fiive minutes 5 ways to shop beauty with a conscience
With shows like Planet Earth showing us the impact our rampant consumerism is having on the earth, what can we do to help protect the planet? Did you know around 50% of plastic packaging is used just once and then thrown away? We know we have far too many plastic bottles in our bathroom that were bought on a whim. We definitely need to ask the question, "Do I actually need that?" more often and to shop more wisely in the first place so that products are savoured and finished and refills can hopefully be bought to replace them.
Beauty and skincare packaging are amongst the most difficult to recycle due to the many different components. Although recycling isn't the only answer, it will certainly go a long way to helping with the problem.
There are brands that run specific recycling programmes to help increase the rate of recycling for beauty and skin products and some brands have gone a step further, offering refill programmes - although this doesn't eliminate the problem, packaging can be significantly reduced for the refills versus the primary containers.
Switching to glass and paper packaging where possible is a definitely a great step but not always practical, so the next avenue to explore is companies who use recycled plastic or compostable plastic alternatives for their packaging. Choosing products that use environmentally friendly and ethically sourced ingredients is of course another element to looking after our planet.
If we can shop with stores that have sustainability at the core of their ethos, then others should hopefully follow suit. These companies offer incentives/discounts for bringing back empties. We’ve listed our favourites below:
MAC
Want to score a free lipstick? The “Back to Mac” scheme enables you to return six MAC empties to any MAC counter in exchange for a free lipstick (excludes certain ranges).
This applies to returning its primary packaging only (the packaging that houses the product) and not the secondary packaging (the cardboard outer).
Simply take the packaging to any store (online option available too) to exchange for your favourite shade of lippy.
A cheap and green way to fund your MAC habit!
L’Occitane
L’occitane are certainly leading the way in terms of thinking and implementing ways of reducing waste and preventing pollution.
They have been running their recycling scheme together with Terracycle for a number of years. You can take ANY beauty brands containers (excludes glass) into a L’Occitane store to receive 10% off any full sized product.
L’Occitane also have an extensive range of shower gels/hand soaps and shampoos that you can refill. Typically their eco-refill packaging will contain between 65-90% less plastic than their standard packaging.
They are also aiming to for 100% of their bottles to be made from recycled plastic by 2022.
Lush
Lush are all about recycling, from their easily recyclable PET plastic bottles, gift boxes and wrap made of 100% recycled materials to their infamous black pots which they recycle in house.
The 5 Pot Programme by Lush incentives people to take back 5 empty pots to any store in order to receive a free fresh face mask. The pots are then taken back to their factory, crushed up and reformulated back into a pot to be used again! Genius!
They have also introduced refillable lipstick – simply purchase the case and choose from a wide array of colours to pop into it. Repeat ad infinitum!
John Lewis
In 2019, John Lewis lanced their recycling initiative called “BeautyCycle”.
Simply take 5 of any brand of beauty container into the John Lewis Beauty Department to receive £5 off your next purchase.
They are working in partnership with Terracycle to ensure that every bit of your empties that can be recycled, will be recycled.
You have to be a ‘My John Lewis’ member to participate, however it’s free and easy to join. It’s a win win in our book!
Not all stores are participating so do check before you haul in all of your empties!
& Other Stories
Not only do & Other Stories produce gorgeous clothing, they also love to recycle and are committed to encourage customers to recycle with them.
They run recycling schemes across both their clothing and beauty ranges.
Simply return any one of their beauty containers to a store and they will give you 10% off your next purchase