Manufacture of Krave Beauty and Protéger waste products. | So Good News

When it comes to the waste generated by the cosmetics industry, most eyes are on the packaging, but what about the other culprits? According to Arnaud Plas, CEO and co-founder of Prose, 20-40% of beauty products end up as waste, from expired products to product testers. A recent Avery Dennison report showed that $4.8 billion worth of beauty products were wasted in the brand’s supply chain. “The cosmetics industry’s waste problem goes beyond packaging and is unknown to anyone outside of the beauty industry. When there is no transparency about the hidden waste produced by the industry. It allows brands to deal with it in the way they choose—whether it ends up in landfills or product returns or even being destroyed and trashed,” Krave Beauty founder and CEO Liah Yoo tells BeautyMatter.

Through transparency, Krave Beauty lets its customers get behind its sustainability efforts. The company ended up with $1.5 million worth of unusable product after Yoo was found to have posted a video following a production glitch with its best-selling Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser. “For existing products; It’s very rare because we have strict production and manufacturing guidelines and standards,” she explains. “However, During the product development process of new releases and modifications; There are many different variables involved when scaling up a laboratory sample to a large batch size. It is difficult to identify a specific percentage of ‘botched batches’ as it varies widely for different product formulations. Some formulas need to be perfected, while other products need to be perfected over and over again.”

Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser Wipes less water than the approved laboratory sample. Rather than throwing away a lot of product. Krave Beauty repackaged it as a body wash and sold it for $8, removing the margin and allowing the customer to produce the product; packaging freight charges transportation costs; You will only pay for shipping and packing. Outside fee. The company has tested hundreds of units of the Great Barrier Relief serum, part of a 100% glass package, but it was trial-produced with a silicone insert that was never implemented, due to the company’s decision to use less. instead of production-specific 100% PCR PET

Another company that isn’t afraid to open the door to its manufacturing process is Protéger, a company founded by JoLynn Henke and Peter Clarkson. Protéger’s debut product, Dermal Sérum, contains 20% micro-encapsulated vitamin C; Organic Arabica Coffee Bean Extract; A full body treatment with fractionated hyaluronic acid and organic aloe vera leaf extract. The product was inspired by Clarkson’s efforts to improve the health and quality of her skin, but took on additional meaning when she began developing the green standard formula for Henke’s mother, who was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Sustainability is a key theme, with the company sourcing 100% recyclable FSC-certified paperboard from the 300-year-old Swedish company Iggesund Mill for its packaging. Choosing a supply chain here is more beneficial than retrofitting the building. “A lot of our development process happened during the COVID period, which really slowed us down and forced us to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. There are some parts of our supply chain that we know will have to wait nine months anyway. So instead of rushing to find different suppliers, we were able to do our due diligence and research,” Clarkson said. .