EP113. Beauty influencers vs sustainability

On this podcast, you've heard me say many times that everyone in the beauty industry needs to play a role in making beauty more sustainable. It isn't just the brands who need to clean up their act. It's also the retailers, the shoppers, the journalists, the distributors, and of course, the influencers. Now, the world of beauty influencers is vast. Hundreds of people take to social media every day to share their top tips in makeup, skincare, hair care, body care, you name it. And some of these influencers reach millions and millions of people and sometimes hold great power over whether they can make or break a brand. And beauty brands are acutely aware of this too, as they then try to partner with many of these influencers to get their products in front of those hard born audiences. But is the world of beauty influencers sustainable? And are influencers getting on board the sustainable beauty train? Or are they still stuck in an old tired mantra that focuses more on churning out new products rather than how we collectively do the right thing? Join us for a discussion today in which we explore whether beauty influencer culture is on its way to embracing sustainability. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school, Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode, I'm joined by Anna Green, Education Manager at Formula Botanica. Anna has worked in green beauty for over a decade and I greatly respect and benefit from her input and her opinions, which is why I always love welcoming Anna back onto the Green Beauty Conversations podcast. Hi Anna, welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Hi Lorraine. I'm very excited to be here again and to talk to you about this new topic.

Yeah, this is a really interesting topic and one that I know you have much experience with having been an influencer yourself before you came to join us at Formula Botanica. So we often see beauty influencers online and we feel in awe of their following and the way that they can make or break a brand. And it looks very glamorous. Is it?

Well, yes, it's a great question, Lorraine.

Thank you.

And I'll start off by sort of prefacing it, saying that my experience in the industry was very much before the word influencer existed. So I started a Beauty blog over 12 years ago now and I was talking about specifically natural beauty. So that's how I come at this sort of area of beauty influences. But I think every profession looks very glamorous online, looks more glamorous than it truly is. And the truth of the industry is that the percentage of people who can make a full time living as an influencer with no other income stream is going to be very, very low. We're talking about a very small percentage of people. So a very big wide group of people get lumped in as influencers. You know, it could be people who have blogs, who have YouTube channels, who have any kind of presence online. But also there's lots of successful people in their chosen careers who now would also be classified as influencers, actors, models, journalists, for example. So, yeah, it's a very wide area of people that we're talking about and actually we think of a very select few group of people who have made it, who have very glamorous lifestyles, who have aspirational lifestyles, shall we say. But that isn't the reality for most people. And like any job, there's going to be a lot of work behind the scenes that people may not see. And some people, as I said, have got genuinely lucky. They've built a really large following quite easily. But that won't be the case for most people because there's a lot of work and effort that goes into building and maintaining any kind of social presence, actually. And if you are going to be called an influencer, it needs to be because you have influence and that influence takes time to build up.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's quite interesting, isn't it? Because I suppose people always see the beautiful things on social media and assume that everything is absolutely perfect and glossy behind the scenes. I think we have the same with Formula Botanica, but we're always paddling very hard under the surface and I'm sure many influencers are doing exactly the same. So how does it work when you're a blogger and brands start to approach you? What, what happens?

Yeah, so as I've already said, I started writing my blog well over 12 years ago and actually I started it at the very beginning when blogging was just Starting out, and it just became something that people were doing. So very early days of certain influencers that got quite big afterwards is when I started, and the industry was very, very different then. I started out writing about the products that I was purchasing. And that's what my blog was. It was. It was me going out, buying things, talking about my personal experiences of things that I had bought. But then as you start to do that and you start to create a presence online, brands start to take notice and they start to get in touch with you. So initially I had a very niche blog because I only wrote about natural products, which, you know, obviously back then, you know, the industry was very different to what it is now. And so I was focused on building mutually beneficial relationships with brands that I genuinely liked and wanted to champion. I think these days we've been through what I would call a little bit of a saturation period with bloggers and influencers. So we've seen that the industry had sort of this saturation of people everywhere, online brands really trying to capitalize on what bloggers and influencers could do for them. And so certain products would be absolutely everywhere. They would be sent out on mass to so many different people. And I think we had a bit of a saturation period and now we're sort of seeing a little bit of a slowdown, I think, in the number of people starting their own online platforms such as blogs and YouTube channels. And I think there is a realization, as I've said before, that the people who are going to make it big in the industry as an influencer are going to be a small amount of people, and that the majority of people who do this, do this either as a side hustle or genuinely just because they enjoy it, not necessarily because it's going to make them millions of pounds. And larger brands will outsource their PR and their blogger outreach and they will generally work with agencies on specific campaigns and launches. So it's expected if you are a brand of a certain size, you will allocate a budget to gifting and sending out samples. And it's just part of the way the industry works. And it's not just for bloggers. It's also for, you know, journalists and other people in the, in the industry who have influence. So everybody would. Would get covered. And in my experience, that working with larger brands is very different and perhaps a little bit less personal than if you're working with a smaller indie brand. But I think it's. It's important to recognize that the way the industry is set up the large brands have a lot of influence on these relationships with bloggers and influencers because ultimately they have access to a lot of resources. And if you are trying to make it in an industry like this, then, you know, being able to make money for influencers is important. And so the, the bigger brands do tend to monopolize a little bit this relationship. That's not to say that indie brands can't develop really genuine and mutually beneficial relationships though, which I think we'll talk about a little bit more as well.

Well, I mean, we're painting the picture here of, of what it's like in the influencer world. Before we even start to talk about sustainability, the one final thing I wanted to ask you is do you have a degree of control over what you get sent or do you just end up with rooms filled with boxes and products when you work as an influencer? Because I have this vision of, you know, all these brands just bombarding influencers with the latest packages. What's it like?

As I've already said, we've been through a bit of a saturation period where all brands really tried to capitalize on what influencers and bloggers could do for them. And so there was this real boost in the amount of samples that was being sent out. When you first start accepting samples, there is a degree of control in what gets sent because you, they don't have your address or your details yet. So people are reaching out to you cold and saying, would you like to try this product that we have? And you can say yes or no. And you know, brands are wanting a return on their investment. They see these samples as a marketing cost. So they're not going to send something out to a cold audience who they don't know perhaps may be interested in the product or who may actually give them some return on that investment in terms of social media, shares or, you know, photos, that kind of thing. They want to see something in return. However, the more you work in the industry, you get added to different PR agency lists and press lists. So this might be that you've sent your email, your emails and your address, your physical home address to a PR agency and that then gets stored on their file. And so you then might start to get things that are unsolicited that you haven't asked for or agreed to. They just do these mass send out campaigns where they will go through, they will allocate a budget and they will look at who they want to send those products out to with the, with the budget that they have and the brands Themselves may not even particularly be involved in that because they outsource it to the PR agency most time. Some brands do do it in house, but it's more the PR agencies generally that do it. So when you start to get to that point, a lot more things start to come through that you've, you've not had any degree of control over and packages just start to turn up. And this is quite common actually, not just in terms of product itself, but also in terms of press gifts. So again, something that's calmed down a little bit. But at some points brands were expected to send out additional extras, gifts at Christmas, that kind of thing, and you would get. I've had lots and lots of very random things come through the post. Some of them have made me laugh quite, quite, quite a lot because I've had things like branded salad bowls, wooden salad bowls with branding on them. One time there was a launch for an aloe Vera based product line which I think, you know, great, love aloe vera. But they sent an actual aloe Vera plant in a box and the soil was absolutely everywhere, all over the products themselves. So I just got this box of, you know, this, this very sad looking plant, Aloe Vera plant. The products that I had to then clean up because they were covered in soil. And, you know, lovely idea, but it didn't work in practice. The PR agency got it horribly wrong there because, you know, you just can't send that kind of thing through the post without, without it being a disaster. More branded tote bags that I think I could ever know what to do with. Reusable cloth bags. I've had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds over the years. So it's not just the product itself, it's all the additional extras that I think brands feel they need to give. It's almost sort of keeping up with each other. It's, it's every time somebody sends something out, it raises the stakes for everybody else to think, okay, well they're doing this campaign so we need to do something even bigger and better. And this is the part of the industry that I find, you know, most egregious, really. I don't think that we need to keep adding things to the world for the sake of adding them. And if you've got a really good product, the product should speak for itself. So you don't need to have boxes and boxes full of things. On the flip side of this, being a blogger or an influencer is a job like any other. So these things are expected as part of the role that you're in. You can't talk about something if you haven't tried it ultimately. And that's why press samples exist. I know that you've judged some beauty awards, Lorraine. I've been involved in judging several quite big beauty awards and the amount of product that is involved in those awards is huge. And you need the products to be able to test them and to give your opinions on them. And you know, I took that very seriously when I was doing that on a regular basis. However, you do end up with masses of waste of just things that, you know, products that you don't like and you then have to worry about how you're going to dispose of them. So there is a lot to think about when it comes to how much is coming through the post in these influencer boxes.

Yes, and I completely agree with what you just said. Actually I'm judging three awards this year and you know, one of them sent me a 10 kilo box of products and I just sat here and covered my entire office floor with all these products and sat here going, what are we going to do with all of them? Now, luckily I live in a lovely village and then I put it up on My Village WhatsApp group and said, who'd like some free skincare? And it was like everyone descended on me at once. But you know, the point is of course that do we need all of these products in order to do the job? Yes, in order to do. In order to judge awards? Yes, in order to do the influencer saying this. Right. In order to produce content in the beauty influencer world. Now obviously you do need to try the products, but I think the point is that the beauty industry has created a culture where brands only get featured when they launch new products. And that's obviously also where that influencer marketing world ties in. So how do you think this contributes to the industry's sustainability problem?

Yeah, I think it's a big part of the industry sustainability problem. Actually it's problematic in several different ways. So if we're looking at this from the perspective of a blogger or an influencer, my personal experience was that new launches will get higher traffic, higher page views and more interest from your readership. So I had a written blog and my readership were very, very interested in new launches. And if your readers, your viewers, you know, your followers, whatever you want to call people, if they are interested in your opinion, if they trust your opinion and your voice, they will want to know your thoughts before they spend their hard earned cash on a product. I consider that to be a Privilege that I took very seriously. You know, I wanted to make sure that people had the right information. But it also perpetuates that cycle a little bit of needing to know about the latest and the greatest new thing so you almost get stuck in the cycle that you then can't leave. You also have more lavish ways that influencers might promote new launches. It's not just about press samples. Press samples are actually quite a small part of what goes on in the industry. I've seen over the years. I, you know, I haven't been invited to many fancy events. I've been invited to some very nice events, I will say. But, you know, I've seen incredibly expensive dinners, press events, even large trips abroad being run by brands in the name of a launch. And I always wonder, when it comes to these kind of events, what does that say about the product itself or the state of the industry that brands feel the need to do these things alongside the launch to sort of make a splash in the industry? Is it not good enough just to have a really good product? Do we need these events and everything else happening as well? You know, and I think there is a place for events and there's a place for some of these things that part of networking, they're part of getting people together, they're part of, you know, brand pr, they can be useful. But I don't think I'm ever going to be okay with the idea of a brand flying 20 influences around the world for a luxury holiday because the carbon footprint and the environmental impact of that trip is always going to be huge. And I think consumers as well are very savvy to the fact that these trips are done in exchange for positive coverage. It can actually backfire on brands, I feel, and that, you know, people can start to feel a little bit mistrust, you know, and feel like the brands are doing something a little bit shady, you know. And in a world where so much is happening at the moment, some of these trips can really sort of leave a sour taste in people's mouths when they see sort of the lavish expense of it when there's so much else happening. So it's a bit of a double edged sword really. But I do think this need to be constantly coming out with something new is very much part of the problem in the industry because if you think about so many amazing products on the market already and they don't necessarily get the exposure that they should because the focus is generally, and this is the same for press, it's the same for journalists, whether it's online or in print. There is a big focus on new launches and I understand to a certain extent why that might be the case. But I wish it wasn't. I wish sometimes it was okay just to say, look, this is a classic product. It's been around for 20 years. It's still great.

I completely agree. I think we have a long way to go as an industry, but that's also what we pick apart here on the podcast. Turning the conversation over slightly, are there any beauty influencers talking about sustainability yet? Because we've obviously talked about some of the sustainability problems in the world of beauty influencers, but how many of them have embraced this topic of sustainability?

Yes. So there is definitely a whole subsection of bloggers and influencers that are dedicated specifically to talking about sustainability. Now, not so much in beauty, but there are some. For example, you've got zero waste bloggers who might talk to their readership about how to reduce their waste to landfill. We do see some fashion bloggers who are focused on sustainability as well and talk about upcycling and mending. Beauty has the issue of the fact that it is a product based business and it's very difficult to be a blogger or an influencer when you're not talking about product. So that in itself you get stuck in a cycle of having to talk about product. When I was blogging and I was writing, I would purposefully try and seek out sustainability topics that I could talk to my community about, but they didn't necessarily make any money. It was purely done because I was interested in the topic and I wanted to push that view forward. And sustainability wasn't taught about brands by the brands in the same way as it is now. So I was very much. I think there was a section of people who are very much leading that conversation with brands and talking about packaging. Not just recyclability, but in terms of cutting down packaging. I did a post on, you know, just cutting. I called it zero waste beauty at the time. But of course it's not zero waste, it's reducing waste, but just simple ways that people could look at their own beauty routine and switches they could make. You could have recyclable cotton rounds, washable, sorry, cotton rounds. Instead of disposable cotton rounds, you can look at a glass emery board that will last you for years and years and years rather than having disposable emery boards. There's lots of different things that you can do to invest your money wisely and to look at sustainability, but the issue is, especially with beauty that you always come back to this need to be talking about something. And in that case, it's, you know, in the case of beauty, it's product. And if you're not talking about product and you're not testing multiple products, you soon run out of things to say. Because ultimately, you know, the message that we give out on this podcast, on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, is that people need to shop less. But the reality of creating content day in, day out around that is quite difficult. But there are people who genuinely want to champion brands that are doing the right thing. I know this was the case for myself. I really wanted to highlight the brands that I thought were going above and beyond and some of the pioneers in the industry when it came to sustainability. So there are definitely people who are looking at sustainability in a new way. It's just very difficult to balance when ultimately the industry is set up to sell as many products as possible. Possible.

Yeah. And obviously influencer marketing ties in with that completely. So following on from that question, then, what role do you feel that influencers should play in the sustainable beauty movement?

It's an interesting question. I would like to see a real shift to quality over quantity in terms of online partnerships and campaigns. I think there is absolutely a place for people who have a genuine voice and a genuine, you know, following to help brands spread the word about their products, but also about their sustainability initiatives as well. You know, what are. What are brands doing? Speaking to influencers and bloggers is a great way of getting that information out there. I would like to see the industry also recognize those influencers that really stay true to their own values and ethics. One of the frustrations I've had over the years is that follower count has always been sort of the biggest metric that people will look at. And I completely understand from a business perspective why this is a really important metric. However, it's not the be all and end all when you think about the kind of messaging that you're putting out. So if you want to talk about how ethical your products are, if you want to talk about the sustainability journey that you've been on to really try and make your products better, then finding somebody who genuinely understands that message, who is aligned with that message, and whose followers will be interested in that message is going to be just as important as looking at purely at follower numbers. You know, there has to be that balance there when you find somebody who genuinely shares your messaging. And there are lots of people out there talking online about different things. So, you know, there's plenty of people available it doesn't just have to be the person who has the highest number of followers. That always gets the work. If the person's following is huge, but the person isn't the right fit for your campaign or product, it just won't work. In my experience and I've seen it a lot over the years where brands have, have chosen to work with something, with somebody and it just wasn't the right fit. And people can see through that and they can really sort of feel it a mile away that it's just not quite right. I would also like to see brands being much more cautious and mindful about the volume of products they are sending out. I think press gifts need a whole overhaul really in terms of what gets sent out and how it gets sent out. I'm sure there must be a more efficient way than just sending out mass campaigns of product to people who may not be able to use it or test it. I know personally I've had to give away lots of things that you've said. There are specifically charities available that I know lots of influencers and bloggers donate to. This is what I did as well. Donating to shelters and things for unused product that you are just not going to be able to, you know, get through. But it seems like an awfully convoluted way of going about giving back. When really do these gifts and do these samples need to be sent out in the first place? I think a more personalized approach and what goes out into who I think is the way forward. And I think as I've already said before, we did reach this saturation point where every single brand was just hiring a PR agency to do these, these outreach campaigns. I think it has slowed down a little bit because there was a backlash to some of these campaigns. So I was looking at the Instagram the other day of quite a big influencer in the industry. And she's not just an influencer, she's also very well respected. She's an esthetician, she's facialist, she has very well respected views in the industry. So people really care about what she has to say. And she'd been sent by a very large company. It's one of kind of the big heritage brands. She'd been sent this new launch and it had come in this big plastic disc, you know, and it was huge piece of plastic. And she said, well, I've got no idea of how I can recycle this. Is this even necessary? It was what you would expect from a point of sale display rather than a gift and the product itself was an eye cream, so it was absolutely tiny and it sat in the middle of this enormous big purple plastic disc that just looked awful. And I think people are starting to be vocal and say, you know, she tagged the brand, she said on her Instagram very openly and that will affect her relationship with that brand going forward. You know, there's always a risk of saying something negative, but when people do speak out, it helps the industry overall to sort of take stock of what they're doing and say, actually maybe this isn't the right way forward. I think that's really, really important. Important that people are authentic and do say when they feel that something isn't right.

Great points. We all need to speak out, but we particularly need to see the world of beauty influencers start to embrace Sustainability a little bit more. Anna, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been really lovely learning from you and hearing about your experiences as well.

Thank you for having me. Lorraine.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you follow any influencers talking about sustainability? Please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. Thank you for joining Anna and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.