EP214: What is regenerative beauty?

A while ago I read an article in New Scientist magazine called the Hidden Extinction, which was all about the huge microbial extinction event that scientists think is underway in our soils. And in case you didn't know, 1 gram of soil contains around 1 billion single celled organisms, including tens of thousands of different species. And according to that same article, if you would tease out the fungal strands in this single gram of soil, they would stretch for, get this, hundreds of kilometers. It's amazing. Now, we all depend on this microbial diversity in our soil, and it's probably something most of us never think about or talk about. Yet these microbes break down organic matter, they form mutually beneficial relationships with plants, and they keep our life cycles going, including the carbon cycle, the water cycle, the nitrogen cycles, you name it. But we're seeing a definite decline in the abundance and the diversity of microbes, and much of that, sadly, is blamed on us and on the pollution and habitat loss that we're causing around the world. So yeah, microbes are important. And that's why it's good to see that the beauty industry is starting to talk about regeneration, regenerative beauty, regenerative ingredients. And my guest on the podcast last week, Ruth Andrade of Lush, talked openly about the challenges facing this entire sector and she talks about the importance of regenerative action agriculture. We also talked about the fact that we fully expect this word regeneration to be co opted by many brands who are doing anything but regeneration. And when you consider the crisis that's happening below our feet in our soils, this needs addressing before this greenwashing can even gain any traction. So that's what I'm talking about today in my podcast. 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 challenge the beauty industry's terrible track record on sustainability and share my thoughts on how we can make the beauty sector a better and more sustainable place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So let's face it, none of us ever talk about soil. In fact, I would go as far as saying that most people don't even think about soil or appreciate soil. After all, we often call it dirt for a reason, which, let's be honest, doesn't have the most positive connotations. You know, when I did my biology degree 25 years ago, I remember a visiting lecturer coming to talk about Soil. And I also remember how few students showed much enthusiasm. This probably isn't surprising you. And I think most people just view soil as this inert matter that we live on top of. It's a bit dirty, it's a bit muddy. And yet, as the Regenerative Organic alliance says on their website, soil is the bedrock of our food system and ultimately it's the bedrock of our culture and our civilization. We wouldn't be here without it. So if you ever feel underappreciated, imagine it could always be worse, because you could be soil. And we're certainly not looking after our soil. And that's why regenerative agriculture, and by extension regenerative beauty, is about improving our environment. As Ruth said on my podcast last week, regeneration is about increasing the capacity to create more life, more diversity, more complexity. Doesn't that sound amazing? Regeneration is ultimately about giving back more to the environment than you take. And to do that, we need good soil health. So where does the beauty industry fit in this? How many beauty brands do you know that talk about ecosystem benefits and they really mean it and they really implement it? Because the ones I can think of, I can probably count on one hand. The beauty industry's current mantra is, of course, to do less harm, not to actually improve the environment. So what would regenerative beauty really truly look like? Well, firstly, the ingredients used in cosmetics would need to be bio based, all of them, and they would need to come from regenerative sources which could be both grown through agriculture or through biotech. And the way that these ingredients were sourced would then need to actually improve the environment. Now, that's a tough call for an industry that produces hundreds of billions of products, which is why biotech is probably the only way forward for the big brands. Secondly, the packaging used for cosmetics would need to also come from regenerative bio based sources and would also need to improve the environment somehow. I think we can all be clear on the fact that this is absolutely not happening at the moment. There are some really interesting new types of packaging coming onto the market all the time. And I constantly hear from people who are doing really fascinating research into new materials. But beauty itself is still very much in love with plastic. And this industry has a long, long, long way to go for its packaging across the board to be regenerative. Now, thirdly, a beauty brand's footprint itself should be regenerative too. That means its resource use, its waste production, its emissions, all of these streams should have a negative footprint. In other words, a footprint that actually puts resources back into the environment. And that's not easy to achieve. We're not even talking about zero impact here. We're talking about improvement. When you're a giant beauty brand operating enormous facilities, that is also going to be an enormous undertaking. And then finally, ultimately, it's about the use of the beauty products themselves, the supply chains the industry has created, the communities that are part of this industry, the marketing messages put out by the beauty industry and the consumption levels driven by beauty. Because everything and everyone involved would need to put back into the environment for a beauty brand to ever be able to call itself regenerative. So you can see the enormous potential here for greenwashing, right? And I can tell you with 100% surety that there are currently exactly zero regenerative beauty brands on planet Earth. So my challenge to you for this week is to remember that regenerative beauty is currently a vision. It's an amazing vision. It's a vision we should always aim to achieve. And I would like to see every beauty brand set its intention to try and get there. This is wonderful. But I also recognize that the greenwashing potential for the word regeneration is huge, much like the way that the beauty industry has greenwashed the word sustainable within an inch of its life, for instance. So I would love to encourage you for this week to join me in making sure that this term regeneration is always used with the right intentions. It's a wonderful vision that I can only hope one day we achieve across beauty and across all our consumer sectors. 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 favourite 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.