‘I’m happy to lose £10m by quitting Facebook,’ says Lush boss

Losing 10m followers on sites such as Instagram is a price worth paying for co-founder of ethical beauty empire

Quitting social media is hard to do, even when it doesn't cost you anything. So when Lush's chief executive, Mark Constantine, shut its thousands of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok accounts on Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, he knew dropping off millions of customers' screens would damage his business.

Its Facebook and Instagram accounts alone had 10.6 million followers and the void will result in an estimated 10m hit to sales but Constantine, one of the business's co-founders, said it had no choice" after whistleblowers called attention to the negative impact social media sites such as Instagram are having on teenagers' mental health.