INTERVIEW// Helen Ambrosen - Co-Founder of LUSH on less is more skincare

Over the past decade, skincare has pushed us towards more: more products, more actives, more intervention. But as skin barrier damage and routine fatigue become increasingly common, a quieter shift is underway.

Lush has always stood aside from the noise, championing simple routines, fresh ingredients and formulations designed to respect the skin’s natural balance, for over 30 years.

We were delighted to meet the brand’s co-founder and product inventor, Helen Ambrosen, to find out why skincare needs a reset, what she thinks about modern routines and why doing less may be the most effective form of care.

Helen Ambrosen, Lush Co-Founder, Inventor and Shareholder

Raemona: Why do you think the shift towards “less is more” skincare feels so relevant right now?

Helen: Many of the products people have been encouraged to buy in recent years are high intervention. They can contain high levels of isolated 'actives' like retinol that were once only available from doctors or dermatologists to care for quite specific skin needs. It's now very easy to access these products and use them together at home without that level of expertise, which I have always found concerning.

We know a lot of skincare users are looking for products to restore their skin barrier, which seems prevalent in the aftermath of these high-strength, active products becoming widely available. Trying to repair your skin barrier is not easy  – much better to treat it gently to begin with, which is why I am glad a return to simpler ingredients and routines is gaining traction. 

Lush has always taken this approach: simple, effective routines tailored to our customers' needs and plenty of nourishing, fresh and natural ingredients. The fresh fruits and vegetables, beautiful plant butters and essential oils we use are full of naturally beneficial and active vitamins, enzymes and compounds. When actives are naturally part of the ingredients you are working with, they are part of what makes the material effective without being high strength, as they can be when isolated for use. We also want our customers to benefit from all this goodness that comes from using the whole fruit!

Lush has been a champion of nourishing, fresh and natural ingredients for over 30 years

R. From a formulator’s perspective, what kinds of damage or imbalance have you seen caused by over-complicated routines?

H: I would say children growing up today have an unrealistic idea fed to them of what real skin looks like - especially real teenage skin – and that can lead them to reach for grown-up, high-strength products that are not suitable for them and are not necessary. Teenage skin is in a state of transition and is very delicate. It is also completely normal to experience blemishes during this time, though for a majority of children, these complaints will not be chronic or lead to a diagnosis of skin disease. But because these effects in the skin are not normalised, it can lead to young people seeking out strong products they do not need and may even contribute to their concerns.

2026: Less is more skincare

R: Is there a particular skin type you believe would benefit most from a simplified routine?

H: At Lush we believe that all complexions benefit from less not more, which is why we endeavour to make a product for every need, not every 'want'. Customer service is integral to meeting the needs of our customers – we have always would much rather you took home the correct product for your needs than a routine you won't use or don't need. For the most troubled skin, we often simply recommend our Ultrabland cleanser and nothing else for a month.

Lush Ultrabland Cleanser

R: You’ve spent over 40 years developing self-preserving formulations. When you were first creating preservative-free skincare, did it feel like you were swimming against the tide and does it feel validating to see this philosophy gaining wider traction today?

H: The work started from a lifelong aim to make products without cosmetic preservatives, as we knew the potential for irritation from using these chemicals, and we were concerned about their impact on your microbiome and on the environment.

Inventing face masks using honey, clay and glycerine with masses of fresh fruit and vegetables, exploring the levels of free water to create lotions and creams, and inventing solid forms of products that would normally be liquids requiring preservatives and packaging, has led to amazing innovations.

We take such a different approach to the rest of the skincare industry that taking the customer with us and explaining to them why we do what we do is hugely important. And, no matter how 'green' a product is, if it doesn’t work for the customer, they’re not going to want it, so therefore we have to create a formula that retains its benefits.

Self-preserving Dream Cream took 90 different formulations to enable the product to preserve itself but ensure it still functioned well on the skin. So we have invested a lot of effort, energy and time (me especially) in developing these types of self-preserving formula because we passionately feel they are better quality for our customer and because we are thinking about their needs beyond the appearance. We still face challenges today but we strongly believe in offering an alternative to what is otherwise available on the high street.

Dream Cream Self-Preserving

R: Many of Lush’s formulations draw on ancient or traditional approaches. What do you think modern skincare has forgotten that earlier formulations seemed to understand instinctively?

H: I don't think these methods fell out of fashion because they were ineffective but because they were not as convenient for large businesses. Through our extensive work with natural ingredients and traditional recipes, we have gained knowledge of how to get the best of the ingredient into the product in a way that will be available for the skin. This is often the traditional way, by hand with expertise, time and care. So that's an investment a business needs to make and we willingly make because the quality of the product and ingredients inside are so rewarding. Fresh fruits and vegetables, plant butters and oils are beautiful ingredients to work with but they are not easy, they are not cheap and they require effort.

Many of the fresh ingredients we use are simply too delicate for machine-processing  – they require expertise and care to work with, just as they have for thousands of years so we train our compounders to be highly skilled. We use traditional herbalist methods when making infusions or decoctions: leaves and flowers are infused, nuts, seeds and bark are extracted by simmering in boiling water. In our Dream Cream body lotion we make an infusion of oats and water, which creates a very thin porridge that makes the soothing, cooling properties of the oats available to the skin.  We own our own factories, which enables us to do this.

Some of our most popular and effective products are derived from centuries-old skincare recipes. The base formula that Ultrabland and our new cleansing creams are built on has been around for nearly 2,000 years  – so it must be good! It has changed relatively little over the hundreds of years, and we try to keep to its original principles and even its proportions. It is a classic cosmetic textbook formula that we have always made since the very beginning of the journey the Lush Founders have taken through skincare.

My story is that I had eczema on my face when I was 21, and Lush Co-Founder Liz Bennet gave me a version of Ultrabland they were making at the time. I’ve used it every day for about forty years (bar a few days this Christmas when I forgot to take it away with me and didn't I regret it!). I was so interested in that product that I applied for a job and I've looked after it ever since.

Lush's Dream Cream body lotion infuses oats with water to create a soothing, easily-absorbed oat milk

R: Lush championed care for the skin’s microbiome long before it became a buzzword. In practical, everyday terms, what does “microbiome-friendly skincare” actually mean for someone standing in their bathroom?

H: Well, it's recently become a well-known term for a product that supposedly does not interfere with the unique community of microorganisms that live on your skin. These microorganisms are incredibly important to your skin barrier: they take up space and compete for nutrients that might be used by pathogenic species and they are in constant dialogue with your immune system. There is no agreed way to formulate in a way that is microbiome friendly  – some brands might argue that their product is because it is a certain pH, others because they don't use fragrance.

For Lush, we have always felt very strongly that minimising our use of preservatives, which after all are antimicrobial substances, was best practise to protect our skin's microbiome. There is a lot of research now that suggests that human exposure to ultra-processed foods and synthetic ingredients in place of fresh whole foods is impacting the gut microbiome, as is our lack of exposure to the natural world and the microbiota found there.  So this is beginning to become known in relation to the gut, but it's formed the backbone of our approach to skincare for decades.

If you look back to some of our very earliest publications in 1997, Lush were talking about the microbiome before it was even a topic in the world of gut health. So it really has been a decades-long focus for us, not a fashion we are embracing now.

It is especially true that young people benefit from less intervention, not more. It is difficult, in these times of social media, to convince children and particularly girls that a simple routine with gentle actions, fresh ingredients with minimal or no preservatives is going to ensure a happy skin which will continue through life. But these principles will give skin the best chance to develop having had the best possible start. There are effects seen in earlier years which need attention. But they do not need the sort of strong products increasingly used by children and teenagers. This is a new phenomenon and so no-one can really predict the long-term damage a routine that is too strong at an early age can do. But, as an observation, at the age of about thirty-five years it is possible to see the effects that you directly have had on your skin that weren’t there before. So, if the effects were strong in childhood, it could be said that there will be an effect in later life. And it is probable it won’t be a good one.

Full of Grace Serum

At the beginning of Lush 30 years ago we still had young children and watched as they grew whilst we worked at our products hoping to please everyone and this included everyone’s skin. Everyone’s skin however is not like the skin of a child. Any parent can understand this and that’s why appealing to Mums and Dads everywhere to give your child’s skin the best possible chance to grow and flourish – just like your child – is a message Lush as a brand wants to give. One of the greatest gifts we can teach our children is to love the skin they have, but also to realise that they are more than their appearance.

R; If someone reading Raemona feels confused, overstimulated or burnt out by skincare trends, what is the very first thing you’d encourage them to stop doing?

H: Don't fix a problem you don't have. Your skin is not a trend; try to show it understanding and kindness, rather than use punishing products on it. If you are a parent or guardian, help your children to grow up without worry and show them how to be happy in the skin they are in. They deserve this start in life and so does their skin.

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