Baring Their Beliefs

Lush Cosmetics puts their butts on the line to save the planet

by Diana Beechener

“Yesterday, I had a guy come in and ask is this the naked lady store?” reports Lindsey Gue, manager of Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics in Westfield Annapolis. Since the store’s August 27 nude protest, Lush has garnered plenty of attention. But did they make their point: Extraneous packaging is wasteful?

Gue and staffers Jackie Kett and Kelly Gunning stripped down to nothing but their work aprons for a working half-hour protest. Their lack of packaging raised eyebrows and kept both Mall Security and A.A. County police abuzz.

“It’s been an adventure, but we have to put our pants on now,” Gue said after police ordered the group to re-robe.

A week later, Gue reports, the peek-a-boo protest won the store plenty of attention. “We got a lot of feedback about people seeing it on the news. There was a lot of pretty big media sources covering it, but [they] didn’t say why we were doing it.”

Still, piqued interest helps the committed staff of Lush to spread the word. Customers who drop by — whether to see, Gue says, “the store that’s naked! or say we’re brave” — leave knowing the bare truth: What count’s is beneath the packaging.