EP123. Natural vs sustainable beauty: confused?

Sustainability is the buzzword of the moment when it comes to the beauty industry. Every day I now receive articles about sustainable ingredients, sustainable formulation, sustainable packaging. But sometimes when I scratch the surface, not only do I uncover greenwashing, where brands are making eco claims that they can't substantiate, or hiding behind a green smokescreen, but I also see many beauty brands confuse natural with sustainable. I judged a sustainable beauty award earlier this year and some of the brand websites I looked at basically said our brand is sustainable because we only formulate with clean ingredients, or our brand is sustainable because our formulations benefit your skin or hair. And then as an afterthought, they'd mentioned that they were committed to reducing their carbon footprint or looking at changing their packaging. So I started to wonder, are are we actually confusing natural with sustainable beauty? The beauty industry is known for its polarizing statements, its crazy claims, its lack of nuance, which is something I've frequently covered here on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast. So it doesn't come as a surprise to learn that that confusion quite probably exists. Our approach here at Formula Botanica is completely different. We try to work with natural, sustainable ingredients in our award winning online formulation courses, rather than expecting that one leads to the other. But what is the rest of the industry doing? What do they think? Well, join me for an episode in which Anna Green and I explore whether we are confusing natural with sustainable beauty. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make or sell your natural beauty formulations. In my weekly episodes, I explore the sustainability of the beauty industry and encourage you to join me in changing the beauty industry for the better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmayer. 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, who is the Education Manager at Formula Botanica. Anna regularly joins me as a returning guest on this podcast and we've covered some groundbreaking topics before, such as circularity, biodegradability, skinnimalism and much more. Anna has worked in the beauty industry for over a decade and I always Greatly respect her opinion, which is why I'm thrilled she's joining me again today. Hi, Anna. Welcome back to the podcast. It's so lovely to have you here.

Hi, Lorraine. Thank you for having me.

Now, I always enjoy our chats. We've had some great ones. And for those people listening, if you haven't listened to all the conversations that and I have had about skinnimalism and biodegradable beauty and circular beauty, delve back into the archives and go and listen to them. Because I think we've been trailblazing a little bit in the sustainability discussion, which is why I'm so thrilled to have this chat today. We're talking about confusing natural beauty and sustainable beauty. So let's start by defining those terms. Can you start by defining what natural beauty is for us?

Yes, of course. So natural beauty is quite a wide term used to describe beauty products that use ingredients that come from nature. So this is mainly plants, animal derived ingredients such as beeswax, and other natural resources such as clays and minerals. So they all come from nature. We have a whole podcast on the shades of natural beauty as defined by Formula Botanica, because like so many things in the beauty industry, it is not always clear cut what is natural and what is not. In fact, there are many different opinions in the industry on what level of processing an ingredient can go through to be considered natural. So most natural ingredients will need a varying level of processing, so they can be used within our cosmetics. Ingredients like butters and oils may have undergone quite minimal processing, whereas something like an emulsifier that brings oil and water together will have undergone much more processing to ensure it has the function needed in the product. So natural is quite a broad term which means different things to different people. But we have defined our shades of natural at Formula Botanica, and I think our definition is actually catching on quite widely in the industry. And we were pioneering when we kind of put that out. Natural essentially means derived from nature, and then there will be some processing to that ingredient.

Makes perfect sense. And you're right, that was our first ever podcast all the way back in 2018. Delving back into the archives.

Absolutely. It was a really good one as well. I highly recommend people go back and listen to it. It's still incredibly relevant now. So, Lorraine, now that we know what natural beauty is, can you tell us what is sustainable beauty?

Yes. And much like natural beauty, this one is very much open to. I'm not going to say interpretation, actually, but I'm watching people come up with their own definitions of It. Whereas I firmly believe that actually it's quite clear cut what it is. But no one's enshrined this in law. There aren't any sort of legal terminologies around this, and that worries me a little bit. But we'll come to that. So, the cosmetic sector is one of the world's most unsustainable industries. It uses huge quantities of natural resources to produce literally billions of consumer products. And of course, those products are designed to go on our bodies, but inevitably, as we know, they end up in our waterways because they're often diluted into water that flushes down the drain and they end up in our landfills. Now, sustainable cosmetics are those which can be produced to meet sustainable consumer demands without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Now, that can mean many different things to different people, but in reality, it means that we need to get the beauty industry to the stage that it uses and makes less, that everything is made circular wherever possible, that we embrace green principles in our operations in eco design, and that we move to a more localized model where people even learn to formulate for themselves again, which, of course, we stand for very strongly here at Formula Botanica. And let's not forget that humans have been formulating for millennia, but at the moment, we are literally a million miles removed from that. So I think we need to fundamentally rethink this take, make, dispose business model that's used in beauty, and we need to rethink the way that the beauty industry markets its products, because marketing through insecurity should not be a thing anymore. We're in 2022, and yet it is still such a fundamental part of the beauty industry, which causes a lot of those sustainability issues. So it's a very complex topic, but when you break it down, it's actually quite straightforward. We just need to make and take less and dispose of less. We need to make it more circular, embed green principles, and move maybe to a more localized economy where we're also hopefully, formulating for ourselves.

Yeah, absolutely. I love the idea of all of those principles coming together in the industry. It's complex, but it can be done.

It's also quite controversial because it's very different to the business model we currently have. But I think no one is really leading this conversation, and we're having a lot of these leading conversations here on the podcast. But it's very interesting to see that the beauty industry is fundamentally going for the wrong issue. But that's maybe a topic for a different podcast, possibly. My green beauty Opinion next week. Let's see. So we've defined natural, we've defined sustainable beauty. What do you think the general perception is about the way that natural beauty and sustainable beauty intersect?

It's a really good question. I think there's a lot of confusion about both natural and sustainable beauty and what those things are. There's still lots of myths and the industry that endure despite us having access to more information now. And I think because natural beauty emerged strongly before we were having in depth sustainability conversations, that there still may be a perception that natural is automatically sustainable. Many people realize that using all resources wisely, regardless of where they came from, is a good thing. So, for example, the trend of utilizing upcycled ingredients is a very positive one because it's taking resources and that are by products of other industries such as the food industry, and it's making use of those in a different way rather than allowing them to go to waste. So you interviewed Anna Brightman on the podcast of Upcycle Beauty, and they are a really very good example of people doing this well, utilizing ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.

Yeah, it's interesting to see the way that some people still confuse those two terms. And I know that we ran a poll recently as well in which we asked various members in our big skincare entrepreneur mastermind group. So we run a huge free group on Facebook. It's got, I think, about 75,000 people in it. So I regularly put up polls when I know we're going to be doing a podcast, because I want to get people's input. And we asked them, do you think natural formulation is always sustainable? And 83% of people said no. But there was still, I think it was about 14% of people who said yes, and a few people just said, I don't know. So this myth does definitely continue. And what's also fascinating is I've judged a few awards this year. One was specifically focused on sustainable beauty. And when I looked at all of the web pages that these brands had put together, it was fascinating because I didn't know a lot of these brands. They weren't Formula Botanica graduates or some of them were actually, but most of them weren't. And I was looking at their web pages on sustainability, and so many of them would say, we're clean or we're avoiding certain synthetics, and therefore we're good for human health, and therefore we're sustainable. And there wasn't much substance to the rest of those webpages, which I found rather disappointing, actually. So while there's still Definitely people out there who confuse the two, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. And the complexity of sustainability as a topic makes the perception of both natural and sustainable difficult for people because they tend to focus in on selected areas that are emotive to them, rather than the bigger picture of sourcing long term sustainability and ensuring the preservation of natural resources. It's a natural reaction for people to have. They hone in on certain areas of sustainability that resonate with them. We recently featured Quintus in our membership site, the Lab at Formula Botanica, and they're an Australian company who focus on the regeneration of sandalwood. And sandalwood is a natural ingredient that has had a really difficult history in terms of its sustainability. It's been very overexploited. And what I found most interesting about the work that Quintus are doing is the time investment that they have made in this ingredient. Because sandalwood is a slow growing tree, it has several other complexities to growing it. So preserving these species and ensuring a good supply of these natural ingredients can take years of investment before seeing a return. And this is rarely spoken about in the industry. So what we often see, as I've said in terms of public perception, is that people latch onto certain aspects of sustainability that may resonate with them on an emotional level. So a good example of that, we've discussed this before on the podcast is palm oil. But looking at the bigger picture of how to successfully replace these ingredients really is a lot more complex. Something else I've seen as well is influencers who speak about beauty moving towards touting the benefits of synthetics over naturals in terms of sustainability, but then completely ignoring the human aspect of the supply chain. So an example of this would be rose oil, a very labor intensive crop, an expensive ingredient, and one that can be produced synthetically for use in perfume, for example. Now, I have seen people in the industry argue that rose is unsustainable and for it not to be used. However, they do not address the farmers and the people in the supply chain and how they would replace that crop with something of equivalent value to them. So there seems to be a disconnect, really, in the conversation. I don't think anybody is really covering all aspects of sustainability.

Fascinating topic, though. I've actually got a guest coming on the podcast later this year. I won't reveal who yet, but we were having a chat this week and he was actually talking to me about how hard it is to synthetically make a rose extract or fragrance. So whilst it might seem logical sometimes to go it should all be made in a lab. I mean, obviously that doesn't fit with our ethos at Formula Botanica, since we work with sustainable naturals. Nonetheless, you wouldn't be able to replicate a lot of these ingredients synthetically because they are so chemically complex. Yeah, good point.

Yeah, absolutely. There's. There's lots of nuances to it. So, Lorraine, how can certification help in bringing together natural and sustainable beauty?

So we've talked a lot about certification on this podcast. I've interviewed people from all sorts of certification schemes, which has been really fascinating to be part of. And I think, first of all, if we can get a grip on the number of certification schemes mushrooming out of the ground each year, then certification could be a really interesting tool for sustainability. Now, coming back to our big group on Facebook, I also polled them recently and asked the question, which certification standard would you say is the most important one for you in your formulations or your brand? Now, I will say I had a lot of complaints from people telling me that they couldn't choose just one, which I thought was quite amusing because I was trying to make the point that if they are running a brand, they may only be able to afford one to start with, because, you know, if they're an indie brand, cash isn't necessarily there in huge quantities to start with. So that's why I wanted them to really focus their attention on just one certification scheme. And we had 275 people take part, and I added all sorts of certifications to that list. So natural, organic, vegan, plastic, neutral, climate neutral, fair trade, cruelty free, halal, microplastic, free, clean and safe. Of course, those are very much open to the definition, but I wanted to give them a big range of different certification schemes to vote for. And As I said, 275 people took part, and the answers were really clear. So 42% of respondents chose organic, which I thought was very interesting, closely followed by 33% of respondents choosing natural. And then everything else was in the single digits. So Cruelty Free came third with 8%, Vegan came fourth with 5%, and everything else literally hovered at the bottom of the list. So despite all of these new certification schemes popping up, like climate neutral, plastic neutral, that sort of thing, and you've heard people on the podcast with me talk about some of those. Nonetheless, most formulators or new brands would go for organic and natural, and I think it's brilliant that so many people voted for organic. Well, firstly because Formula Botanica is organic formulation school, but also because organic certification embodies a lot of sustainability principles. To quote the Soil association, the organic certification body in the uk, organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plants, animals and humans. It should be based on living ecological systems and cycles. It should work with them, emulate them, help sustain them. It should build relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities. And it should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well being of current and future generations and the environment. It's a big definition, and that's just organic agriculture. So I personally think that a lot of sustainability requirements can be embedded into a business by going for organic certification, because it makes you look at it from a more holistic point of view. It's not everything, of course, by a long shot, but it certainly starts them off for taking the right approach. Now, natural certification is also great for brands, but it doesn't cover that same sustainability element. And that obviously ties in with what we were saying earlier about natural formulation not necessarily always being sustainable. And the vast majority of people who we asked agreed with us on that. So that leads me to my next question for you, which is, do you think we are confusing natural and sustainable beauty in some of the conversations we're having throughout the industry?

Yeah, I think we are. And I think people have become more demanding than ever of their beauty products. So I think people want things to tick multiple boxes. So they want both natural and sustainable and if possible, certifications like cruelty free or organic. And they, you know, the brands, however, perhaps might struggle to tick all of these boxes. So not everybody will understand the nuances of natural and sustainable. But I feel there is a strong desire for products and brands to be doing better. Better work for the people and better work for the planet. I also think that when it comes to certain aspects of sustainability, the natural beauty industry have been leading the way in pioneering certain conversations. So, for example, you recently released an episode on this podcast all about microplastics that can be found within formulations. And formulating without these ingredients is something that was really pioneered by the natural organic beauty brands and certific before this conversation ever entered the mainstream. There are certainly brands out there using natural ingredients who have contributed heavily to the messaging that their products are sustainable, even with no evidence to back that up. So greenwashing is still a huge issue in the industry, and evidencing what we're saying needs to become more commonplace, I feel. But I do think that consumers are becoming more savvy and that conversations like the ones that we're having here on the podcast are starting emerge slowly in the industry, as you've already pointed out. We ran that poll in our Facebook group and I picked up on one particular response which I thought was very, very interesting. And that was somebody saying that they felt that if it wasn't sustainable, it wasn't actually natural. So it's flipping that conversation on its head and saying that we should prioritize sustainability within natural formulation, which I feel is where we're going at Formula Botanica, really, in our messaging to our student community. So that for me was a very interesting conversation because it completely flipped it on its head. But it makes you look at it from a different perspective. And actually it makes perfect sense to me to think of it that way. I love that.

And it's right. I mean, if your formulation isn't sustainable and it's having an impact on the environment, you could never call it natural anyway, I suppose. Fascinating.

Yeah, it's an interesting point. I think it was very well made as well in, in a small amount of words underneath the poll. So I think we'll definitely pick up that point another day. Lorraine, how can we make natural beauty more sustainable after everything we've discussed today?

Yeah, it's a big question, obviously. I mean, we need to get the beauty industry to the stage that they are creating, that we are creating longer lasting, multifunctional formulations that are obtained from our local refilling stations. I know I'm slightly utopian here, but that's where I'd like the beauty industry to go. Provided by eco minded brands using sustainably sourced ingredients or formulated at home for our own use. So there are many steps that the natural beauty sector needs to take in order to embrace sustainability, but the two main ones, and they are quite controversial, are degrowth and circularity. So a degrowth model. We talked about this a little bit on the Skinnibalism podcast that we did. I think it's probably good 80s, 18 months ago now, actually, which was a very popular one. So a degrowth model encourages lower consumption and production overall, which might seem horribly counterintuitive when you're trying to implement a business strategy to sell products, but I think indie brands are actually better placed to encourage less consumption than their mainstream counterparts. And I think that for two reasons. So firstly, indie brands are only the only brands having the conversation around consumption. And we can't ignore the fact that consumption and production levels need to change if we want to build a sustainable beauty industry. But I am only seeing the indie brands currently discuss this topic. In fact, I was sent an email from one of the giants, you know, the giant multinationals a few months ago talking about consumption. And I was like, wow, are they talking about it? I can't believe it. And I clicked on this email and it was just talking about sort of environmental operations. It didn't actually address the big elephant in the room about consumption itself. And in fact I would say that the topic of consumption appears to be entirely off the table in any mainstream beauty conversations about sustainability. So I expect to start to see more indie brands lead the way. And yet I'm actually already seeing indie brands saying, you know, maybe buy a bit less, maybe buy in bulk like I interviewed Meowy Tweet here on the podcast a few months ago, or buy my longer lasting products so you don't need to replace them so often and think a bit more about what you're using. So I don't think there's anything wrong with embracing that messaging around de growth. Although I can understand it feels a little bit scary. It can seem like a contradiction in terms to drive lower consumption while building a products based business. But I will say I think the indie sector is far better placed to lead that movement while still prospering. As in general, of course, indie brands play less on consumers insecurities in order to drive growth in their business, which I think is a a horrible part of the mainstream beauty industry. So that's the first thing. I also think that indie brands are leading the way in terms of sustainability, in terms of sustainability, innovation and indie brands have traditionally, typically, historically often been ahead of the curve in terms of consumer needs. And we've certainly seen this when it comes to sustainability. So some of the most innovative sustainability projects I've seen so far started with indie beauty brands such as refilling schemes or solid beauty formulations. And many brands in the indie sector are already embracing low or no packaging, which is leading to the creation of longer lasting multipurpose formulations. Interestingly, we've seen the mainstream beauty industry work hard to try and catch up with some of this messaging that's been spearheaded by indie brands over the last decade. And this is now also starting to happen with respect to longer lasting formulations. So you and I obviously recently attended in Cosmetics Global in Paris, a huge industry trade show. If you've not heard of it, it's the largest cosmetic ingredient center exhibition in the world. Pre Covid levels. There would be, you know, 12,000 people at the show and what was really noticeable was all the big ingredient suppliers. I mean these are Gigantic companies that provide ingredients to all the big beauty giants. They were there proudly showcasing a huge variety of different ingredients used to make solid formulations. In fact, I was on a stand with a chemist from one of those big brands and she came out and she went, oh, we've recently, there are two formulations that we're really pushing at the show here. We've got a shampoo tablet, which I thought was really cool because you can obviously have them in a tube and take them with you when you travel. And she goes, and we've made this shower jelly. It's a solid shower jelly and look, it's done in the shape of a flower. And this is really innovative. We're so proud of this. And I got my phone out and I went into Google and I looked up our shower jelly blog post that we wrote in 2016 and it was the exact same flower mold with the exact same pretty much formulation. And I held it up and I showed her the photo and I went, we did this six years ago. She was like, oh, are you telling me this is so 2016? Sort of went well, no, but you know, I'm trying to say that actually this isn't as innovative as you think, because the indie brands have been doing this for so long. And I think ultimately that's where indie can really lead the way. Because I think why buy 30 formulations when you can buy three or four really effective products that cater to a multitude of needs and last longer than many of the other products on your bathroom shelf? And this formulation ethos is just far more in keeping with many indie brands. So I think at the same time as creating a degrowth model, we also need to implement circularity in every aspect possible. And you and I recorded a whole podcast on this which was quite complex. But those two components together will definitely really kickstart the beauty industry to become more sustainable than it currently is. And then in the meantime, obviously all of those eco minded projects that are being put in place around obviously operations around eco design, they're incredibly important and they come at the same time as that, really. So big steps, big undertaking, big and scary, I would say, for a lot of the beauty industry, but very necessary because, you know, otherwise 100 years from now, this industry won't exist in the state it currently is in.

Yeah, lots of great points there, Lorraine. And I totally agree with you that indie brands are best placed really to start this conversation and they have a more direct relationship with their consumer and they're able to educate their consumer on what they actually need on how to use their products properly, on how to cut down their consumption, but also still retaining that customer loyalty to them. So I think they are absolutely ideally placed for this conversation.

Yeah, good point. Absolutely. There is a lot that the indie sector can teach the mainstream sector, and I know they're watching. They want to see what all the latest innovations are as well, and then, you know, possibly buy up those brands or buy up their technology. We're seeing that happening too. So I really am excited about what indeed could mean for sustainability overall. Thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast, Anna. It's a big topic. I think we've sort of concluded that, yes, occasionally we are confusing natural and sustainable, and I hope that our listeners have some opinions on this that they want to come and share with us as well. Thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much.

Laureen, I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Is the beauty industry confusing natural and sustainable? What makes something natural and what makes something sustainable in your definitions? 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 really hope you enjoyed it. 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 at Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com to sign up for our free online formulation course today. Sam.