EP110. Reject fast beauty

I've just finished recording an episode with Tara Pelletier, the founder of Meow Meow Tweet, in which we learn all about the refilling scheme that she set up and the way she put sustainability at the core of their lovely business. 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 was really inspirational talking to Tara and I would go as far as saying that I've never before interviewed someone who told me that they would prefer to go deeper rather than bigger. In our discussion, Tara also called out the culture that the beauty industry, media and its retailers have created in which they constantly expect brands to churn out new products. She very honestly said that they have no plans to create new products. So does that then mean that beauty brands who embrace this approach therefore shun all opportunities at future media? I think it's worth exploring this point. So for that reason I wanted to jump on quickly, record this super short opinion piece and challenge you to join me in changing the culture around product development. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmeier, 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 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. So let's dig into this concept that the beauty industry has built for itself, where brands only become truly newsworthy for the mainstream media when they launch a new product or raise a lot of money, or where bigger retailers are asking tiny brands to launch new products to their range in order for them to have something new to take to their retail customers. This industry has created a culture where new equals more and bigger, but new doesn't necessarily equal innovation or positive change. I think we can safely term this culture fast beauty, and there are obviously many parallels with fast fashion, which as we know is also a problem. You've heard many of the beauty brands on this podcast talk about the plans they have to improve their packaging or embrace more points of circularity in their business, or improve their relationships with their ingredient suppliers or just do more good in the world. And yet those aren't the stories that we're seeing come to the fore in the mainstream media when they write about beauty. They just want to know about your latest cleanser launch. Is that because they don't have time to dig into the stories behind the brands. Because as we know, journalists are often put on ridiculous deadlines and often have to include affiliate links in some publications. Or is it because they think that kind of story won't be of interest? Or is it just that consumer culture now defines absolutely everything we do? Luckily, there are of course, smaller publications that focus specifically on those interesting and heartwarming brand stories, but you typically have to work in our industry in order to see them. You're not going to open the pages of Cosmo and suddenly read about meow meow tweets, bulk refilling scheme instead of a new cleanser launch. And just to prove that point, I actually just now typed the word circular into the search box on the Cosmo website and was served up with several articles about sex toys and none about refilling schemes. The challenge I would put to anyone expecting continuous product launches from a beauty brand is whether you think your customers are actually waiting for these launches. After all, if you as a brand have a loyal following, surely that following is already enjoying the product that you're selling now. Last year I interviewed May Lindstrom here on the podcast, and much like Tara in our last episode, she was very clear on the fact that she doesn't intend to keep churning out new formulations for her range until she absolutely feels that it's the right fit. Constantly creating new products also doesn't really fit with the indie beauty model, as these small businesses, often tiny businesses, don't tend to have the resources to be in a constant state of new product development. Although some small brands obviously get around this by launching one product at a time over a prolonged period. I've watched this with quite a few of our graduates at Formula Botanica who studied with us to learn how to formulate and then launched with one hero product and then very gently and carefully added one new product at a time until they reached the level that they felt their range was complete. Because that's another sentiment I've heard from several established indie beauty brand founders. Even here on the podcast, you've heard it from the guests I've interviewed. They view their ranges as their creations, and they've put a huge amount of time, effort and money into bringing those creations into the world. You don't then immediately devalue that by churning out half a dozen new products each year. It's a completely different mindset and it fundamentally rejects this concept of fast beauty. So my challenge for you this week is the Much like the movement to reject fast fashion, we need to start rejecting fast beauty. And I think this fits very much in line with the organic and indie movement anyway, which is why I hope to see the indie beauty founders of this sector leading the way on this mindset shift. I hope you'll join me in pushing for this change. 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 in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode.