Posted in: Comics | Tagged:

Dr Strange Lush – How Alan Moore Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bath Bomb

Published Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:30:52 -0500

Last updated Mon, 23 Oct 2017 19:58:04 -0500

Lush is a British high street chain of cosmetic retailers known for Lush Bath Bomb and numerous other things, founded by Mark Constantine, a trichologist and Liz Weir, a beauty therapist, who met in a hair and beauty salon in Poole, England. A few years later, they decided to branch out and start their own business selling natural hair and beauty products.

Constantine and Weir developed a number of recipes for bath and beauty products and were a major supplier to high street chain The Body Shop, until Anita Roddick chose to take more products in house and paid £11 million for the rights for their recipes.

As part of that deal, Constantine and Weir were forbidden from opening any other retail store for five years, so they set up a mail order cosmetics company called Cosmetics-To-Go which didn't succeed and eventually went into administration and was sold.

But by then the time limit was up. They started hand making products from fresh fruits and vegetables, bought at Poole market, and sold in the shop below. Previously been paying another company to come up with the fragrances for their products, Mark decided he would create the perfumes himself. A competition was launched for customers to give the company a new name. One customer suggested Lush.

It was rather successful, now with over a hundred stores in the UK and over 900 worldwide, selling creams, soaps, shampoos, shower gels, lotions, moisturizers, scrubs, masks and other cosmetics for the face, hair, and body using only vegetarian or vegan recipes. Lush is also known for their bath bombs which are solid bars of sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, essential oils and natural butters that fizz out and can produce an array of colors. Lush products are 100% vegetarian, and often contain fruits and vegetables such as grapefruit juice, vanilla beans, avocado butter, rosemary oil, fresh papaya and coconut. However, some products contain lanolin, milk, eggs, honey, and beeswax.

Lush and Lush cosmetics have been endorsed by the likes of Kylie Jenner, Jeffree Star, Skylar Grey, Meryl Davis, Manny Gutierrez, Fleur De Force and Halsey. But now they have a new name who find their products just the best. Because, amongst many other, Lush has an outlet in Northampton, England in the Grosvenor shopping centre in the middle of town.

Alan Moore answered questions last Christmas sent by the members of a Facebook group called The Really Very Serious Alan Moore Scholars' Group, and today Pádraig Ó Méalóid has gathered them up for Comics Beat. Including questions about his preferred choice of biscuit, including disdain for the party ring…

I must state that I despise the Hob-Nob for is faux-rustic pretension and generally regard it as the biscuit equivalent of Alex James out of Blur, with its private education undisguised by the addition of a pair of wellingtons.

…but also asking of his grooming techniques.

On the recommendation of my daughter Amber, around fifteen years ago I familiarised myself with the concept of conditioner and since then my daily regimen has been something like the following: get up, have breakfast, feed the birds, run a bath with some luridly-coloured Lush bath bomb foaming away in it, roll myself a jazz cigarette while its running, go up and get into the bath while it's still uncomfortably hot and then wash myself before I get around to the hair.

I tend to vary my shampoo according to meaningless impulse, but a reliable standby is Lush's 'Big' shampoo, which is mostly sea-salt and which is apparently responsible for giving me my traffic-stopping shine and volume. After rinsing all that away, I tend to alternate between two different conditioners, these being either Lush's 'American Cream' or 'Happy Happy Joy Joy.'

So if you ever wanted to know what to buy Alan for his birthday next month, you now have a clue. Although in another section he also says "Advertising itself is the most blatant form of bad magic being practised in the world today" so maybe figure that in.