EP106. Should indie beauty go local?

I've just finished recording an episode with my colleague Anna here at Formula Botanica in which we asked the question, can rainforest ingredients be sustainable? And by the time this recording goes live, you'll already have listened to our discussion in your favorite podcast app because it was released last week. Now, it's always great talking to Anna because not only does she have fantastic insights into the world of green beauty, but she also runs our entire education department here at Formula Botanica, which means that she and her team speak directly to our students every single day. Now, for that reason, we know what the concerns of our formulation community are, and one topic that we touched on in last week's podcast episode is something we see come back time and time again within that community. The question of how on earth a formulator is supposed to know that their ingredients are actually sustainably sourced. After all, supply chains can be lengthy and murky, which makes it hard for someone formulating at a small scale to investigate and find out where those ingredients originated and how they got to them. So for that reason, I wanted to jump on real quick, record this super short opinion piece and challenge you to join me in thinking through solutions for ingredient sustainability. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmeyer, Chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I share my main takeaways from the podcast interview we released last week. In this short episode, I put forward my main thoughts on the topic we last discussed, as well as setting you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. Now, the beauty industry has only fairly recently come to the topic of sustainability, but that doesn't mean that sustainable growing and harvesting projects haven't been ongoing for decades. Much work has been done on the ground to try and protect various ingredients and build the beginnings of sustainable supply chains for them. But a lot of work still needs to be done for cosmetics industry supply chains. After all, once a nut has been harvested in a tropical region of the world and has been processed multiple times to extract its oil, how does it end up in the hands of a formulator as an emulsifier? How many steps does that ingredient have to go through before it's finished? How many people and how much shipping is actually involved? Now, the fact is that your ingredient, depending on its complexity, might go through multiple processes and suppliers before it even ends up with its formulator or with you and me, the shoppers I once met a medium sized brand that formulated with seaweed who explained to me that their seaweed crossed the border in and out of their country five times before they could use it in the finished product, as it required so much processing to get it to its final extract. So you see, supply chains can be complex and difficult to unpick, and on top of all of that, the paperwork you then receive with your ingredients says absolutely nothing about its sustainability. Each ingredient safety data sheet should contain some information about each ecological toxicity, although that part, along with various other sections, is often left blank. But you still don't know how it was grown, how it was harvested, how it was processed, how it was shipped to you, how many borders it crossed, how many miles it traveled. This is arguably why blockchain technology could be incredibly exciting in beauty moving forward, as it will allow for complete transparency of any ingredient when the originator encrypts their ingredient data. But I also think it's worth considering taking a slightly more localized approach. Now. While local isn't always better, particularly in terms of its carbon footprint, as we discussed in last week's podcast episode, as well as the 2020 episode we recorded on the concept of Beauty Miles, which we debunked at the time, it does, however, give you the opportunity, as Anna rightly said, to build local supplier relationships and gain a better understanding about the origins of your ingredient. It also allows you to infuse your heritage into your brand, and we've always seen heritage based brands do very well in indie beauty. I've also seen some of Formula Botanica's graduate brands work with their suppliers to become more environmentally sustainable. The interview I did with Bybee Beauty last year was a great example, as they've convinced most of their suppliers to move to renewable electricity for their premises. So you see, relationships matter and proximity often allows you to make those relationships stronger and partner together to do the right thing. That was certainly also the message I received loud and clear from May Lindstrom of May Lindstrom Skin and Sarah Brown of Pie Skincare when I interviewed them for this podcast last year. Manufacturing in house can be a complete headache, but it does allow you to fully control where your ingredients come from and as well as their overall quality. So that's my challenge to you for this week. We need to make the global beauty supply chain less opaque, and while I appreciate that most of us don't always have access to some of the technology that would allow for us to do this through, for instance, blockchain, we do hold one trick up our sleeves, which is that we can build relationships. You don't need to be a huge corporation to get to know your suppliers, but you do need to take the time to get to know them and understand them. And that's where being more local can certainly play a key role. I would encourage you, whether you're a formulator, a brand owner, or simply a consumer of beauty products like all of us, to think slightly more local, keeping in mind all of the caveats we've discussed here on the podcast around carbon footprinting and lifecycle assessments so that we can all work together to make our ingredient supply chains more sustainable. Going local may not be the complete answer, but but I think it plays a factor we should all consider. Thank you for listening to my Green Beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Come and leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode. Sa.