Following in the green footprints of its Milan, Berlin and Manchester stores, Lush has opened a plastic packaging-free ‘naked’ outlet in Hong Kong, writes Jenny Berich.

According to Lush, the new store will help tackle Hong Kong’s plastic waste problem, which has recently been exacerbated by China’s decision to no longer allow it to export its recyclable materials to the mainland.

“With the three huge outdoor landfill sites quickly filling up and the lack of well-developed waste management or recycling plants, other options need to be explored, said the UK-based retailer.

Speaking at the store’s opening, Lush Asia director Annabelle Baker said “wastage is a monumental problem where inaction is not an option and recycling should be the last option”.

“This is why I was so passionate to launch our first Asian naked shop in Hong Kong,” she said.

“We don’t have space in Hong Kong to deal with our wastage, we have to reduce it and that’s where Lush comes in.

“The Naked concept store will provide new, innovative and effective products in one of the most convenient and prominent locations in Hong Kong.”

Like its three predecessors, the Hong Kong store will sell a wider variety of ‘naked’ cosmetics including solid shampoo bars, bath bombs, solid body conditioners, bubble bars, shower gels, lipsticks, slap sticks and glow sticks.

Lush managing director Mark Constantine said the company was “delighted to invest in the city in an effort to relieve them of a little part of the worry caused by ocean plastics” at a time “when most people in Hong Kong have so much on their minds”.

However, he stressed that ‘Naked’ isn’t a new concept for retailer – “the shampoo bar was invented over 20 years ago and the bath bomb is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year”.

“Globally in 2018, Lush customers saved 6.6 million bottles of plastic bath products by choosing naked bath bombs, bubble bars or bath melts instead and had around 372 million plastic free hair washes using naked shampoo bars (*based on seven baths from one 500ml bottle of bubble bath and 60 washes from each shampoo bar).”

In addition to selling plastic packaging free products, the store will feature the latest version of the Lush Labs app which will allow visitors to scan products directly (rather than packaging labels) to provide ingredient information and ‘how to use’ demonstrations.

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