieving actual change. The prize has been created by Lush in partnership with Ethical Consumer ensuring that the award process is impartial, rigorous and comprehensive in scope.

Where do you draw your inspiration?

The universe!

Which LUSH product is the closest to your heart?

Ro’s Argan Body Conditioner

Tell me about the newest product invention–Emotional Brilliance?

The main idea is that you spin our Emotional Brilliance wheel and choose the three colors that stand out to you at that moment. Not because they are your favourite colors or because they match what you’re wearing, but because you are drawn to them. These three chosen colors will then be placed in the middle of the wheel in the order you picked them. Your first colour choice symbolises your STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS; your second choice represents your SUBCONSCIOUS NEED; while your third choice is your TALENT and it is what you require to achieve your subconscious need.

We don’t see it as a make-up range, more as a range for emotional support or brilliance delivered through the medium of make-up. Our objectives were to create something that works on the subconscious, that gives support to the wearer and has a fun element in there too.

Because we want anyone and everyone to be able to get Emotional Brilliance and support, it was really important that the colors are versatile. The range includes liquid lip colors, liquid eyeliners and eye shadows and they are all loaded with pigment so they can be worn on all skin types. The bases blend really smoothly so they can be worn in a sheer way too for those who do not want or need full on colour. It doesn’t matter how much of the colour you wear, the fact you have chosen that emotion is enough for the subconscious to recognise and receive the support.

What about the B Never too Busy to Be Beautiful emporium? How did that start?

B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful opened in 2003 and was the culmination of Mark’s dream to have his own perfume shop and my dream to have my own make-up store. I wanted to emulate for everyone the fun and mystic I had playing at my aunt Penny’s dressing table!

The eclectic look came from my trips to India and Morocco. I found the wooden glitter pots, eye shadow, blusher, face powder, lip cream and lip gloss pots in India; with brushes to match made especially for us, traditional Kohl pots and Om bath oil bottles and foundation bottle covers from Morocco.

By inventing makeup…do you mean coming up with the concept or actually creating it, hands-on? Take me through the creative thought process you go through when it comes to new inventions?

The idea pops into your head, I go into my lab and try and make it or talk with Helen (or whoever most works on similar product areas) to see what ideas she has to make it happen. I then make it, use it, give it to friends to use, and keep refining until I like it. I then show it to mini mafia (the core product inventing team), then it gets finished off with a fragrance, colour and usable formula, goes to big mafia (the marketing team), gets named, priced and launched.

What about the cult LUSH products…what inspired them?

One of our most iconic products, the bath bomb, was invented by Mo Constantine in 1989 for her children to enjoy at bath time, as young children (and many women) shouldn’t use bubble baths as they can irritate the urinary tract. Ever since then we have been bringing a bit of luxury and fun to boring baths!

How challenging is it to come up with new products while sticking to your philosophy?

It’s how we work so no more challenging than any other creative act.

Does working with natural ingredients limit you in any way?

We don’t really find many limitations to be honest – as there’s such a wide choice of ingredients to choose from. The main thing that’s limiting us now when it comes to ingredients is the re-testing of some under the REACH legislation. REACH is an EU law that has been passed to ensure the safety of chemicals, unfortunately this means over 30,000 chemicals will need to be tested on millions of animals, some of them cosmetic ingredients. This is why it’s so important for us to use as many beautiful, fresh ingredients as possible – such as coca butter and shea butter – that don’t need to go through this re-testing.

We also want to encourage the development of alternative testing methods – to take animals out of the equation. We feel that not only is the testing of cosmetic products and ingredients on animals unnecessary and unethical, but it is also scientifically unreliable, unable to adequately assess the safety or efficiency of a product or ingredient, and may even allow unsafe products onto the market. We prefer to know that our products are safe for the humans that are going to be using them, so all of our products go through a rigorous assessment and human trials using our panel of volunteer human testers.

Did you always have this ethical philosophy, or is it something that emerged parallel to LUSH?

I started with the same people as an impressionable 21 year old and have simply absorbed the philosophy around me.

Any new product ideas being implemented at the time?

Always

Is there anything specific you’d like to produce and/or invent that you haven’t done yet?

Nail varnish or the number one best seller for Lush!

Up-close and Personal:

• Beauty is …… in everything and everywhere if you care to look
• Inspiration comes from ……. When least expected
• Dreams? I have a tick list of dreams, exciting!
• Guilty pleasure? Coming into work late
• Pet peeve? People who think it is OK not to give 100%
• LUSH is ….. the best thing that ever happened to me
• Words of wisdom ….. never say no