By Allie Flinn

Happy International Women’s Day! It’s a day that happens once a year to celebrate the achievements of womankind. Personally, we think we should be celebrating women all day, every day — and Lush Cosmetics agrees.

We just learned the brand has a variety of policies in place that back up its progressive views, thereby adding another point to our extensive list of reasons why we love it (including, but not limited to, its cruelty-free policy and mesmerizing bath bombs). Behind the scenes, it’s providing paid maternity leave, funding women’s initiatives, and more. In other words, it’s committed to empowering women 24/7, 365 days per year — and other companies should absolutely take note.

To learn more about what Lush does, here are a few female empowerment initiatives it offers:

It provides up to 48 weeks paid maternity leave

“Lush is a company that provides women the opportunity to develop into positions of influence and leadership. As such, we want to ensure that people are able to continue to develop their career after they have decided they also would like to have a family,” Shauna Grinke, the director of human resources for Lush Cosmetics North America, told HelloGiggles. (Insert approximately 1,000 clapping-hands emojis here.)

The United States is one of the only developed nations that doesn’t have a law requiring paid maternity leave. Lush provides 48 weeks’ paid maternity leave to eligible employees (including U.S.-based managers, assistant managers, spa therapists, and home office employees who are regularly scheduled to work at least 30 hours a week, according to a press release).

It funds organizations that help elect women into political office:

The company has donated over $22 million dollars from the sale of its Charity Pot body lotion to small, grassroots organizations that make the world a better place — including RepresentWomen, an organization that works to get more women elected in office. (Only 19 percent of Congress is female, which is not okay!)

Two-thirds of its Executive Directors are women:

Another example of putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. Four out of the six Executive Directors at Lush Cosmetics are women. For some perspective, in 2014, only 20 percent of executive positions in the U.S. were held by females, and in 2016, over 40 percent of the 150 highest earning companies in Silicon Valley had no female executives at all.

It uses its products to tell the stories of influential women:

Oh hi, Jelly Face Masks. Every one of these masks was inspired by a powerful Lush businesswoman. For instance, Lush Cosmetics told us in a press release that its FOMO Jelly Face Mask was inspired by Lush Co-Founder and Product Inventor, Mo Constantine — aka the creator of Lush’s iconic bath bomb.

It gets its wrapping paper from a program that’s female-focused:

Its wrapping paper is sourced from India in partnership with Khadi, a program that helps women become economically independent. It employs people from villages in India and trains them in the art of papermaking.

https://hellogiggles.com/news/lush-cosmetics-female-empowerment-international-womens-day/