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?

Interesting that a company whose clientele is predominantly girls/women is offering out this product. Wouldn't it make more sense from a business perspective to hand out breastforms/tucking underwear to trans girls/women.

It's as if they're think trans boys/afab non-binaries are really girls and as a result to be found amongst their target audience.

Pure transphobia!

mitheringsfrommorningside.wordpress.com/tag/lush-cruelty-free-kisses/

four here you go

This is a significant problem. The continued normalisation of binding needs to be addressed. There is no way to bind that is safe.

Seeing as people keep comparing it to harm-reduction strategies for people who self-harm, I want to know who here would be okay with a fashionable high street store with a teen market advertising that they were collaborating to sell equipment specifically for lower-level self-harm.

I've been a teenager and I remember the pro-ana sites. If you promote the profile of maladaptive coping strategies like self-harm, teens will try them who wouldn't have thought of it otherwise!

What evidence do we have that use of an off-the-peg, ready to wear purchased binder even is harm reduction compared to (cumbersome, time-consuming) homemade methods like bandages? I wonder how many teens would give up on doing it entirely if they had to do it themselves with bandages, that would continue if they were given a ready to wear binder?

bayswatersupport.org.uk/breast-binding-self-harm-or-gender-care/

If you want studies and stats...

Just no words, how awful.
What has this even got to do with their products anyway.

Epic fail.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Seeing as people keep comparing it to harm-reduction strategies for people who self-harm, I want to know who here would be okay with a fashionable high street store with a teen market advertising that they were collaborating to sell equipment specifically for lower-level self-harm.

I've been a teenager and I remember the pro-ana sites. If you promote the profile of maladaptive coping strategies like self-harm, teens will try them who wouldn't have thought of it otherwise!

What evidence do we have that use of an off-the-peg, ready to wear purchased binder even is harm reduction compared to (cumbersome, time-consuming) homemade methods like bandages? I wonder how many teens would give up on doing it entirely if they had to do it themselves with bandages, that would continue if they were given a ready to wear binder?

Ex-(excuse me) fucking-actly

Putting it on a plate and dressing it up in fluffy unicorn rainbow ribbon is not harm reduction in any form

Horrific.

Funnily enough I always love Lush mainly for my children. I love their products but I couldn't buy more knowing they will endorse my children wrapping themselves up to stop being who they are meant to be.

Omg I thought this was about binders for school work and was so confused

Bloody hell. That is dreadful. What a message to be sending out. YANBu

This is grim. I looked at the study and it is so harmful for the breast tissue.

I am horrified that they are handing this out to young girls who so often are uncomfortable with their bodies. Shame on them.

@doadeer

Anyone fancy sharing some Lush alternatives? Maybe a new thread so we can share fun bath bombs and soaps as lots of teens love the style

Bomb cosmetics

Fucking hell

The worlds gone fucking mad!

It is incredibly naive to think that teenagers won't have sex because condoms are unavailable. Likewise it is incredibly naive to think that lack of access to a binder will stop anyone who wants to from binding

Having sex and wanting to have sex is part of normal behaviour. We know most people are going to do it at some point, so the role of adults is about making sure kids understand consent, boundaries, legal restrictions, how to avoid pregancy and STDs, and to provide emotional support etc. It's also a pretty safe and enjoyable part of life for most people.

Breast binding is the opposite of this because it's not natural for women and girls to dislike their breasts and binding them is not an inevitable part of life. It risks damage, whether done 'safely' or not. Some women will do it anyway, but we need to be looking at the reasons behind that and offer specialist support, not celebrate it like it's a rite of passage and hand out binders without restrictions or safeguarding, particularly in a shop that is known for hard selling its products to pre-pubescent girls.

We also know that teenage girls are the most susceptible group to social contagion, which makes this particularly dangerous and irresponsible. I'd be worried about safeguarding of young staff too - I certainly wouldn't want my 16 year old working there.

This is terrible.
If an adult chooses to use a binder, after having accessed support and services link to their body disphoria that’s one thing.

Offering them out to any girl, without care for what their individual need is….. just no.

Do we even know if binders are safe?

thepropersoapcompany.co.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAiA1aiMBhAUEiwACw25Mdy4z0M0igllr1okpCN09tE_Q9AH90AyG99h43GWT8zqgZXAoOIvtRoCsHEQAvD_BwE

Has anyone heard of these bath bombs and soaps? They are vegan, plastic free, cruelty free and U.K. based….

My oldest loves bath bombs and I need an alternative to Lush now

Continuing this comparison with harm-reduction strategies for children who are self-harming, who here is happy with the idea of a company whose business model is specifically selling self-harm supplies to children who self-harm?

Can you imagine working at a company like that? Knowing that your ability to pay your mortgage depended on the company selling a certain number of self-harm kits every month?

I think I'd prefer it if children self-harming were given advice and support by healthcare practitioners, not employees of companies that made money from selling self-harm kits.

I used to waist-train with steel boned corsets. I also, separately, used to self harm.

I don't like the look of Lush's latest campaign either. But please, please, don't use language like "self harm" just to sensationalise your point and confect an emotional response. It's in very poor taste.

Body modification, even stuff that might seem extreme to other people, is not the same as self harm, in the sense that the term "self harm" is typically intended.

@MLMshouldbeillegal

Just when you thought Lush couldn't get any more woke and crazy....

Anyway. I used to love Lush shampoo bars. Gruum is a much better alternative.

Buy ingredients from soap kitchen uk & make your own. Super easy to do, buy the melt & pour versions of shampoo bar & add any carrier oils you like for your hair. Super cheap, super easy, great activity for kids, and makes great gifts.

I stick to making my own soap normally but it’s easy to make the other options also.

(Totally off topic I know!)

YADNBU op

I swear to God the end of the world will be through collective nervous breakdown because of shit like this being promoted.

The continual mixed messages around fairly normal periods of confusion during puberty being pushed by those with influence to gain "woke" points and increase sales and attention is doing massive harm. I just caught a 60 minutes Australia programme on YouTube about a boy who decided he was a girl at 12, took his mothers oestrogen because it was too hard to get puberty blockers. Said boy at 14 has decided he is now a boy..... unfortunately he grew breasts and is now going to have surgery in Korea to remove them. His mother went along with him due to threats he would run away and get hormones some other way, or commit suicide. These kids can't win, their parents can't win, anyone saying "hang on a minute, is it really a good idea to interfere with a still developing physiology in irreversible ways" can't win.

Corporations and retailers should stick to their remit and fuck off out of incredibly sensitive and personal issues best dealt with professionals - if you can find ones who live on the real world and subscribe to "first do no harm" thinking. Because binding breasts is harmful, growing breasts as a boy due to tinkering with their hormones during puberty is harmful, messing around with anyone's physiology because they are upset is potentially harmful and requires a huge amount of psychological support to deal with (in my dinosaur opinion if course). Which I added on because I was told not long ago by someone in their 30s, that I in my 50s am too old and uneducated to have an opinion.

But I do have an opinion because I have trans friends of all stripes across a range of ages, and what I see them struggling with is modern life and the constant diet of "you can be anything you want to be" which means their crap job prospects, financial issues, mental health issues, or whatever can be neatly re-packaged and deflected into identity issues with the endorsement of a bunch of people who don't really give a shit but are rubbing their greasy little hands) all the way to the bank.

Sorry I'm ranting, but this us getting closer and closer to home, and in my age peer group I've witnessed the falling apart of close friendships over the whole trans issue.

I'm sick of it, and the irony is that the more progressive we are pushed to become, the more hardline and potentially dangerous the backlash is becoming, against the naysayers (mostly women feeling that their reality is being shaped by a minority with alot of power) and against those struggling with their identity on other ways.

It's a zero sum game and it's giving me a mighty headache!!

I thought you were talking about a ring binder which included information on how to self harm.

No, they shouldn't be doing this. In fact, if I did shop at Lush (which I don't), I wouldn't be doing now.

@rainbowmash

I used to waist-train with steel boned corsets. I also, separately, used to self harm.

I don't like the look of Lush's latest campaign either. But please, please, don't use language like "self harm" just to sensationalise your point and confect an emotional response. It's in very poor taste.

Body modification, even stuff that might seem extreme to other people, is not the same as self harm, in the sense that the term "self harm" is typically intended.

Other posters made the comparison in support of Lush first. They said it was like health care workers helping children to reduce the harm they were doing to themselves.

I am tackling this comparison because it makes no sense to me.

But it doesn’t matter what we call it?

This seems to be incredibly damaging to breasts tissue (a study was posted on this thread) and this company is enabling young girls to get it behind their parents’ backs !!

Is it possible to report this to someone?

Copying my post in the FWR thread over here as I really have nothing else to say other than can’t believe how quickly binding is becoming normalised. It’s a practice with serious risk of permanent physical damage.

It’s horrendous, but when Mermaids merrily post free binders to young adolescents (even when they know they parents don’t allow one due to health risks) and LGBT Youth Scotland signpost Scottish adolescents to a free binder service in Scotland and my daughter’s school turns a blind eye of children providing other children with a binder at school, I’m not surprised in the slightest that Lush has jumped on the bandwagon.

We’ve taken a very very wrong turn somewhere and I’m horrified that companies like Lush are effectively using the promotion of permanent physical damage as a marketing tool.