Slush staff

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

It recites the dogma or it gets the hose.

Shoppers who believed only women could get pregnant were seen as “bigoted” by Lush staff, a former employee claims.

The sales assistant, who asked not to be named, told The Telegraph she saw a customer of the cosmetics retailer become upset, after she asked staff to help her choose a gift for a “pregnant woman” and was directed towards products for “pregnant people”.

In other words after staff rudely “corrected” her by telling her not to say the filthy word “woman”.

She said staff were encouraged to wear badges with preferred pronouns; described as “trans allies” by managers, and could ask customers to leave if they felt they were expressing transphobic views. Some seemed “genuinely excited” at the prospect of confronting people they saw as transphobic, she said.

Yeah no shit. Of course they did. Hey kids, it’s Righteous Denunciation time!

The former staff member contacted The Telegraph following public criticism of a window display at a Lush in Chelmsford, Essex. It showed a tiger with pink, blue and white stripes, and the words “proud of my stripes”. The tiger also bears markings suggestive of “top surgery” to remove breasts.

The display attracted criticism from survivors of breast cancer, who accused the cosmetics retailer of “glorifying the removal of healthy breasts”.

Bucky Ringsell, the artist was painted the mural, said in an Instagram post she had designed the tiger to support and represent people who had undergone top surgery, “myself included”.

But of course it’s not “top surgery”; it’s mutilation.

Staff were encouraged to hand campaign materials to customers, including parents and children, although she had concerns that some of the subjects were “too adult” for children.

This included a 24-page booklet produced by Lush and TransActual called The Dream vs Reality: Creating a World Where Trans People are Safe. It stated that being trans was not a mental illness, called for the ban on puberty blockers to be lifted and backed legal gender self-identification.

Remember when women got this treatment?

No, neither do I.

Comments

2 responses to “Slush staff”

  1. Artymorty Avatar
    Artymorty

    It’s interesting that, of all the retail chains in the world, it’s Lush that’s the most dogmatic about trans nonsense.

    What is it about Lush specifically that aligns it so perfectly with gender woo?

    I asked ChatGPT to “describe the brand and target audience of the retail chain Lush.”

    Its reply began with, “Lush is basically ethical maximalism as retail theatre.” It went on to describe “natural-ish cosmetics, anti-corporate vibes, and sensory excess”, and a brand personality that is “sincere but also performative”. The bricks-and-mortar stores are “like a farmers’ market, candy shop, apothecary, activist booth, and theatre workshop mashed together.”

    So it’s a giant international corporation that needs something to position itself as activist-y, countercultural, and individual. A bit Starbucks-y in that way. Starbucks, of course, is next on the list of giant international corporations that have gone kookoo for genderpuffs.

    Trans, then, is corporate shorthand for “our brand is virtue”. It’s brand-positioning performance.

    (No wonder the annual Toronto parade formerly known as Gay Pride is now nothing but flatbed trucks advertising Canada’s banks and media conglomerates, covered in pink, white, and baby blue.)

    (It’s also no wonder that Lush was the primary sponsor of the girls-only kids’ music day camp that operated out of the venue I used to manage. That’s the one that had a strict locked-doors, no-males-anywhere-in-the-building-under-any-circumstance-because-there’s-young-girls-here policy, which it promptly discarded by hiring a hulking middle-aged crossdressing man to look after the girls alone.)

    We’re gutting women’s rights and mutilating kids so corporations can sell us expensive bath bombs and pumpkin spice lattes while making us feel like we’re supporting our quirky little neighbourhood friends as we hand them our cash.

    Imagine how those blue-haired, mastectomy-scarred they/thems are gonna feel in a few years when it dawns on them that their bodies were seen as nothing more than free advertising by corporate bigwigs.

    It’s both tragic and pathetic.

  2. Sumi Avatar
    Sumi

    Just walking past a Lush store makes my eyes water – the smell is so strong I’ve never been inside. And their manufacturing plant stinks up a whole neighbourhood in Toronto. Now I see their political views are as obnoxious as their products. No thanks.

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