Sustainable beauty can seem a mission impossible. Whether approaching it as a beauty consumer or indie beauty brand, we can get dragged into a complex and depressing world of carbon emissions and waste recycling and despair that we can ever do the right thing for the planet.
But, as we heard in the previous episode with Anisha Gupta of Bluebird Climate, sustainable beauty can be accessible to all and need not be costly, complex, or confusing. Bluebird’s fascinating impact assessment tool for beauty brands and rather cool – yes, we can apply that word to sustainability – website widget puts a positive spin on the matter.
In this Green Beauty Opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier explains the many reasons we have to be positive about embracing sustainable beauty. Let’s call this episode a look at the bright side of the future of beauty. Forget about overwhelm and start being overjoyed that we live in the era that will see sustainability go mainstream.
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Lorraine explains that sustainable beauty can be multi-functional and offer longer-lasting formulations that can be used on different parts of the body, thereby saving cash and time. Beauty brands embracing solid formulations are leading the way in this and seeing greater customer loyalty and generating goodwill.
Sustainable beauty is also circular, which is one of the most exciting parts of the future of beauty. As circularity becomes the norm, return rates on packaging will continuously creep upwards as we get used to buying our cosmetics in return-and-refill cycles. This means less packaging waste and a positive change in the way we interact with cosmetics.
Lorraine also mentions biodegradability, which is critical as waste is a massive issue in the beauty industry. While our aim should be to use less so as not to overburden the planet, our use of ingredients that break down easily and quickly is already of huge benefit.
Beauty companies taking action now to become more sustainable are already making a difference by reducing and offsetting their carbon footprints. These are the companies that care because they understand that it’s their responsibility to transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.
Sustainable beauty is inclusive of everyone and plays a role in rejecting the toxic narrative we’ve heard for decades from the mainstream beauty industry. Rather than encouraging us to buy ever more products to achieve the impossible (such as defy time with yet another anti-wrinkle serum), sustainable beauty is about buying formulations simply because we like the feel of them on our skin or hair and we feel that these formulations keep our skin and hair healthy. This creates a significantly better beauty industry, a better world, and a healthier mindset for ourselves.
Lorraine ends by asking us to think about all the positives to embrace in life when we start to buy into sustainable beauty. Each small step towards sustainable beauty we make today will help the movement grow and encourage beauty brands embracing sustainability to carry on doing what they are doing – and think positively.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please share, subscribe and review this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Youtube so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.
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Lorraine Dallmeier is a Biologist, Chartered Environmentalist and the CEO of Formula Botanica, the award-winning online organic cosmetic science school. Read more about Lorraine and the Formula Botanica Team.
