Once a niche category, eco-friendly beauty is having a significant
moment in the spotlight. And the fame will not be short-lived – it’s not a
buzzword anymore, but the need of the hour. After ditching animal testing,
toxic chemicals and unethical sourcing, growing eco-warriors are now adopting
circular beauty practices to tackle food waste, a global crisis that needs
immediate attention. In a small but sure way, this promises to save the planet,
one beauty product at a time.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Circular beauty is all about converting food waste – from
wonky-looking vegetables to fruit pulp – into sustainable beauty products.
Companies are buying out odd, rejected produce that’s not pretty enough to make
it to supermarket shelves and repurposing the nutrition in them to create your
favourite face creams and moisturisers (yes, that squeezed-out orange pulp from
your glass of OJ still has enough vitamin C for a practical masking session). For
example, The Body Shop is actioning this practice on a global level. Antara
Kundu, marketing head (Asia- South), explains, “This is a far-reaching problem
with huge financial, ethical and environmental costs. Finding innovative and
efficient ways of utilising food waste is a key part of our sustainability
commitment. Many of our ranges use ingredients that would have otherwise been
rejected by the food industry or consumers due to industry trends or habits,
respectively.” Their ‘Carrot’ skincare range is made from organic carrots rejected
from markets due to their imperfect shapes. They are still packed with
complexion-brightening nutrients like vitamin A and beta-carotene. Discarded
mango seeds, misshapen bananas and stubby ginger pods are also used.
And it’s not just the greens – did you know that your coffee
grinds could also be upcycled into brand-new masks and scrubs? Korean skincare
brand Innisfree is showing us how it’s done. “A surge in coffee consumption has
led to an exponential increase in waste coffee grounds. We add new value to
such waste by curating a Recycled Coffee Range, offering skincare benefits, and
curbing waste by extracting maximum use from it,” explains Mini Sood Banerjee,
head of marketing, Innisfree India. techiesin
A REGENERATIVE APPROACH Apart from food repurposing, there’s an effort to make a
sustainable switch to packaging as well. Vishal Bhandari, founder, Soultree
says, “We’re constantly focussed on sustainability within our supply chain.
With every plastic tube chucked into the bin, we’re increasingly worried about
the environmental impact of our personal care products, and we’re glad that
brands are paying heed to this. So far, we’ve removed any plastic packaging
material when we ship our online orders and have switched to eco-friendly
solutions such as cardboard boxes, paper wraps and paper tapes.” Other
homegrown brands like Neemli Naturals also pack their toxin-free products in
reusable and recyclable glass bottles.
While we’re a far cry from undoing all that planet damage,
these ethical shifts have given us so much food for thought about what can be
done to make our beauty buys clean and safe on the inside out, giving us a fighting chance to earn clean credentials. marketingmediaweb