Employees in black are scattered throughout the chalk-labeled store, talking up certified organic ingredient creams, body washes, shampoos, conditioners, make-ups, perfumes and face washes. Walking through the shop, I head directly to the product that is my declared favorite; Herbalism face wash, and debate if I really want to dissect the capitalist recipe that comprises the making of a product I use practically on a daily basis; Herbalism Fresh Facial Cleanser. Was I ready to take a hard look into the details of a personally preferred product accept the possible evils that lay behind its making? As a idealistic cosmetic company, LUSH Cosmetics holds a proud standard of production over other similar commodities; fresh, handmade, free of animal…show more content… The drought issue is well known to any Californian, and seeing the signs posted all along the rows and rows of trees passing through the Central Valley on to San Fransisco was enough to scare me of impending lack of water such as, “Help! Solve the Water Crisis” and “New Dust Bowl”. According to meteorologist Eric Holthaus who writes for Slate magazine, almonds grown in California use “1.1 trillion gallons of water each year,” which claims ten percent of our state’s water income. What is worse, that water supplied does not even quench the thirst of the almond trees that dominate the agricultural lands. This is where the true exploitation in name of profit begins, as famers have taken up practices such as ground water drilling to preserve their tremendous almond tree investments (Holthaus). These drills, as the title suggests, leave gaping holes in the ground to extract water from deep within the earth whenever the California water supply falls short of the irrigational demand. The very practice of ground water drilling is inherently capitalistic, as the production is valued higher than the environmental cost. In this example, nature “is made into a resource for capital” and “treated as costless in capital’s accounts, it is expropriated without compensation or replenishment and implicitly assumed to be infinite.” (Fraser 86, 63). An unfortunate turn…show more content… The cosmetic company pushes for “A Lush Life” (LUSH) with similar values to that of the ‘green living’ trend. This tactic is common among capitalistic brands names which tend to use the product to sell a particular lifestyle that that product indexes, thus effectively creating a market for which similar products can be bought by the same kinds of people. “Markets depend for their very existence on non-marketized social relations, which supply their background conditions of possibility.” (Fraser 86, 59-60). Collectively, a product arising from the experience of people in a community determine the conditions of their own socialized environment. The name of my specific face cleanser is also an example of targeting a way of life. Herbalism itself references specifically an organic, alternative form of medicine, attracting those who would rather stray from generic, synthetic remedies. Therefore, an entire sub-culture whom favors these ideals are brought to the market, “producing and reproducing the shared meanings, affective dispositions and horizons of value that underpin social cooperation,” (Fraser 86, 61). It is this factor that allows LUSH a certain capitalization, marketing to a specific demographic of people, in this case, whom practice ‘green’ living on their own. Now, this demographic has commodified representations of such a lifestyle
