Sustainable packaging innovation today is coming from every category in beauty. Yet what sort of cosmetics and personal care packaging is, in fact, environmentally sustainable is very much up for debate.
So startup brands and multinational corporations are taking a wide swath of approaches to sustainable beauty packaging.
How Beauty Brands are Innovating Sustainable Packaging
In the skincare category, a luxury natural brand from Spain called ayuna stands out for its limited-edition terra cream, packaged in a 100% ceramic jar, a beauty package that is stylish and like nothing else on the market.
While the pioneering blend-it-yourself skincare brand LOLI Beauty has product packaging that includes reusable glass jars and clear, compostable bags made from plant pulp.
In the oral care space, Colgate Palmolive introduced a first-to-market 100% recyclable plastic toothpaste tube for its Toms of Maine brand late last year. (Ordinary modern-day tubes are made of various layers of multiple materials that cannot be separated for recycling.)
Then in January, the company launched a version of that same recyclable tube with its Smile for Good brand in the UK and throughout the EU.
In color cosmetics, Tiila Abbitt, founder of the popular mindful makeup startup brand Aether Beauty, innovates beauty packaging premised on the realities of today’s US municipal waste and recycling infrastructure. So she first launched a collection of eyeshadow palettes that are made of only paperboard, aluminum, and elastic. And at the start of 2020, Aether Beauty launched a lip collection packed in 100% recycled and recyclable plastic.
In the body care category, a British brand called REN, that’s now owned by Unilever, uses plastic that’s retrieved from the ocean. And the brand is also a leader in the shift to mono-material packaging components; for instance, dispenser pumps made of one kind of plastic and nothing else, so the component or package doesn’t need to be disassembled for recycling.
Inspiring Sustainable Beauty Packaging Solutions
And beauty industry ally businesses like TerraCycle are looking to reinvent recycling itself by leading initiatives that will make commercially refillable bottles and jars a regular feature of the consumer economy.
Plus, new awards are pushing packaging forward as well. In 2019, Good Housekeeping announced the first winners of its Sustainable Packaging Awards in beauty, home care, and in toys.
And this March, the Blue Beauty Awards from Beauty Heroes and INNOCOS will celebrate brands and products that are in some way actually bettering the natural environment.
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this DUviews item was originally posted to LinkedIn and now appears on DeannaUtroske.com
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