AIBU to think a soap shop shouldn't be encouraging young girls to self harm?

[Elleexxtra]

Lush Paddington are giving out binders, meaning girls can self harm without any danger of their parents knowing and being able to discuss potential issues with them.

www.instagram.com/lushpaddington/

AIBU to think young girls shouldn't be groomed to hate their bodies?

I was outside one of their shops today, full of young girls. It made me feel ill that they are promoting self-harm to them. I hope any injured girls sue them very publicly.

I don’t think this is real

@TemptedToSleepInTheShed

I don’t think this is real

Why not?

GenderSwap supports trans and GNC individuals to access clothing.

Lush is one of their partners.

2+2 does indeed make 4.

genderswap.org/

@TemptedToSleepInTheShed

I don’t think this is real

I saw the link to the scheme on the LinkedIn profile for the Paddington branch myself and I clicked through to read the terms and conditionsm i quoted them upthread. It has been removed now, but not from my head!

Imagine promoting anorexia to DCs to help hold back puberty, steroids to change their body shape, growth hormone to force unnatural height...all seem bizarre and unethical, yet lush can provide a product to unnaturally squash their chests and parents won't have a clue that this and worse could be happening until damage is done.

An ex-user writes:

I despise that the answer to “is binding healthy?” starts with “in certain cases, consistent unsafe binding…” um hello! I bound “safely” using a GC2b binder measured exactly for nearly 5 years and still am dealing with intense periods of rib & abdominal pain. Binding is harmful.

twitter.com/dogcalledbambi/status/1460311226689409033?t=aohA8GkICQZYCH98dK1EvQ&s=19

Thanks for posting that purgatory.

Unsurprisingly, there is the usual ‘then you are not using it properly’. But that group is not accepting that at all. As the main tweeter says, all properly measured and all.

There is, however, clear evidence of harm:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27300085/

Over 97%, of 1800 females had had experience of binding reported negative outcomes

TWEET ON BINDING: (my bold)

Emma Harriet Nicholson
@Baroness_Nichol

Breast so called ‘binding’ is against child protection; and childhood lasts until 18 years of age and longer if in State care. Females’ breasts are developed by then so these ‘binders’ are aimed at children ; and wrongly so.The advertisements should be withdrawn.

Some exec from Lush was on R4 Today this morning explaining their decision to close their Twitter, Facebook and Insta accounts globally, claiming it was related to social media harms to young people (snort!) and Cambridge Analytica (no need to make a hasty decision, guys). Just how badly were they getting ratioed on SM about stocking breast binders? 🤔 Surely it can’t be related?

ooh what time was this?

Between 7.30-08.00, probably around the 08.40-8.45 mark.

Radio 4 Today programme
07:42AM

Live
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm

Catchup
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011sf5

Shutting down global social media accounts is quite something but they are staying on twitter and Youtube.

Lush spokesman says. 'Not a place to be safe for our customers to be engaging with us' and 'our audience is teenage girls' it's the algorithm pushing harmful content.
no mention of the harm to teenage girls of breast binders

These aren't for 'girls' though, are they.

Who are they aimed at, then?

I liked the fact this news article came directly one after JKR and the death threats. I was waiting for trans to be mentioned in the Lush article but it just remained the elephant in the room.....

They should read about Chinese foot binding:
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-footbinding-persisted-china-millennium-180953971/

This incident was not a Lush HQ decision, but from what I can tell, the decision of a manager at one store. But the ramifications will have affected the whole chain's reputation and prospective sales this Christmas, beyond that store.

I think it's very likely that HQ have had a wakeup call about the potential for further reputational damage to the brand, as a consequence of social media posts from individual stores. They have nearly 1000 stores across the world, and they cannot possibly premoderate the posts of every single store manager, especially when stores like Paddington had active accounts on three social media platforms at the same time.

Much easier to just axe it all, and confine their social media presence to centralised accounts for the entire chain, run by staff who won't go off-message.

You can see the facts on Lush own threads. Unfortunately the ‘be kind’ and ‘no debate’ have led to things we were told would ‘never happen’. People are being told that transphobes oppose ‘healthcare’ for ‘trans’ teenagers. What they mean by ‘healthcare’ includes prescribing experimental drugs which lead to sterility and these damaging binders