Short Form Copy Portfolio

Social Copy

A little goes a long way…

Web Copy

How To Make Perfume Last Longer: Scent To Stay

Written for, and owned by, Lush Digital

How long does perfume last? That depends on how you wear it! Knowing how to apply perfume can mean the difference between a fleeting affair with your favourite fragrance and revelling in a long-term connection. Here are a few easy ways to help that signature scent to stay.

Your perfume is typically comprised of top, middle and base notes, with the aroma being unveiled in these stages sequentially over time. The evocative entirety of a fragrance can sometimes take four to five hours to completely unfurl. It’s a revelation to many that how and where it’s worn can quite significantly change the way it behaves as it’s coming to life too. 

Perfuming the skin

The body heat generated by pulse points helps to intensify any perfume you apply to them. Your main pulse points can be found on the neck, inside of the elbow, behind the knee, inner wrists and on various points on the feet and ankles. When spritzing on your wrists, endeavour not to rub them together as this changes the natural development of your freshly applied fragrance. 

Why not use it in bespoke ways depending on what you’re wearing? Some people fragrance their calves when sporting clothing that exposes the legs. This allows the aroma to float gently upwards and around the rest of the body.  

Scenting hair

Scenting the hair is also a popular method of using perfume. To avoid drying it out, give your hairbrush a spray and run it through the hair for aromatic impact. Another clever way to scent your barnet is to fragrance any hair accessories you choose to wear. For a subtler scent simply walk through a spritz of your favourite perfume to encourage those gorgeous essential oil molecules to settle in your tresses (make sure to cover your eyes when doing this). 

Fragrancing finery

If you’d like to carry a more subtle scent with you then apply your perfume onto the inside of any jacket or cardigan that you’re wearing. If you’d rather keep it off your skin, or any jewelry around your neck, then spraying it across your clothing in a ‘Y’ shape is a great way to do so. Feeling bold? Pop a few sprays onto your jumper, t-shirt or scarf if the weather calls for one. This should add even more ‘oomph’ to the aroma you’re carrying. 

With such a mix of information in our world today, it can be a bit overwhelming when choosing how to do things. There are no firm absolutes on how, or where to wear your favourite perfume. The most important thing to focus on when applying fragrance is whatever comfort, motivation, joy, or nostalgia it evokes. Perfume isn’t the answer to everything, but it sure delivers a hefty dose of sensory magic (and often when we need it the most). 

Top your perfume up during the day whenever you need a sensory boost! Explore Lush's transformative range of solid perfumes and handbag-sized scents to get you started.

How To Make Perfume, The Lush Way

Written for, and owned by, Lush Digital

Are you curious as to how perfume is made? The journey of Lush fragrance is as transparent as it gets. It's jam-packed with essential oils and absolutes, sourced from environmentally-conscious growers, and crafted by creatives turned perfumers. This is what it looks like when powerful plant extracts are used as a creative medium.

For Lush, making eco-friendly cosmetics has been part of the company’s mission since its inception. Our world is waking up to the fact that what we buy impacts the planet, and the perfume industry is finally catching up.

It’s no longer the sole domain of vegans and activists to seek out an ecologically-sound purchase. Now, more than ever, we want to know where our food comes from, how our clothing is made, and what ingredients are used in the beauty products we buy. We’re expecting more transparency from businesses. 

From ambergris, an ingredient produced in the bile duct of the sperm whale, to corruption in the sandalwood industry, there can be dark stories lurking in your fragrance bottle. But Lush have always followed a strict ethical buying policy when sourcing ingredients for products, and their perfume is no different.

Who Makes My Lush Perfume? 

Lush perfumers find their inspiration in the wildest of places. Sometimes their creative impulse will arise from a simple daydream, or it may reveal itself over a comforting cup of sweet, cardamom coffee. Lush’s creative-perfumery process is unpredictable and at times magical, but one thing is guaranteed: at the heart of each perfume there’s always a curious story.

The gifted perfumer can recount a tale in dainty strokes of sweet tonka absolute, and deeply grounding waves of patchouli. They don’t rely heavily on a deluge of synthetic mimics (imitations of true plant extracts), instead they paint fragrances with essential oils and absolutes that exude rich stories of their own: stories of regeneration.

What’s more, each perfume is blended by hand in small batches, with a bottle that’s labelled with the name of the person who prepared it. So you’ll always know who made your fragrance. 

How Lush Perfume Is Invented

The journey of a Lush perfume from source to skin is complex. Ensuring that everything in the production pipeline aligns ethically with the brand is no easy task. 

Lush essential oils buyer Anya Dale and Lush aroma chemicals creative buyer Olivia Sweeney’s roles are to foster and strengthen great relationships with essential oil and absolute producers, and bring their top quality ingredients to Lush’s perfumers. Anya says:

“We do a lot of research. We investigate grower practices: is everyone fairly paid? How do they rotate their crops? How do they use water? How do they keep the soil healthy and do they use pesticides? If everything looks good and we’d like to work together, we ask them to comply with Lush’s non animal testing policy.”

Lush are have set themselves a bold challenge: to pioneer the cosmetic revolution. To do this effectively requires first focusing on where ingredients come from, which is why the buying team’s endeavours are so very important.

Fighting Animal Testing 

Lush have always been resolute in their stance on animal testing. If you missed the memo, they never have and never will test on animals. This can leave some people wondering how Lush test ingredients for safety. One way to do this is to avoid using new ingredients in the invention process that require animal testing by law. 

Lush work with XCellR8, a test laboratory that hasn’t used animals or derivatives since its conception. They test all ingredients and ensure they’re safe.

Final products are then tested on (tremendously willing) human volunteers. Finding participants is easy. It’s incredibly exciting being the first to try a new product, especially when its aroma has the potential to reawaken a whole world of emotions and memories.

If I Request A Perfume Will Lush Make It?

Lush are always listening to the community on what perfumes to create next. That's why its perfumers will often hold community favourite ‘vote for rounds’ on their social media accounts. Keep your ear to the ground for a chance to have your say on what exclusives come next!

Why Do It This Way?

The journey of Lush fragrance, from plant to perfume, is an abundance of things. Straightforward it is not. From start to finish, Lush fragrances are designed to transform - whether it’s transforming the lives of growers supplying redolent essential oils, transforming the landscape into fertile, regenerative ground, or transforming the perceptions of the perfume’s wearer. 

A restorative rebellion against perfumery that lives merely for the present, Lush perfume puts our incredible planet and its people at the forefront. Explore the latest, regenerative perfume range here.

‘Veganics’:The Cutting Edge Of Vegan Veg?

Written for, and owned by, Lush Digital

Most people recognise vegans as those who don’t eat, or use animal products. And whilst even a decade ago most of us would have struggled to find a vegan in our school, work, or neighbourhood, times are changing and veganism has become an increasingly popular and accepted lifestyle in the west.

According to Ecologist magazine, half a million people in the UK are currently following a vegan lifestyle and with new initiatives like The Vegan Society’s ‘Plate up for the Planet’ campaign, choosing the vegan lifestyle is becoming an easier choice for those that make it today, especially when compared to a decade ago.

That said - and despite its growing popularity - living as a vegan can still present challenges. Avoiding the consumption of anything that supports animal industry profit requires considerable conscious thought and planning, especially around food shopping. Many vegans will question whether all of their purchases fully align with their lifestyle ethics and some will adopt the view that any produce, including legumes, fruit and vegetables, that are grown with the help of manure, or bone meal fertilisers are not strictly vegan.

Enter veganic farming

In response to the vegan lifestyle becoming more mainstream, and extensive, there are now a small number of UK food providers exploring the pioneering practise of veganic farming, which doesn’t use any animal-derived fertiliser on crops.  

Instead, the crops are grown adopting a ‘green alternative’ fertiliser whereby nitrogen-fixing plants - which do what the name suggests and fix nitrogen into the soil - are grown first and then ploughed back into the soil to create a greener compost that boosts its nutrient content, in preparation to grow a veganic crop.

This method isn’t new. The power of nitrogen fixing plants has been harnessed for millennia:

“Maize, beans, and squash have been intercropped for thousands of years, sustaining Maya Indians and Native American tribes with bountiful harvests,” writes Heather A. Miller of the University of Illinois in her journal Effect of Native American Bean-corn Biculture Planting.

Scientists now know that this intercropping method is largely successful because of an array of symbiotic bacteria (rhizobium being one). These clever organisms find their way into the roots of leguminous plants, giving them the ability to turn atmospheric nitrogen into fertilising ammonia.

In short, the Mayan and Native American nations were farming veganically before the term even existed!

Veganic farming causes less damage to the environment

Non-organic manure usually comes from animals sustained on a diet of imported feed. Non-veganic farmers who buy feed from overseas contribute to the detrimental environmental impact of transporting this by inadvertently burning fossil fuels to do so.

ProVeg International confidently states that “biovegan (veganic) agriculture is the most positive form of agriculture, in terms of all major environmental problems and climate change.”

Another key benefit to veganic farming is that pesticides and genetically modified organisms are not used. Instead, a diversity of plant species - which helps to better prevent the spread of pests - is promoted by growing mixed crops and by adopting a balanced crop rotation programme which, in most cases, means the use of farm machinery is also reduced.

As oil reserves become increasingly scarce, “biovegan agriculture could better guarantee the future supply of food” says Kristin Höhlig, campaign executive of ProVeg International.

Veganic farming is more energy-efficient

Today, the largest human emissions of atmospherically-damaging nitrous oxide are substantially linked to the processing of nitrogen fertilisers and manure used in mainstream agriculture.

The gases emitted by livestock, combined with their manure waste products, currently contribute to more than one third of global methane emissions. This gas warms the world twenty times faster than carbon dioxide.

In his article, ‘What’s new down on the farm’ the former President Emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Bill Schlesinger, states that some of the largest human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases stem from grazing cattle and the monocropping of rice.

So by establishing itself outside of the conventional animal agriculture industries, veganic farming contributes less methane gas to global warming and requires less energy to produce crops, which together results in a much lower carbon footprint.

Following in the footsteps of the organic movement

With scientific evidence supporting both the environmental and ethical benefits of veganism, can we now expect an increase in the number of specialist veganic produce suppliers?

Woj Gawor is the founder and managing director of  Plant Curious, the UK’s first vegan food box delivery service. He says: “Veganic farming is in its early stages so just like organic farming was thirty years ago, it needs momentum, drive and demand to push it forward. We believe veganic agriculture is really the only sustainable way of farming into the future.”

Want to buy veganic produce?

A small, but growing number of farms in the UK currently supply veganic produce. This list of UK veganic farmers is regularly updated.

Lush Life Learns: Responsible Foraging

Written for, and owned by, Lush Digital

The term ‘foraging’ may stir up images of a famished wanderer lost in the wilderness, but sourcing wild food for free is becoming an increasingly popular way for a growing number to source their own nutrient-rich food.  

Alongside its nutritional benefits, foraging can also serve to re-establish a tangible connection to the landscape. As our collective appetite for gathering grows it’s important that we follow a few, sustainability-focused, guidelines:

Permissions for picking 

If you found someone rifling through the ‘wild goods’ in your yard, without asking, you’d probably be less-than-pleased. It’s common courtesy to ask whoever owns the land for permission to forage there.   

Lawful picking

“All wild plants are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). It is illegal to dig up or remove a plant (including algae, lichens and fungi) from the land on which it is growing without permission from the landowner or occupier. Some species are specially protected against picking, uprooting, damage and sale. A list of these can be found on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981).” - Woodland Trust 

Caution around poisonous species

Some wild foods, especially mushrooms, require a high level of confidence and knowledge when identifying them. Misjudge that something is edible, when it is in fact poisonous, could land you in the hospital, or worse. Happily, there is a plethora of fantastic foraging guidebooks available that you can use to educate yourself with, to help prevent this unfortunate scenario from ever happening. When it comes to fungi, if you are not absolutely certain you have made a safe identification, then do not risk eating it.

Gather only from thriving populations 

By only gathering from bountiful populations you can help to maintain a source of wild food that can be harvested from, year after year. If you’re not sure whether what you’re planning to pick is plentiful or not, try asking a foraging expert.

Leave rare species alone

Between foraging books, internet research and asking the experts you can identify which plants are currently considered rare, or in danger of disappearing altogether. This should arm you with enough knowledge to set a good example and leave them to quietly repopulate. It’s important that rare plant species are given the time and space to rebuild their dwindling populations.

Forage a 'fair' share

Endeavour to work in symbiosis with each other, and with wildlife. If we start unnecessarily over-harvesting it could encourage similar behaviour from other foragers, thus depleting important wild food sources for animals that truly rely on them. Take only what you need.

Create a 'wanted' list

In order to get the best from what you pick, do some research before you set off. Aim to arrive at the site with some firm ideas of what you’re looking for. If you know what you’re seeking, how to identify it and what wonderful concoctions you’d like to cook up, you’ll minimise any over-picking.

Harvest sustainably

Sustainable foraging is key. When harvesting perennials carefully remove the edible top section with scissors, leaving the roots. If you do want to gather the root, time it so that you do so when the plant is in seed. This way you can replant seeds in the hole that you leave behind.

Leave no trace

Aim to minimise the evidence of you having been in the area. Avoid trampling on plants, where possible, and bring any rubbish home with you. Bring an extra bag so that if you come across anyone else’s waste you can take it home and dispose of it responsibly.

Safety first

Check the weather wherever you’re going, and plan accordingly. If coastal foraging, check the tide as well. It’s important you tell someone where you’re going and what time you plan on returning. Bring a fully-charged mobile phone and wear supportive shoes, with good grip. Wash everything you pick to avoid ingesting any troublesome parasites.

Finally, have fun! 

Revisiting our foraging roots, for most, is wonderfully rewarding. Combining these excursions with respect for the earth, and curiousity makes for a truly fulfilling experience.  

Useful Resources

Six Sustainable Foraging Techniques

Introduction to Seaweed Foraging by Galloway Wild Foods

Urban Foraging Guide by The Wild Food School

Lee Burrows of Wildfood Harvest

Alice Vesty provides a host of foraging, herbalism and mycology inspiration

FabulousFabs is an experienced mushroom forager