seasonal associate

floor leader

store manager

ambassador

team member

Lush-Cosmetics

its been almost a decade since i worked at lush... 

and i still have nightmares when i'm stressed about working there. 

as far as the products and company themselves, really no complaints.  they provide a good message in cute little products, made with love and fair trade ingredients and some smells i still sniff like goblin in the corner when i miss it. 

culture? maybe the best part of working there (besides the discount)... in a world where many of us feel left out or the black/rainbow sheep of the family-- you'll find your people working there come from a similar flock. hippies, nerds, the fringe and the best people (usually). you'll instantly bond with a few people that will make working a retail job feel like bliss, at least for a little bit. 

at first its willy wonka, its disney--its bold colors and bright sensibilities packaged in a eco friendly message. little did you know, its kool-aid. every sip, every bond, ties you into a a wild and toxic work environment, who'd have thought? just like everywhere else. 

i started as a holiday hire, the easiest way to get in, and if you have a chill demeanor and a decent work ethic, you might be asked to stay on. i was so excited to find out i was gonna stay on,  after a super crazy holiday season, i was happy to be somewhere at least i had similar beliefs in-- even if the job itself wasn't your thing. When bills come to play... well, at least parts of my job made me happy. 

super easy to move up in the company, or at least it was 10 years ago, but my recent stops in to the store leave to believe not much has really changed.  there is a high turn over rate and low tolerance for human error or having some sort of sickness (not being able to stay on your feet or having things that will take you off the floor often will hit you hard and will be hyper focused/noticed upon). its a retail job, so everything you think or could imagine, yep. 

schedule was always off/changing/updated-- to fit the needs of the store. asked to be part time for many, with full time availability. some weeks you may have extra hours, others minimal-- without explanation other then budget. 

some of these coworkers became some of my best friends, makes it easier when you basically are living at your store-- and you don't notice it right away. it wasn't always fun the first year or two, but i only have good memories of that time. It was mostly when our store met a transition period.... our manager moved up and on in her role in the company, and the one who took her place changed the entire mood atmosphere. 

so i guess an important thing--  you want a good puppet master. that will make or break the kool-aid drinking ride threefold. I'd moved up in the store and was a floor leader/key holder/trusted to open close the store ect. basically management without much of a raise and a giant heap more of expectations. 

I was clear from the get go I had dyslexia with numbers, and closing the store was stressful enough. they expected the stores closed in 60 min. no more, no less. don't mind the people still shopping, don't mind that your shelves are completely obliterated, your down staff and you're starting at a drawer of money that looked like a dragons hoard. 

Did my best, sometimes it was off. I would never steal money, but you're gonna have a messy drawer when you ask someone who has to count things 60 times to get it right once. on top of two drawers (at the very least) and making the rest of the store was cleaned, stoked, organized and ready for open the next day. 

this is where the nightmares come in, i still dream of having to close the store down when im stressed-- my mind throws me back there and its a ******* fever dream. lush really should be paying for some therapy bills. 

on top of this at the time, i both my old manager and new manager (and the new MIT ((manager in training))  cornered me and wanted me to train the staff for the Christmas season without little training... as a people pleaser i accepted, but i knew it'd be my end. why? not because i think they believed in me, but because I didn't want to move up or on and was content where I was.

somehow trainings the staff, trying to be mellow and a safe space for them, a relatable and level headed person who's just trying to work and live and not wanting to be force fed positivity and light.... well, even though my hours on the floor were making higher numbers then our actual managers/MIT and i had nonstop messages when I left-- I was the problem and a downer, and just didnt seem invested.  

There's a huge emphasis on growth when you get hired there, whether you're ready or your not, its constant feedback, constant critique and 1on1s that will break your soul. some people thrive with that feedback, but then they burn out and that's on them. others crack, and oop-- your unstable, you cant work here. Disney level expectations with out much to show for it. 

working there became a real drag and i lost passion and interest-- and finally just left. 

could be for you, but you'll find out real fast if its not. 

I worked at LUSH for about three years. Started off as seasonal sales associate, got kept on -as regular staff, and then promoted to floor leader. I enjoyed my time at the company, and I made great friends with the coworkers that I had. There was little to no drama between coworkers. My store did have issues with our MIT at one point, but could have been a lot worse. The problem got fixed after hiring someone else. Much does a good job of hiring people that make the work environment for really inviting and welcoming. I never had to deal with comments that would make me feel uncomfortable about my race, sexuality, or ethnicity.

LUSH is a great company but  they’re going in a much more retail focused direction, taking away from the original vision as a company. I enjoy LUSH because I like that the company is focused on ethics and having more natural cosmetics. But frankly LUSH is just trying to get their hands on as much money as possible and you feel this with how pushy you have to be as a sales person. I often felt pressured to check back in with people that I knew didn’t need my assistance. It would get very draining to do this on a daily basis, and was one of the aspects I disliked of my job. Floor leaders are expected to make their hourly sales goals and give constant micromanaging feedback to coworkers about how we can achieve those goals. We also found these to be unrealistic, because our traffic at the mall and in the store was not high enough to achieve these goals.

One thing that made the experience a lot better with all the free products. Staff members often had the opportunity to take home broken or damaged products if they were safe, and this made it a lot more realistic for me to use the products. Personally, LUSH has gotten more expensive and I would not be able to afford them without the 50% discount and the opportunity to have free product. But recently there has been a change in terms of what products are part of the 50% off, and certain new campaigns are exempt from that sadly. 

I enjoy working at LUSH and after leaving the company I definitely miss the environment. I look forward to coming to work and feeling motivated by my coworkers. Customer service is customer service but I met a lot of really great customers while working there that I still keep in contact with. It’s really welcoming workplace for people who have an unconventional look. I always got compliments on my hair, color and unique make up style while working there compared to somewhere else. But I don’t miss the aspect of having to hover over customers and push demos on people that I wanted a more relaxed shopping experience. Additionally, LUSH has to reevaluate their pay to accommodate the rising cost of living because $13 to 14 is definitely not enough to live off of comfortably in my state. I definitely enjoyed being able to have sick time and vacation time as a part-time person though.

I loved working for this company for a very long time, but I realized that it started stray from its original values that I adored it for. I remember how excited I used to be to take on new responsibilities and learn new skill sets when I was just a sales ambassador. I felt just as important as my manager and I quickly knew I could see a career at the company. I recieved raises and bonuses, and while I wasn’t rolling in extra cash I was able to live affordably. I quickly moved up through lead positions to management. Changes in wage and increases changed after I went into management, and I saw how the considerably low wage for “max pay”  on elevated roles negatively affected my staff. As a manager it was difficult to instill accountability in my staff who were doing multiple jobs beyond their job descriptions when I knew they weren’t being compensated fairly. Bonuses became very challenging to achieve and management could not issue raises anymore (most of my staff being at the “top” of their “max pay” for their position.) The company talks about how it stands for its beliefs and often about what its done with its profits to support others, but they have staff who can’t afford housing or basic costs of living because of the lack of true understanding of the cost of living. This really broke my heart and kept me up at night a lot. I felt like I was often reminded of all the good things LUSH did for others and that the pay was accurate for“retail work” (which also involved event planning, social media monitoring, order picking, private parties, specialty roles with added responsibilities) when I tried to address compensation with upper management. 

When I started with the company, there was so much opportunity for all staff to grow and develop into new roles and careers (visuals, social media & training positions, charity projects.) We would literally ask staff what they wanted to do with their career at LUSH because internal development was really important to LUSH. As the years went on these opportunities became less common and less directed at managers/staff despite the inclusive verbiage in the job posts. When I would apply to any new positions, I felt often that I was met with feedback that was unclear and unhelpful to my “development.” It felt very inauthentic and unspecified to me. It was hard to feel bought into after this realization because my only other option was to relocate and develop a new shop, which wasn’t my “career” plan when I started with the company. Had their been more real avenues to grow and more consistency in expectations and communication, I feel like I would have stayed with the company and worked to change the missed opportunities for employees that I stated previously.

I know that profitability is the reason why l
LUSH is able to do so much for the world and humanity. I will always respect that and its vocality of issues most companies brush off. I just hope that seeing dollar signs doesn’t continue to come before the values. 

Again, I truly love(d) this company and still believe that it could remember its roots and go back to investing in its people.

This review is quite long but will be nothing but honest. When I read negative reviews, I usually don't take them to heart since every person's experience with a company is different, so please take what I say into consideration. 

The company's values are great, helping the planet and humankind. Unfortunately, the store managers fall short of what you would expect, at least here in DFW they do. I heard stories about other managers at the stores around the metroplex and how awful they are, how many people quit because of them. 

When I first started I loved it, when I worked it didn't seem as though I was working, then it all changed. My store management was hardly at the store due to multiple reasons such as training at other stores, vacation, etc. Us floor leaders didn't have the guidance we needed, and we were left to run the store quite often, there was so much stress on us, the pay isn't high enough to take on the role of management as well as dealing with our own duties as floor leader.
 My store manager was fairly new to the company so it was strange to me how she kept taking vacation days every month. I only missed two days the entire time I worked due to not feeling well, but I found out she had been talking behind my back saying I should have just asked for the Saturday off that I called in on if I had wanted the day off. Those two days she didn't believe I was actually not feeling well. She allowed her favorites to be late every day, call in whenever they wanted with no consequences. I wasn't the only person she would talk about behind their back, it was pretty much everyone. 
 Every day she was there, something made her angry so she would complain about things not done being correctly, but she would change her mind each time on how she wanted things done. One of the floor leaders was the in-store trainer, but past the few day training that floor leader didn't keep up with training, they just stood around. 
The store manager never wanted to take on her share of responsibility or have accountability for the lack of management, she blamed everyone else. It was our fault for not telling her we felt we were behind in training and during our one on one chats she would talk down to us and refuse to listen. Who wants to talk to a manager who acts as though you are a child, and talks behind your back?
The store meetings we had were a complete joke, most of them are about new products that are coming out when there were so many things that were being done incorrectly that needed to be talked about. 
The pressure to sell multiple items was ridiculous, and you had to try to sell to everyone who came in, which isn't possible, not everyone is going to buy something. There is already a high turn over at that store and it's going to continue to rise. 
I don't recommend working at Lush unless you are under the age of 25, most employees are part-time and depending on your store manager you are treated like a child.

Most fun and rewarding job most of the time and the perks were so good, free items, 50% off purchases, room for growth, smelling so so good after every shift , but management changed often and some management could quickly  drain the life out of you  when they struggled to meet the very specific high demands of the company, some managers were
 able to turn the stores struggles into amazing lasting career development lessons I still use today. 
Some years I never thought I could possibly leave something I was so passionate to talk with customers about (heavy on ingredients training and fair trade history/ values which I loved) some years management didn’t care about anything but the numbers that kept them looking good and would tell you “every customer is your best friend, you aren’t aloud to let them say the word no or ask to be on their own, you did something wrong if your interaction ends “ and would wait for moments they could grill you to find what you could have possibly messed up (with the person often in the store) and ask you to tell them how you will fix yourself when you are sent back to that person or in the next interaction, and they would watch again so intensely it was hard to be organic at all . I had a manager tell me my face was too angry looking and I should hang my mouth open to look dumber so people don’t find me intimidating. I was demoted at one point because I had the lowest numbers( I was on vacation for a few weeks lol) and the managers boss was pushing mine to show they were doing something to improve their leads, so I lost my healthcare when I always had high numbers and great secret shopper reports  and had been with the company for so long, it was cruel for no reason 
Lush also had a disconnect between uk and us, uk standards was spa/experience driven,  even if they don’t buy anything give them the world and have fun building a relationship, they will trust you and come back. That’s how it started for me and it was so fun, but American standards were so money focused it was hard to build rapport with customers who wanted experience, we were told everyone gets a basket and you just put things they like in it and don’t let them even say no, and we would constantly get people who were afraid to even go into stores here because of the pushyness of sales, it high key killed the fun of the products. 
Yes Work here, it can be so fun, the pay is great,  but have a strong tolerance for emotional whiplash
Your coworkers will become lifelong friends though, they do hire some very fun creative  people

After spending several weeks learning the products/ingredients/beliefs of the company, you're good. However, overall the environment of this company is very cult-ish. You are constantly gaslit by the management, expected to be obsessed with everything, and you're pushing products on people that say to your face that they do not want/cannot afford the products. I've worked with several management teams and each time there is something "off" about them. There isn't room for growth, (I worked pre and post pandemic), and there is a level of energy needed to successfully achieve the work that is expected of you. This level of energy is extremely difficult to attain. The scheduling is the same as any retail job, and they do have good sick time. However, health insurance is non-existent to most staff because they will not give you enough hours to attain the insurance. In addition, starting this job as a holiday staff member can be extremely difficult. You will not learn everything in time (it realistically will take you around 2-3 months of nonstop learning inside and outside of work to attain the proper knowledge to help customers). Holiday jobs are typically going to be around 2 months of work and IF you're lucky and extreeeemely good at your job, you will be asked to stay. Holiday bonuses are nice but is entirely dependent on the store's success itself. Everything is team based so no matter if you have a 100 dollar sale or 1000 dollar sale (I've had both, holiday and otherwise), you will not get any commission. If you're lucky and a customer gives you a tip, you must refuse and will get reprimanded if seen accepting it. The real deciding factor is if you really love the products. The discount is 50% off and is great, however the environment you're working in almost pushes you to use that discount because most products will require experimentation to see how it works for you. In addition, all the management will try to convince you to by the products so you end up spending way more money than you need. There is also a ton of microaggressions towards certain people both customers and workers, and this is very common at many locations. I've had great managers and terrible managers, but unfortunately at the end of the day you're probably going to have issues regardless because there is not an HR department, and you are very likely to be gaslit in situations where you feel mistreated. good luck.. 

This place is pretty great but I definitely can’t call it 5 stars. It’s 3-4 depending on where you stand in the company and your store.

The location can make or break a seasonal/sales ambassador during the holidays or area peak times. My location has a ridiculous number of call outs yet everyone needs a second job because they don’t get enough hours? The pay is pretty middle of the road and gets better the longer you work there. If you like the products getting free samples and a half off discount is amazing.

Most of how you view the company will be by your coworkers and management. I haven’t had direct conflicts but there’s definitely cliques. I’m not sure how bad these cliques are but I have a good sense of who to be friendly with and who isn’t really interested in you being three. That said, I don’t feel particularly threatened at my job but some combinations of people are more stressful than others. I don’t see this being noticed or handled by management in any direct way so that might be a concern down the line.

Training is all over the place which means toes get stepped on constantly about what you should and shouldn’t do. I was approached on the floor twice to be told I did something wrong when it was actually what I was told by management and encouraged to do. Needless to say, I won’t be doing anything around someone that isn’t the store manager again. I should feel empowered to make changes when the situation calls for it but if it isn’t what everyone else wants it’s better to not bother.

It really does seem like a great company but the stores will make or break your experience. If one location doesn’t work I honestly recommend transferring if you can. It really does make a huge difference sometimes!

*BIG NOTE* based on my experience with other people and their jobs I will warn you that they do arbitration here so if you don’t trust the company to handle things you may be out of luck with any serious issues. I and nobody I currently work for had any issues but I know many horror stories from people with arbitration.

Working at LUSH Cosmetics was extremely enjoyable, especially for those so passionate about the products and cosmetics in general. The training program was intensive and required a lot of work, memorization, and demonstration in order to cement knowledge, but it is made easier by a smooth and fun energy every work day. Product knowledge is required in order to properly sell to customers and suggest the right thing for the right person.

The products were fun which attracted those looking for something different, and employees are willing and able to share their passions with customers. When a customer enters, we greet them cheerfully and welcome them to the store. Whether they have been there before or have never heard of the brand, we showed them something wonderful no matter what they needed. We demonstrated products on the customer via hand, foot, or face massages, and were encouraged to be exceptionally personable and friendly. Many of us became friends with our regular customers who only wanted to shop whenever we were available. 

Perhaps the hardest part of the job was making sure everyone was taken care of, especially on the weekends, which at LUSH, became extremely busy extremely quickly. Sales Ambassadors got to know customers quickly and then convey useful information to the Manager-on-Duty, who then would relay the information to the Manager if they were present. Teamwork was crucial and the purpose of this system was to collaborate on suggestions for higher sales and better, more enjoyable experiences. 

The combination of high traffic, high expectations, and vast product knowledge made for a very rewarding work environment, where sales goals were regularly met and celebrated. Co-workers became fast life-long friends and camaraderie was built instantly even between new and seasoned hires. This made working at LUSH fun, exciting, and like a second home at times.


Culture at Lush is best described as toxic positivity. It may appear to be a genuine & fun workplace, but its still very much a top-down global corporation with poor business organization. Business communication only flows one direction, and instead of providing a clear description of job duties and expectations, management prioritizes "coaching" and "feedback" for sales associates, floor leaders, and store managers, creating an emphasis on molding employee behavior into inauthentic scripted interactions with both customers and coworkers over addressing any actual needs of the business.
Any concerns, opportunities, or "feedback" presented back to management are either acknowledged yet never acted upon(i.e. 4 years without any changes to pay rate), or considered to be pessimistic and therefore not in alignment with company values. The extreme focus on positivity means complaints are invalidated and genuine concerns are seen as a personal anxiety problem rather than an issue that the company has the power to address. The company has great values, emphasis on ethics, "do it with heart", sustainability>profitability, etc., but SO much action not at all in alignment with their values, as well as zero tolerance for questioning it (or even attempting to improve it!)
The product is amazing, there are amazing people who work there, but the structure and culture of this company is seriously alarming once you start to figure things out. An overwhelming amount of hypocrisy goes completely unaddressed, like how they champion how much they give to charity yet pay their own workers below a living wage, leaving them to rely on welfare and charity themselves. 

There is also good reason to why they call themselves a "cult-brand"... intoxicating smells lure you in, the products are no doubt luxurious and addictive, but once you're in you realize all the work you do is for someone else's benefit, you aren't allowed to question anything, and for some reason, no matter how obviously bad things get, nothing ever changes. 

A typical day at Lush included going to the back and clocking in. After you put on your apron, you would go see either the manager or manager in training to find out what section of the store you would be assigned. After every break and your lunchtime, you would rotate to another section of the store. When your shift is over, you would inform the floor leader of the section you were in that your shift was over and, if they didn't ask you to stay, you would clock out.
I learned a lot about the values that Lush has as a company and how they follow through with those values every day. They did a very good job of training us how to appropriately approach a customer and how to ask leading questions. They also taught us a lot about ingredients in products and how they apply to the overall use of said products.
Management was overall great. The manager and manager in training always made a point to check on us at least once a shift if not multiple times. They also would give excellent feedback and constructive criticism.
As far as workplace culture, it is extremely diverse and accepting. It was the first application I ever filled out that asked me about my pronouns and preferred name. While those questions didn't necessarily apply to me, it just shows how much they do genuinely care. The overall energy while working there was also very upbeat and friendly. 
The hardest part about working at Lush was something that I believe was specific to the holiday season. We were almost constantly out of stock of a lot of product and ran out of shopping bags at least twice while I worked there.
While my entire experience at Lush was overall very positive, I would have to say the absolute best part was making real connections with my coworkers and my customers. Hearing about their lives and hearing inspiring stories from them really was the cherry on top of my entire experience there.
I would also like to add that Lush was my very first job and I would highly recommend applying if you are looking for your first job. It was an amazing experience and I would definitely work there again if the opportunity arose.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Seasonal associate 9 salaries reported	$10.38 per hour
Floor leader 1 salary reported	$15.58 per hour
Store manager 1 salary reported	$56,050 per year
Ambassador 1 salary reported	$10.00 per hour
Team member 1 salary reported	$18,000 per year

Working at Lush Cosmetics: Company Overview and Reviews

Lush Cosmetics

Lush Cosmetics Ratings

Popular jobs at Lush Cosmetics

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected