EP192. Sustainable beauty gifting for the holidays

With the holiday season coming up for many listeners of the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, you may well be thinking about what you can do to gift beauty sustainably at this time of year. I certainly know that this was a hot topic when we covered the Sustainable Beauty Guide to Black Friday back in episode 135 here on the podcast, for instance. Go and have a listen if you haven't heard it yet. That episode had well over 10,000 downloads just in that Black Friday week because it was a topic that many shoppers and many brands brands were actively thinking about and yes, felt conflicted. By now we all know it's been a tough year for many of us financially, emotionally, you might be feeling it too. And brands are trying to sell products to sustain their businesses, and shoppers are trying to determine if they have the money to spend to buy those products in the first place. Now, last week here on the podcast I talked with Formula Botanica Education manager Anna Green about beauty advent calendars and their boom in the UK market, which I very much expect will lead to a boom in other geographical regions around the world. Some of these advent calendars are off the charts in terms of size, packaging, products and price, which is of course why we dedicated an entire podcast just to that topic. So gifting is clearly something many of us are thinking about right now. And if you're a regular listener of this podcast, then you'll probably also be trying to figure out how to do so sustainably. And that's why in today's podcast opinion, I've set out my three top tips for for sustainable Beauty Gifting for the holidays. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmayer, 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 and set you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So the beauty industry thrives off getting us to buy as much stuff as possible. We've talked about it countless times here on the podcast and I've even had a couple of brand founders on with me who've told me all about their business strategy of encouraging their customers to buy less, which must of course sound totally contradictory. So then we arrive at this time of year where we're encouraged to buy as much as possible. And last week of course we talked about the enormous beauty advent calendars that some retailers even producing that almost look like sort of mini cupboards packed full of product. So how do we navigate the holiday season when gifting expectations are high and arguably sustainability concerns are often quite low? Well, I have three suggestions for you which very much align with our ethos here at Formula Botanica as we of course teach people how to formulate and start their own beauty brand. The first one, which is great fun, and this one probably won't surprise you, is that I encourage you to think about making your own formulations to gift to people. We even published a blog post on our website@formulabotanica.com last month in which we shared the easiest skincare formulations to gift to your friends and family. Everyone can formulate. That's our mantra, and you can do so too. In fact, many skincare entrepreneurs get into this field because they start by making simple formulations as gifts. It's a wonderful stepping stone into the world of formulation. So think about lip balms, bath bombs, body butters, lotion bars, body oils, bath salts. These are gifts that most people love to receive and they're quite easy to make as well. So you've still got time to whip up some batches, so make sure you dive into our blog to find some recipes to follow. My second suggestion is that you skip the big corporates and shop small. I've said this many times before on the podcast, and I stand by it. Small businesses form the backbone of the economy in virtually all countries. The International Intergovernmental Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development they report that small businesses account for 60 to 70% of jobs in the 38 countries they represent, apparently with a particularly large share in Italy and Japan and a relatively smaller share in the U.S. in other words, small businesses are important and we need to support them. I know it's easy to walk into a store and grab a gift set that looks pretty in its massive packaging. I have done this too, but it's also easy to visit any of the indie beauty brand websites that we have listed in our graduate gallery@formulabotanica.com graduates to buy a beauty product directly from them. Your purchase matters to those small businesses. So let's get shopping from small brands this holiday season. Finally, my third suggestion very much follows on from that one because I recommend you go back to the small brands that you've bought from before and that you buy from them again. Be loyal to those brands. Give them repeat custom post up photos of their products on your social media channels and tag them. Send them love and help their message reach new customers. Loyalty is the holy grail for any beauty brand and if you can get your customers to come back time and time again, it means that you have a sustainable business. So let's help grow more sustainable businesses by shopping small and then going back to them again and again. And that's it. Those are my three top tips for sustainable beauty gifting during the holiday season. Firstly, have a go at making your own formulations. You are going to love it, I promise. Secondly, shop small and support a small business. And then thirdly, and finally become loyal to the small businesses that you buy from and go back to them time and time again to continue supporting them. So my challenge to you for this week is to pick one or more of those options for your sustainable beauty gifts this holiday. And if you do, follow along with any of the formulation recipes on our website to make your own gifts tag us. I would love to see them, as would my team. So this episode will air will be released on December 21st. So I'll be celebrating the Winter Solstice tonight as I'm far more into the solstice than any of the other ongoing celebrations at this time of year. I'll be celebrating us passing the shortest day of the year here in the UK tomorrow and celebrating us coming out of mid winter. And if you do receive any gifts this year, then I hope that they're either homemade formulations or lovely gifts from small sustainable indie beauty brands. Ideally Formula Botanica graduates. Happy Holidays or Happy Solstice wherever you are in the world. From me and from the whole Formula Botanica team. 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. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode. It.