It is no secret that Lush Cosmetics has made it their mission to create natural, pure, animal cruelty free products that allows customers to feel good about their purchases from the company. However, Lush has gotten into its own fair share of controversy, not over the treatment of animals, but the treatment of one single performance artist in the UK.
The details of Lush’s controversy can be viewed here, but the basic gist of it was the performance artist being subjected to force feeding, injections, and discomfort, just as animals that undergo testing in cosmetic labs are. Though Lush was perfectly reasonable in wanting to raise awareness for such an unjust issue, some are questioning whether or not putting a human through the same torture is really a justifiable way to do so. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as they say.
On another note, Lush’s objective for putting on such a show can also be brought into question. Though it is true that the company believes in the just treatment of animals, the “human guinea pig” stunt could be seen as more of an advertisement for Lush Cosmetics, rather than a true bid for fair treatment of animals. And when put into that perspective, mistreating a human being in order to get people to buy “ethical” products seems quite ironic, don’t you think?