Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Lush Joins the Fight to Save Sharks


While Alison and I have been busy in South Africa, our third shark angel Kim, Executive Director of Sea Shepherd, is setting the rest of the world on fire - and making sure our message is out there. That sharks - completely misunderstood and mal-aligned creatures - are being chased into extinction, without most of us knowing or caring.

A few months ago, Kim made a heartfelt presentation to over 300 Lush executives regarding the state of our sharks - and rumor has it, some were even left with tears in their eyes. I have seen Kim in action, so I know this can't be far from the case.

Now Lush (who was already my favorite manufacturer of all natural - and really hip, fresh, handmade cosmetics) is launching an awareness campaign like no other. They are manufacturing a Shark Fin Soap, which is a blue soap made with seaweed and sea salt with a cardboard shark fin sticking out the top. They are making 11,416 bars of the soap, the number of sharks killed each hour, with all proceeds going to Sea Shepherd.

AND, in each of Lush's 88 UK stores, there is a video display in the windows showing the SHARK ANGELS intermixed with footage of sharks being pulled from the water and having their fins sliced off only to be thrown back into the ocean still alive. Shawn, the director and producer of Shark Angels did an amazing job on the video, which you can see on the Lush site.

As part of the campaign, a former employee and performance artist will suspend herself from shark hooks in one of the stores. Kim promises to send pictures shortly. And, Lush has written to restaurants throughout the UK asking them to remove shark fin from their shelves and two retailers have already bowed to the pressure.

This is just the type of publicity we need. Awesome work Kim, Captain Paul and Shawn!!!

Buy your soap today.

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