Mark Constantine
Co-Founder and CEO, Lush. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthor
Mark Constantine is a British entrepreneur and trichologist who co-founded Lush in 1995, turning it into a global ethical cosmetics brand known for cruelty-free and unpackaged products. Earlier in his career, he supplied beauty formulations to The Body Shop and later co-founded the bird-recording project The Sound Approach.
1shows
1appearances
24statements
8resolved
7supported
1contradicted
88%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Mark Constantine said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Constantine: L'Oréal was the arch-enemy of cruelty-free cosmetics
“L'Oreal had always been the arch enemy because of testing on animals. They represented those who wished to test, body shop represented those that didn't wish to test.”
Mark Constantine: Anita Roddick copied The Body Shop from a US store
“It was a totally different company that inspired Anita Roddick to copy it and do it in Brighton.”
The Body Shop went public without owning its own product formulas
“They went public. They were now a listed company, but they didn't own the product they were selling. I owned it.”
Constantine: Awareness of mortality and finite time drives human achievement
“That's, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be driven. We wouldn't do the things we do. You know, you have to have a clear understanding. Of a finite period of time. You have to have it.”
Constantine: Early on, Anita Roddick preferred plastic packaging over glass
“She hated the glass jars. She wanted plastic jars because She wasn't so struck on the environment at that time.”
Gordon Roddick called taking The Body Shop public his biggest mistake
“You know, they'd gone public, and Gordon Roddick says still today that that was the biggest mistake he made, because he was no longer in control of it, and things that he thought were important wasn't what the-”
Lush caps founder share valuation at 5x average three-year profit
“So we came up with this scheme where we valued our shares at five times the average of the last three years profit, so that we capped it a little bit, But we only kept the greed and we still, that still enabled us to, if we want to build the business, we can b…”
Mark Constantine: Personal Issues Shape Character and All Founders Have Them
“The issues create the character. I really believe that very strongly. All of the founders have all got issues.”
Constantine: Co-founder Mo Constantine invented the first bath bomb in a shed
“So then my wife went out into the shed and came back with the first bath bomb. But it was just a small disk, and we called them aqua sizzlers.”
Mark Constantine: Small grants to grassroots activists go much further
“Small sums of money in hands of dynamic people who really care goes a long way. So when we give money, when we give, you know, a thousand or 2000 or 5000 to a group that wants to achieve something, you know, maybe they want to stop fracking, or maybe they want…”
Constantine: Lush mail order is more profitable than physical retail
“That area of our business is more profitable than the retail. So people moving on to the mail order business is quite a help because we then generate more profit.”
Constantine: Businesses must plan in six-week blocks during crisis
“One of the things we've tried to do is to break things up into six week periods. Because you can't really anticipate what the virus is going to do beyond a six week period. And so, and then trying to work out within that six week period, what do we think is go…”
Constantine: Surviving from zero creates intense personal drive and self-reliance
“I think when you have to survive from zero, obviously there's more drive, isn't there? I mean I look at photos of myself in my early twenties, and I see this awfully driven person. I mean, Just driven. Absolutely driven. I think, I suppose, you know, if you, i…”
Constantine: Scaled cosmetics business to £500k turnover from home garage
“I think I'd got my business up to a half a million turnover by then. Out of my garage and out of the back of the house.”
Constantine: Lush's workplace standards regarding women came from Liz Bennett
“You know, when you look at Lush and people admire Lush for its values, especially the way women are treated and things like that, that's all Liz Bennett, Liz, that's, she married and her name became Bennett, Liz Weir, that's her.”
Constantine: Cosmetics To Go Lost £1 on Every Parcel Shipped
“Every time we send a parcel out, we lose a pound.”
Constantine: Bankruptcy Left Him With £43,000 After Selling Home at Loss
“I bought it for 200,000 pounds. I sold it for a 100,000. I paid off all the loan sharks. I was left with 43,000 pounds, and I had three kids and no business.”
Constantine: Lush received 1,000 business inquiries monthly early on
“We would get a thousand inquiries a month for people to do business with us.”
Packaging accounts for two-thirds of the cost of bottled shower gel
“If you've got a bottle of shower gel, when it went out from the factory, about two-thirds of the money went into the packaging and the labeling, and only a third into the contents.”
Constantine: Lush and Body Shop management bid £450M for Body Shop
“The management could raise about 360 million themselves to buy the body shop off of the strength of the body shop's figures. I could add my business to that and get up to about four 50, something like that.”
Mark Constantine: Lush has donated over £50M to charity
“I mean, we give huge sums in charity. I mean, we've given over fifty million pounds.”
The other half of the tape: Mark Constantine's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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2020 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mark's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Lush | 1 | 24 | 88% 7/8 | full record on How I Built This → |