In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares the stories behind a poll on refillable beauty she ran in the School’s Skincare Entrepreneur Mastermind Facebook Group.
When we asked our community whether they would go out of their way to clean, return and refill beauty packaging, some 75% of respondents said a resounding yes. While this is an encouraging sign, Lorraine paints a realistic picture of what is actually involved in realising a future where refillable beauty is the norm, not the exception. However, Lorraine remains ever the optimist that refillable and reusable beauty packaging will prevail for the planet’s sake.
In the previous guest episode, we heard from Jo Chidley, energetic pioneer and co-founder of sustainable natural brand Beauty Kitchen and now also of ReRe, a world first in return-refill-repeat schemes for retailers and the fast-moving consumer goods’ sector.
Both Jo and Lorraine are passionate advocates of a future in which we use longer-lasting, multi-use products created with sustainable ingredients and bought in reusable, refillable packaging ideally from local stores. ReRe is seeing consumers willing to change their habits, but the challenge is great; post lockdown, with a return to more fast-paced lifestyles, we are already seeing zero waste stores close as consumers have shifted back to pre-Covid mindsets. The ReRe scheme is, however, operating in major UK-wide retail chains. This may mean that as larger retailers offer reuse and refill options there is less need for niche, zero waste stores.
The convenience of using reuse and refill schemes is paramount to seeing radical change in our shopping habits. In our survey, 22% of respondents said they would not bother to reuse and refill citing issues of hygiene, contamination of product and convenience.
Some respondents commented that they simply didn’t have time to go out of their way to make those refill trips. Others said beauty products were a luxury for them and they wanted shiny new packaging to complete their consumer experience. One said that reuse and refill was better suited to household cleaning products than beauty. Of course, some respondents may have felt pressured in a public forum to say the expected thing and declare that they would make the effort to use refill schemes.
Against this background, Lorraine challenges us to seek out reuse and refill schemes and stores and to build them into our daily life and shopping habits. We all have to start somewhere and small steps are the seeds of the seismic change needed to halt the relentless rise in plastic waste.
Ask yourself if you are ready to refill – and if not, why not? How might you change your consumer habits to help halt climate change?
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.
