Lush launch puts focus on its record label for Christmas

Lush, international beauty player known for the heady scents of its unpackaged products, has announced the launch of a vinyl to be sold alongside its soaps in the holiday period.

The Self Preservation Society vinyl (£30.00) is curated by Lush Co-founder and Managing Director, Mark Constantine.

It features 34 songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s across various genres, including progressive, folk and psychedelic rock. The product has been created by the beauty brand’s record label arm, ECC Records and ECC100.

In order to broaden the product’s appeal, Lush explains that it is retailing it with a USB stick containing digital versions of the tracks.

Original compositions by artists as diverse as Genesis, Nick Drake, The Doors and Frank Zappa have been reinterpreted by a galaxy of bright stars including Teddy Thompson, Eliza Carthy, Jackie Oates, Marry Waterson and Julie Tippetts,” says Lush. “The result is an magnificently diverse, six-sided jewel of a record.”

Expanding offering

The move to launch a vinyl product and expand Lush’s offering on the shopfloor suggests the brand is keen to further diversify its broad offering.

The brand has in recent years launched its Lush Kitchen concept as an online retail channel, an online TV channel (Lush TV), and started an interactive product showcase, now taking place biannually in London.

Method, a design and branding agency, worked with Lush on its evolution towards some of these concepts, explains on its website the rationale behind the project.

Method's work with Lush included the creation of Lush.co.uk into an editorially led, fully responsive e-commerce platform; the redesign of Lush Times, the Lush consumer magazine and catalog; and the creation of a new service, Lush Kitchen, where customers can buy the freshest, limited edition products that are sent the day they are made,” Method explains.

The Lush story is rich and inspirational, yet they are often overlooked or dismissed as a “soap shop.” The truth is remarkable: this quintessential British brand is unique in its groundbreaking and visionary approach to how it invents, ethically sources and creates fresh beauty products by hand.”