The second outgrowth of the ritualistic shedding of underachieving products is disappointing the customers who loved them. Thus the threatened nude protest over Potion. But the crisis and the response have led to Lush selling personal batches of "cut list" products three to four times a year. This past January, the company mailed out more than $75,000 worth, a 25% increase over last fall's order. "Every time we've done a special sale, it gets bigger and bigger," says Lush's Web-site manager, Simon Nicholls. "There's this exclusivity. Only 300 people around the world will have these products."
Back in the lab, Constantine works on a product for an audience of one. He's listening to an album by Karin Park, a Norwegian singer, while conducting a silent symphony of smell. Park once walked into the Poole store when Constantine was working the counter. Intrigued, he offered to concoct a scent just for her. ("I'm always looking for a muse," he says.) That's what he's doing now. Half a dozen vials sit on the counter in front of him. "I'm trying to get the dusty smell of rain," he says. "Plus pine -- for longing. Plus seaweed -- because that's sad, that's wet. And then something else . . . I don't know what the other side is going to be. But much jollier. And we'll see what happens." Well, he and Park will. Everyone else will have to ask for their own.
Lucas Conley is a Fast Company staff writer.
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
