Creating a circular beauty industry is proving incredibly difficult. The cosmetics and personal care categories face an obstacle course on their quest for sustainability, with hoops to jump through that include toxic ingredients, hazardous waste from common items like nail polish and perfume, plus so, so much plastic. The United Nations estimates that we produce 300 million tons of plastic trash every year (nearly the weight of the entire human population), and beauty packaging is largely to blame thanks to pumps, mirrored compacts, and caps that can’t be processed by curbside recycling programs. Up to this point, much of the innovation in low-impact environmental practices has been led by adaptable indie brands that set the standard for Big Beauty with clever mushroom-based Styrofoam alternatives and compostable materials. Today, Nordstrom’s TerraCycle partnership takes a significant step toward a more circular future with BeautyCycle, a product take-back and recycling initiative accepting a high-low mix of used-up beauty staples that matches your medicine cabinet—rather than the store’s inventory. “Nordstrom is the first major retailer to offer a beauty packaging recycling program for all brands,” says Gemma Lionello, the company’s executive vice president of accessories and beauty. “We committed to take back 100 tons of beauty packaging to ensure it’s recycled by 2025,” she shares of setting Nordstrom’s corporate social responsibility goals for the next five years, which include reducing single-use plastic by 50% and ensuring that 15% of all products are considered sustainable. To make their 200,000-pound promise happen, BeautyCycle will be available in 94 locations, where it will accept beauty packaging purchased from any retailer and made by any brand. It’s a goal that’s quite possible, based on the example that clean beauty retailer Credo set when it offered its take-back program for all beauty products, regardless of where they’re purchased. As of April 2020, Credo announced that after three years of partnering with TerraCycle, 6,300 customers brought “empties” into their stores, resulting in the proper recycling of more than 15 tons of products. To understand the scale of Nordstrom’s BeautyCycle initiative: For every Credo boutique (currently 11 nationwide), there are more than eight Nordstrom locations accepting products, promising to create an even more widespread movement—and conversation—among American beauty enthusiasts.

There should be a word for that overwhelming feeling one gets when attempting to read the ingredient list on a beauty product — the sheer number of syllables in some of those ingredients is enough to have us tongue-tied.   It takes a lot of science (not to mention naming conventions) to create the modern products we adoringly apply to our bodies. And for some of us, the seemingly foreign nature of these ingredients can feel scary and unsafe.   So if the idea of your makeup being natural, organic, and nontoxic simply makes you feel more secure, we totally get it.  

How we define “natural”

  Unfortunately, defining “natural” in beauty products is a bit like trying to nail jello to the wall. In fact, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never defined the term, nor has it established a regulatory definition for it in cosmetic labeling.   “Unfortunately, terms like ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ are often marketing speak — so many brands falsely claim to be natural and organic so it takes away from the meaning,” says Angelina Umansky, owner of San Francisco’s Spa Radiance.   That’s why it’s important to do your research and be extra discerning when you go out shopping for natural makeup. A great place to start is the clean beauty store Credo, which created specific standards for the products it carries because of the absence of overarching industry regulations.       Here are three things to consider when deciding if a product or brand is right for you:  

• Does the brand say where they’re sourcing their ingredients?
• Do they include sustainable / recyclable packaging?
• Do they use synthetic preservatives?

          With all that information in mind, here are 19 natural makeup products that meet either the strict standards set forth by Credo or the Environmental Working Group (EWG).   For the purposes of this roundup, we included brands that use natural packaging methods when possible and applicable (think: recyclable and eco-friendly) and we specifically looked for products that use non-synthetic ingredients, including non-synthetic fragrances. BIPOC-owned brands                                                                                              

The ugly truth about beauty products is that disposing of the detritus they create isn’t easy. For one thing, mascara tubes, foundation sponges and anything else that could be contaminated by microbes or bacteria is actually considered a biohazard, which means you shouldn’t even throw it in the regular garbage.   Beyond that, most cosmetic containers can’t be recycled, even if they’re made of plastic or glass. Blue bin guidelines generally “do not include any material that has liquids, and that can contaminate other materials in the bin,” says Ernel Simpson, a V.P. at TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company that has branded itself the go-to for all things “unrecyclable.”   Luckily, TerraCycle offers a few beauty-disposal options. Empties from its partners—Burt’s Bees, Bausch + Lomb, DECIEM, eos, Gillette, Tom’s of Maine and Weleda—can be dropped off at those stores, or sent directly to the recycling company for free.         Devotees of other brands can purchase a Zero Waste Box, fill it up with cleaned out lotion bottles and lipgloss tubes, and send it over to the company for recycling. (There are also Zero Waste boxes for everything from plastic snack packaging to cigarette butts and used chewing gum.)   Here, a few other companies trying to help green your cosmetic disposal routine.       The beauty giant was thinking about recycling well before it was trendy. Its Back-to-M.A.C. program dates back to the 1980s: customers who bring in six empty M.A.C. makeup containers receive a free standard lipstick, lipgloss or small eyeshadow. The brand says it reuses more than 100,000 pounds of material in the U.S. and Canada each year, and anything that cannot be reused is incinerated at waste-to-energy facilities.         A partnership with TerraCycle makes L’Occitane a convenient drop-off hub: customers who bring in empty beauty containers from any brand receive 10 percent off during their store visit. The brand has also pledged that every single one of its bottles will be made of 100 per cent recycled plastic by 2025.       The eco-conscious company’s goal is to get naked—a bunch of its products, from shampoo to body lotion, are sold entirely packaging-free. Last year, customers bought two million shampoo bars, keeping millions of plastic bottles out of landfills or the ocean. Liquid products come in the brand’s signature black pots, made from 100 per cent recycled plastic. Customers who return five empty pots get a free face mask.         Another TerraCycle partner, the Body Shop’s Return. Recycle. Repeat. program collects empty packaging from any brand for recycling at all of its Canadian locations (excluding products marked flammable or hazardous, such as perfumes). Bonus: club members get $10 worth of points when they bring back five Body Shop brand containers. It also launched a program last May to buy plastic waste collected in Bengaluru, India, which is recycled into shampoo and conditioner bottles.         Everyone from B.C. to Manitoba can take advantage of this Western chain’s extensive recycling program, available at all of its stores. Makeup isn’t accepted, but small beauty appliances such as hair dryers and curling irons are, as is most packaging, like the hard plastic and Styrofoam that cradles products bought online, as well as batteries and lightbulbs. In the last 10 years, the Canadian retailer has recycled more than 113 million pounds of waste—enough to fill two container ships.  

From refillable products, zero-waste packaging and ocean waste plastics, to what you can and can't actually recycle, Kelsey Ferencak and TerraCycle's Jean Bailliard explain how to properly dispose of your #empties.

From ingredient sourcing to sustainable packaging, here’s how the industry’s forward thinkers are striving to tread more lightly as they produce the beauty products you see on the shelves.   RETHINK (INGREDIENTS)   The fine print on beauty labels tells us next to nothing about how responsibly sourced ingredients are. To muddy matters, calculating a product’s eco-footprint is far trickier than checking if the formula is all-natural or organic.   For starters, natural ingredients can still cause environmental havoc—take, for instance, palm oil and its derivatives. Widely used in beauty products, they can be found in everything from shampoo to lipstick. They are largely produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the destruction of rainforests to clear the way for palm oil plantations is rampant. “A lot of companies are coming in and bulldozing and forcing communities out,” says Lindsay Dahl, senior vice-president of social mission at Beautycounter. Although the brand initially wanted to eschew palm oil, it realized that palm derivatives are still the best choice for many of its products.   As cosmetics ingredients, palm oil derivatives are safe and non-toxic, explains Dahl. Plus, palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil to grow, so switching to less efficient crops that demand more land could be more environmentally damaging. Beauty companies are therefore working to change how it’s produced: 100 per cent of L’Oréal Paris’s palm oil supply is certified by the non-profit authority Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and Beautycounter is currently pushing for all of its products to be RSPO-certified, too.   But sometimes there’s no way to harvest something in a sustainable way, so rethinking ingredients means taking to the science lab. A 2012 study by the ocean conservation non-profit BLOOM found that the cosmetics industry was the world’s biggest buyer of animal squalane, a moisturizer largely sourced from the livers of endangered sharks. So when Biossance got into the sustainable-skincare game, it opted to bioengineer 100 per cent plant-derived squalane—from renewable sugar cane—instead.   REVAMP (THROWAWAY PACKAGING)   Mixing non-recyclables with recyclables in the blue bin—something waste management experts have dubbed “wish-cycling”—can result in the whole batch getting trashed. Beauty products are extra-tricky: “If you look at a lipstick or a compact, it’s usually made from different kinds of material, and then there’s the size,” says Anthony Rossi, vice-president of global business development at Loop, a TerraCycle company. (Small-format items, generally anything less than eight centimetres by eight centimetres, often can’t be properly sorted.)   Plus, it’s not always obvious what can or can’t be recycled (a PET plastic shampoo bottle is OK but not the cap) and too often leftover goop hasn’t been rinsed off. “When something is contaminated with residual liquid, not only can you not recycle it but it ruins other recyclables,” says Calvin Lakhan, PhD, co-investigator for York University’s Waste Wiki project. A study done for Environment and Climate Change Canada reports that in Canada, we throw away 87 per cent of plastics.   But even if we only recycle what we should, the system is plagued by another problem: plummeting demand. “The big challenge with recycling today is that the cost of crude oil to make virgin plastics is so cheap,” says Rossi. “The incentive for companies to use recycled plastics is diminishing by the day.”   There’s no fast fix to throwaway packaging, but beauty companies of all stripes are making headway. Recently, Unilever switched to 100 per cent recycled-plastic bottles for all three of Dove’s ranges in North America and Europe in an effort to slash its use of virgin plastics. Last year, Beautycounter got rid of 800,000 unnecessary plastic parts—think inner lids and spatulas otherwise doomed to become landfill fodder.   Over at Burt’s Bees, prioritizing post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials has been a longtime goal, with some items now up to 80 per cent PCR content. Through its TerraCycle partnership, the brand also ensures that people have a free way to recycle items that can’t go in a blue bin, like lip balms and mascara.   In the haute-beauty space, Hermès’s answer to disposable consumer culture includes the new Rouge Hermès lipsticks, encased in colour-blocked lacquered, brushed and polished metal. Designed by Pierre Hardy, best known for his shoes and baubles, the plastic-free tubes are refillable keepsake objects—like all luxury items, they’re made to last.   REINVENT (THE SYSTEM)   “Reduce, reuse, recycle—it’s not just a catchy phrase,” says Lakhan. “It’s actually the order we’re supposed to do things, but we as consumers and policy planners neglect those first two steps.” Why jettison perfectly functional packaging, for example, when it could be refilled? That’s the question being posed by a growing number of manufacturers and retailers. In Vancouver, The Body Shop’s newly revamped CF Pacific Centre store has refill stations where you can buy your favourite shower gel in replenishable aluminum bottles.   Local indie shops focused on refillables are popping up across Canada, too. BYOC (bring your own container—anything clean will do) to Montreal’s Klova, Calgary’s Canary or Vancouver’s The Soap Dispensary & Kitchen Staples. Offering door-to-door service, Saponetti in Toronto will bring glass Mason jars with made-in-Canada soaps, shampoos and conditioners right to you and take away your empties for reuse.   Similarly, TerraCycle’s circular shopping platform, Loop, is a spin on the milkman delivery model, partnering with some major players in beauty, including P&G and Unilever. (Stateside, you can order Pantene, Love Beauty and Planet and Ren Clean Skincare—the same formulas you know but in containers designed to be refilled again and again.) Loop is slated to launch in the Greater Toronto Area this year with Loblaw; although it’s a pilot for now, it’s one more sign that reinventing our collective attitude to waste is not just urgent but doable.

From ingredient sourcing to sustainable packaging, here’s how the industry’s forward thinkers are striving to tread more lightly as they produce the beauty products you see on the shelves.   RETHINK (INGREDIENTS)   The fine print on beauty labels tells us next to nothing about how responsibly sourced ingredients are. To muddy matters, calculating a product’s eco-footprint is far trickier than checking if the formula is all-natural or organic.   For starters, natural ingredients can still cause environmental havoc—take, for instance, palm oil and its derivatives. Widely used in beauty products, they can be found in everything from shampoo to lipstick. They are largely produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the destruction of rainforests to clear the way for palm oil plantations is rampant. “A lot of companies are coming in and bulldozing and forcing communities out,” says Lindsay Dahl, senior vice-president of social mission at Beautycounter. Although the brand initially wanted to eschew palm oil, it realized that palm derivatives are still the best choice for many of its products.   As cosmetics ingredients, palm oil derivatives are safe and non-toxic, explains Dahl. Plus, palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil to grow, so switching to less efficient crops that demand more land could be more environmentally damaging. Beauty companies are therefore working to change how it’s produced: 100 per cent of L’Oréal Paris’s palm oil supply is certified by the non-profit authority Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and Beautycounter is currently pushing for all of its products to be RSPO-certified, too.   But sometimes there’s no way to harvest something in a sustainable way, so rethinking ingredients means taking to the science lab. A 2012 study by the ocean conservation non-profit BLOOM found that the cosmetics industry was the world’s biggest buyer of animal squalane, a moisturizer largely sourced from the livers of endangered sharks. So when Biossance got into the sustainable-skincare game, it opted to bioengineer 100 per cent plant-derived squalane—from renewable sugar cane—instead.   REVAMP (THROWAWAY PACKAGING)   Mixing non-recyclables with recyclables in the blue bin—something waste management experts have dubbed “wish-cycling”—can result in the whole batch getting trashed. Beauty products are extra-tricky: “If you look at a lipstick or a compact, it’s usually made from different kinds of material, and then there’s the size,” says Anthony Rossi, vice-president of global business development at Loop, a TerraCycle company. (Small-format items, generally anything less than eight centimetres by eight centimetres, often can’t be properly sorted.)   Plus, it’s not always obvious what can or can’t be recycled (a PET plastic shampoo bottle is OK but not the cap) and too often leftover goop hasn’t been rinsed off. “When something is contaminated with residual liquid, not only can you not recycle it but it ruins other recyclables,” says Calvin Lakhan, PhD, co-investigator for York University’s Waste Wiki project. A study done for Environment and Climate Change Canada reports that in Canada, we throw away 87 per cent of plastics.   But even if we only recycle what we should, the system is plagued by another problem: plummeting demand. “The big challenge with recycling today is that the cost of crude oil to make virgin plastics is so cheap,” says Rossi. “The incentive for companies to use recycled plastics is diminishing by the day.”   There’s no fast fix to throwaway packaging, but beauty companies of all stripes are making headway. Recently, Unilever switched to 100 per cent recycled-plastic bottles for all three of Dove’s ranges in North America and Europe in an effort to slash its use of virgin plastics. Last year, Beautycounter got rid of 800,000 unnecessary plastic parts—think inner lids and spatulas otherwise doomed to become landfill fodder.   Over at Burt’s Bees, prioritizing post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials has been a longtime goal, with some items now up to 80 per cent PCR content. Through its TerraCycle partnership, the brand also ensures that people have a free way to recycle items that can’t go in a blue bin, like lip balms and mascara.   In the haute-beauty space, Hermès’s answer to disposable consumer culture includes the new Rouge Hermès lipsticks, encased in colour-blocked lacquered, brushed and polished metal. Designed by Pierre Hardy, best known for his shoes and baubles, the plastic-free tubes are refillable keepsake objects—like all luxury items, they’re made to last.   REINVENT (THE SYSTEM)   “Reduce, reuse, recycle—it’s not just a catchy phrase,” says Lakhan. “It’s actually the order we’re supposed to do things, but we as consumers and policy planners neglect those first two steps.” Why jettison perfectly functional packaging, for example, when it could be refilled? That’s the question being posed by a growing number of manufacturers and retailers. In Vancouver, The Body Shop’s newly revamped CF Pacific Centre store has refill stations where you can buy your favourite shower gel in replenishable aluminum bottles.   Local indie shops focused on refillables are popping up across Canada, too. BYOC (bring your own container—anything clean will do) to Montreal’s Klova, Calgary’s Canary or Vancouver’s The Soap Dispensary & Kitchen Staples. Offering door-to-door service, Saponetti in Toronto will bring glass Mason jars with made-in-Canada soaps, shampoos and conditioners right to you and take away your empties for reuse.   Similarly, TerraCycle’s circular shopping platform, Loop, is a spin on the milkman delivery model, partnering with some major players in beauty, including P&G and Unilever. (Stateside, you can order Pantene, Love Beauty and Planet and Ren Clean Skincare—the same formulas you know but in containers designed to be refilled again and again.) Loop is slated to launch in the Greater Toronto Area this year with Loblaw; although it’s a pilot for now, it’s one more sign that reinventing our collective attitude to waste is not just urgent but doable.

From ingredient sourcing to sustainable packaging, here’s how the industry’s forward thinkers are striving to tread more lightly as they produce the beauty products you see on the shelves.   RETHINK (INGREDIENTS)   The fine print on beauty labels tells us next to nothing about how responsibly sourced ingredients are. To muddy matters, calculating a product’s eco-footprint is far trickier than checking if the formula is all-natural or organic.   For starters, natural ingredients can still cause environmental havoc—take, for instance, palm oil and its derivatives. Widely used in beauty products, they can be found in everything from shampoo to lipstick. They are largely produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the destruction of rainforests to clear the way for palm oil plantations is rampant. “A lot of companies are coming in and bulldozing and forcing communities out,” says Lindsay Dahl, senior vice-president of social mission at Beautycounter. Although the brand initially wanted to eschew palm oil, it realized that palm derivatives are still the best choice for many of its products.   As cosmetics ingredients, palm oil derivatives are safe and non-toxic, explains Dahl. Plus, palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil to grow, so switching to less efficient crops that demand more land could be more environmentally damaging. Beauty companies are therefore working to change how it’s produced: 100 per cent of L’Oréal Paris’s palm oil supply is certified by the non-profit authority Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and Beautycounter is currently pushing for all of its products to be RSPO-certified, too.   But sometimes there’s no way to harvest something in a sustainable way, so rethinking ingredients means taking to the science lab. A 2012 study by the ocean conservation non-profit BLOOM found that the cosmetics industry was the world’s biggest buyer of animal squalane, a moisturizer largely sourced from the livers of endangered sharks. So when Biossance got into the sustainable-skincare game, it opted to bioengineer 100 per cent plant-derived squalane—from renewable sugar cane—instead.   REVAMP (THROWAWAY PACKAGING)   Mixing non-recyclables with recyclables in the blue bin—something waste management experts have dubbed “wish-cycling”—can result in the whole batch getting trashed. Beauty products are extra-tricky: “If you look at a lipstick or a compact, it’s usually made from different kinds of material, and then there’s the size,” says Anthony Rossi, vice-president of global business development at Loop, a TerraCycle company. (Small-format items, generally anything less than eight centimetres by eight centimetres, often can’t be properly sorted.)   Plus, it’s not always obvious what can or can’t be recycled (a PET plastic shampoo bottle is OK but not the cap) and too often leftover goop hasn’t been rinsed off. “When something is contaminated with residual liquid, not only can you not recycle it but it ruins other recyclables,” says Calvin Lakhan, PhD, co-investigator for York University’s Waste Wiki project. A study done for Environment and Climate Change Canada reports that in Canada, we throw away 87 per cent of plastics.   But even if we only recycle what we should, the system is plagued by another problem: plummeting demand. “The big challenge with recycling today is that the cost of crude oil to make virgin plastics is so cheap,” says Rossi. “The incentive for companies to use recycled plastics is diminishing by the day.”   There’s no fast fix to throwaway packaging, but beauty companies of all stripes are making headway. Recently, Unilever switched to 100 per cent recycled-plastic bottles for all three of Dove’s ranges in North America and Europe in an effort to slash its use of virgin plastics. Last year, Beautycounter got rid of 800,000 unnecessary plastic parts—think inner lids and spatulas otherwise doomed to become landfill fodder.   Over at Burt’s Bees, prioritizing post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials has been a longtime goal, with some items now up to 80 per cent PCR content. Through its TerraCycle partnership, the brand also ensures that people have a free way to recycle items that can’t go in a blue bin, like lip balms and mascara.   In the haute-beauty space, Hermès’s answer to disposable consumer culture includes the new Rouge Hermès lipsticks, encased in colour-blocked lacquered, brushed and polished metal. Designed by Pierre Hardy, best known for his shoes and baubles, the plastic-free tubes are refillable keepsake objects—like all luxury items, they’re made to last.   REINVENT (THE SYSTEM)   “Reduce, reuse, recycle—it’s not just a catchy phrase,” says Lakhan. “It’s actually the order we’re supposed to do things, but we as consumers and policy planners neglect those first two steps.” Why jettison perfectly functional packaging, for example, when it could be refilled? That’s the question being posed by a growing number of manufacturers and retailers. In Vancouver, The Body Shop’s newly revamped CF Pacific Centre store has refill stations where you can buy your favourite shower gel in replenishable aluminum bottles.   Local indie shops focused on refillables are popping up across Canada, too. BYOC (bring your own container—anything clean will do) to Montreal’s Klova, Calgary’s Canary or Vancouver’s The Soap Dispensary & Kitchen Staples. Offering door-to-door service, Saponetti in Toronto will bring glass Mason jars with made-in-Canada soaps, shampoos and conditioners right to you and take away your empties for reuse.   Similarly, TerraCycle’s circular shopping platform, Loop, is a spin on the milkman delivery model, partnering with some major players in beauty, including P&G and Unilever. (Stateside, you can order Pantene, Love Beauty and Planet and Ren Clean Skincare—the same formulas you know but in containers designed to be refilled again and again.) Loop is slated to launch in the Greater Toronto Area this year with Loblaw; although it’s a pilot for now, it’s one more sign that reinventing our collective attitude to waste is not just urgent but doable.

Clean makeup is invited into our kit for our greatest good and that of Mother Nature. And is about to revolutionize the entire cosmetic industry.   At first glance, the displays in the Sephora department store in downtown Montreal are very similar. From lipstick to foundation: there is all the arsenal necessary for the makeup bag.   But as you wander the islands, you will notice that green tablets bearing the words "Pure and healthy" are affixed to certain displays. Who is entitled to this distinction? The ranges free from harmful and ecologically responsible ingredients. Launched in 2018, the stamp now brings together around sixty brands.   An offer impossible to imagine barely 10 years ago, when beautists looking for clean makeup had very little to get on their skin. What happened? Sephora listened to its customers. "We have noticed a change in the concerns of consumers, who are increasingly looking for quality cosmetics with no suspicious substances," said Jane Nugent, vice president of merchandising at Sephora Canada.   In the target market there are millennials and generation Z, demanding customers looking for transparency and who read the labels carefully. "Companies even go so far as to modify some of their formulas to meet our selection criteria," says Jane Nugent.   Sephora is not the only business responding to this trend. The American retailer The Detox Market, created in 2010, has slowly established itself as the leader in healthy beauty. “When we started talking about clean makeup, it made everyone laugh. People associated green beauty with the hippie movement, ”says Romain Gaillard, founder of the chain, which has three branches in Toronto. Each product found on their site or in store must go through a rigorous evaluation process. "More than 1,000 companies contact us each year to be sold here ... It is essential to choose what we really like," he says. Sea Surfer Curl Volumizing Mascara, Tart , $ 30  

What is clean makeup?

  In the absence of established regulations, the definition of clean makeup varies from brand to brand and remains open to interpretation. In principle, any component suspected of being carcinogenic, endocrine disruptor, neurotoxic or allergenic should not be present in the formula. In addition, the packaging, boxes and flasks must be biodegradable, with a low carbon footprint.   What client wants ...   This awareness has been brewing for a long time according to WGSN, the renowned London trend office whose expertise consists in anticipating the major consumer trends of tomorrow. "Several years ago, we predicted that ethical responsibility would become a non-negotiable criterion for buyers," said Jenni Middleton, WGSN beauty director.   Since then, the growth of this phenomenon has been observed in the food, fashion and, now, beauty industry. To such an extent that, according to a report published on the company's website, "cosmetic companies that neglect their environmental impact risk losing consumer confidence". The polling firm Nielsen has also revealed that internationally 73% of consumers were ready to change their purchasing habits to reduce their environmental footprint and that 38% preferred to buy ethical cosmetics.   This enthusiasm does not go unnoticed by opportunistic banners who see it as a golden marketing opportunity: being seen as eco-responsible is a sales strategy rather than a real value, which gives rise to the famous greenwashing). “Some brands distribute misleading information to give the impression of being green in order to arouse the interest of customers. This can result in misleading statements about the list of ingredients, the packaging (less environmentally friendly than it seems) or even the production chain (falsely carbon neutral) ", argues Jenni Middleton. Fortunately, the expert notes that the consumer is increasingly demanding to see evidence of these claims. And when the client wants something, everyone answers the call. Hence the “Pure and healthy” seal offered by Sephora.  

Precursors of yesterday, leaders of today

  These pioneering brands of clean makeup have paved the way towards a more responsible cosmetic industry.   Dr. Hauschka   Founded in 1957, the German company launched its make-up range in 1999 as a complement to the skin products it already offered. “We use the same raw materials as in our care. Infused with extracts of medicinal plants and certified organic vegetable oils, our make-up aims to sublimate women's beauty and not to mask it, ”specifies Marie Calas, head of research and development. Eye and brow palette, Pierre shade, Dr. Hauschka , $ 65   Bite   "When we heard that a woman would ingest 3.17 kg of lipstick during her life, that made us think," reveals Sylvie Rouaix, vice president of product development at Bite. Originally from Toronto, the company has become a cult in the world of lipsticks. "We wanted to prove that makeup could be both safe and effective," she adds. In addition to being now 100% vegan, the Bite brand is launching foundations this year, pressed powders and foundation perfecting foundations. Changemaker modular coverage pressed powder, Medium 2 shade, Bite Beauty , $ 48 for 7.5 g. Sublimating micellar foundation, shade L20, Bite Beauty , $ 52 for 30 ml.   Ilia   It is by peeling the ingredients listed on the boxes of her cosmetics that the Vancouver resident Sasha Plavsic wanted to create her own brand. What she did in 2011. “I loved a tinted lip balm. My first challenge was to reproduce it in a non-toxic version, ”says the entrepreneur. Nine years later, its illuminators, eyebrow gels and multipurpose sticks are sold like hot cakes. One of the secrets of its success? The formulas are enriched with beneficial ingredients, such as hibiscus extract or rosehip oil.   Green vs black   The European Union prohibits the use of more than 1,300 ingredients in cosmetics sold on its territory. In Canada, only 600 components are banned - which is still better than in the United States, where there are only about thirty. But why is there such a big difference between us and our cousins from across the Atlantic? According to Health Canada, this is notably due to the fact that the European Union studies substances individually, whereas here, they are grouped rather by family (for example, aniline dyes).   As for controversial substances such as parabens, phthalates and others, which are still permitted despite the concerns they raise, Health Canada claims to be watching them. The ministry follows “international scientific and regulatory reports closely, and regularly reviews the safety of chemicals in cosmetics in the form of risk assessments.”   The problem is simultaneous exposure to these ingredients, says Lise Parent, ecotoxicologist and professor at TÉLUQ University. In other words, a mascara used alone may not be a threat to health, but added, every day, to the foundation, lipstick and eyeshadow ... "We have no idea of their long-term effect, says the expert. However, we do know that phthalates have direct consequences for the rat's reproductive system and thyroid.”   Even if the human body is a wonderful machine for filtering out harmful substances, Lise Parent reminds us that it is not without its shortcomings, particularly in the case of endocrine disruptors. "They tend to accumulate in the body and, since they are similar to the hormones produced by it, our body is not always able to detect them and set in motion the process necessary to get rid of it, ”she explains.  

Green container

  According to the Zero Waste Week website, 120 billion packages of cosmetics are produced each year ... and most of them are not recyclable. A dizzying number to which several brands are responding with green initiatives. "At Maison Jacynthe, all the boxes are made of wood and aluminum, in addition to being reusable thanks to refills of eyeshadows," argues Marco Marsolais, make-up artist for the stars and co-creator of the range of cosmetics offered by the company. . For its part, Burt's Bees collaborates with TerraCycle, a company specializing in the management of non-recyclable waste, to ensure the recovery of its small pots. Reusable case , $ 19. Terracotta , Mattina shade, and blush , In Love shade, Maison Jacynthe, $ 32 and $ 29.50   Where do the color pigments come from?   Most manufacturers of clean makeup - like Dr. Hauschka and Burt's Bees - opt for pigments of mineral origin, often identified on the packaging as iron oxides. At Maison Jacynthe, certain shades come from plant sources, such as the turmeric present in eyeshadows.   The red color, on the other hand, is more controversial. Brands choose carmine, a natural dye used for centuries and derived from crushed mealybugs (insects living on cacti). Vegan ranges will prefer to introduce some synthetic pigments.   As for the iridescent effect of certain illuminators and lip glosses, we owe it to an ore, mica. However, it is its extraction that is controversial. Many miners do in fact work with children, their small size being advantageous for digging wells and tunnels in deposits. Fortunately, ethical players make it a point of honor to source from responsible sources.  

Apps using

  How to take a closer look at the composition of products without carrying around a chemistry manual? Applications have been designed to scan the barcodes and the INCI list (the nomenclature of components) written on the packaging. Skin Deep   Works with ratings from 0 to 10 (10 being the level most harmful to health). Clean Beauty   We photograph the list of ingredients, then the application extracts the controversial components in seconds. Glossary of 800 ingredients. Think Dirty   Canadian application which evaluates, after reading the barcode, the ingredients according to ratings (from 0 to 10) combined with a color system. A substance rated 10 and highlighted in red = danger!   Performance at the rendezvous   Clean makeup has long suffered from a lack of hold. The eyeshadows spun in the folds of the eyelids, the mascara had to be reapplied several times a day, the textures were not in focus… Today, the cosmetic giants have corrected these weaknesses. Makeup artist Alexandre Deslauriers, who acted as a consultant for the makeup component at Burt's Bees, believes that we must still moderate our expectations. "It's not normal for a lipstick to last for 16 hours!" he exclaims.   An infallible outfit often betrays the presence of silicone. To maintain color on the lips, Burt's Bees has replaced plastic particles with mixtures of vegetable oils and waxes. In its tinted cream formula, it is squalane, a plant component extracted from olive oil, which solves the problem of spreading and adhesion to the skin. Bite, a brand recognized for its ultra-pigmented lipsticks, has traded dimethicone (silicone) for orange peel wax accompanied by agave nectar, both rich in antioxidants. Matt stick, Rippling Rose shade, Burt's Bees , $ 9.99   Maison Jacynthe Complexion Fluid is the favorite product of make-up artist Marco Marsolais. Its formula is enriched with borage oil, which gives it a malleable texture and hydrating power. "By applying it repeatedly on my clients' faces, I saw their skin change," he says. Green ingredients are also used in place of BHA and BHT (synthetic antioxidants) or formaldehyde (antimicrobial preservative) to preserve the products and avoid rancidity of fatty substances. To do this, Maison Jacynthe had previously used coffee extract, but will soon opt for Labrador tea to promote the natural riches of Quebec.

It’s time to kick those eco-efforts up a notch. We’ve got a cheat sheet of smart shortcuts, clever swaps and easy ways to green your home— and your days.   So you shop with a cloth bag, buy the occasional item in bulk, turn off the lights when you’re out and triumphantly organize your trash on garbage day. Still, it can be tough to know if you’re really doing enough.   Unfortunately, if you consider being a Recycling Queen the crowning achievement of your eco-efforts, you might need to rethink your sustainability strategy. “The problem—and this is a bit of a wake- up call—is that recycling really doesn’t work in a consistent and systemic way,” says Vito Buonsante, plastics program manager at Environmental Defence.   Canada. In fact, only about nine percent of all plastic waste actually gets recycled. The reason why so little gets repurposed is complicated, but it comes down to the high cost of recycling coupled with the types of plastics being produced.   Ultimately, it’s time to think beyond the blue bin when it comes to shrinking our environmental footprint at home. After all, there’s also the reduce and reuse mantras—as well as reclaim, renew, rethink and refurbish—to consider.   Here are some smart ways to make life in every area of your home a little more sustainable.     IN YOUR CLOSET   If you’re planning to add a few new items to your spring wardrobe, you’ll be happy to hear that sustainable styles are more readily available than ever. Nike recently announced a capsule collection of sustainable apparel, with pieces that meet a 90 percent or better marker of efficiency. (Basically, they’re made entirely from recycled materials.) Last fall, Canadian company Call It Spring launched a new line of shoes and accessories made with post-consumer recycled water bottles, diverting a load (295,629 bottles, to be exact) from landfills and waterways. Gap is using 33 recycled plastic bottles in each of its new Upcycled Raincoats. The brand is also launching its most sustainable denim yet, with 100-percent organic cotton and production techniques that use at least 20 percent less water.   On top of using sustainable materials, outdoor brand Patagonia goes a step further, helping you repair garments and gear to make them last longer. Just take a worn item into a participating 1 retailer and they’ll fix it up or help you recycle it if necessary. After all, it’s estimated that on average, each Canadian throws away more than 80 pounds of clothing a year. Thankfully, there’s a rental revolution underway and it’s designed to whittle away wardrobe waste while saving you money and adding variety to your closet. For example, online service Rent Frock Repeat promises to refresh your everyday wardrobe with a steady rotation of four items, selected by you or a stylist, for just $129 a month (including return shipping and dry cleaning, too).

IN THE WASHROOM

  Since some plastic tubes, lids, bottles and caps can’t go in the blue bin, alternative recycling is essential. A few of the brands you already know and love, like Burt’s Bees, Eos and Weleda's Skin Food, can be returned through TerraCycle, an international recycling program. Even still, the waste from personal-care products can really add up. More than two billion plastic razors and cartridges are tossed in the trash annually in the United States alone. Vancouver-based Well Kept has a solution for that, selling stylish solid brass razors that are made to last a lifetime.   You can also eliminate a large amount of packaging simply by swapping bottled hand soaps, shampoos and body washes for cleansing bars, says Buonsante, who has banned most bottles from his own bathroom. “That’s an incredibly easy way to avoid creating a lot of waste,” he says. Try buying refillable glass bottles and purchasing your family’s basic hair- and body-care products at the zero-waste markets popping up across the country.  

IN THE KITCHEN

  “When we think about the circular economy, which is keeping materials in use for as long as possible at their highest form of value, it comes down to using better materials, designing items to be repairable and upgradable so you get that maximum life,” says Frances Edmonds, head of Sustainable Impact at HP Canada. In the not-so-distant future, 3D printing could give us the capability to have inventories of spare parts more readily available, extending the life of all sorts of technology in our homes, from printers to refrigerators. For now, our best bet is to shop thoughtfully, and that goes for big appliance purchases as well as small food-prep and storage options, like swapping disposable plastic wrap for reusable beeswax wraps.   When you’re grocery shopping, skip big-box stores in favour of bulk shops where you can bring your own reusable containers to fill up on everything from flour to dry cereals. Using your own glass jars eliminates excess packaging, plus it helps you buy only what you need, and curb food waste, which is good for the earth and your wallet. According to a 2019 report by Second Harvest, a Canadian food rescue organization that distributes food to shelters and breakfast programs, the annual cost of avoidable food waste is as much as $1,766 per household.   Sometimes our sustainability efforts, whether it’s remembering those cloth grocery bags or toting your aluminum travel cup, feel thankless and difficult and, frankly, like a pain. But some conveniences don’t actually come at a steep cost. Take time-saving Nespresso coffee pods, which are actually made from 100 percent aluminum, a material that is 100 percent and infinitely recyclable. Here’s some more good news: When it comes to cleaning up after dinner, the more efficient way to wash dishes is also the lazy way. Thanks to stricter-than-ever efficiency certification standards (like Energy Star), newer dishwashers use less water and energy than handwashing a sink full of pots and pans. Use an environmentally safe detergent (“loose powder formulas work very well, tend to come in a recyclable cardboard box, as opposed to a landfill-bound plastic pouch, and are often the cheaper option,” says Buonsante). Then, for best results, run a full load and skip the pre-rinse. This just messes with the machine’s soil sensors, wasting water and making more work for you. Because, let’s face it, you’ve got enough to do.

WE LIKE:

IN THE OFFICE

  Opting for responsibly-sourced office supplies is the easiest way to green your home workspace. Refillable pens (some even made from renewable bamboo) are a great option. When you’re shopping for notebooks and printer paper, look for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification logo, so you know the product isn’t contributing to deforestation.   There are a number of ways we can be more eco-smart with our tech, from phones to laptops. HP recently released the world’s first digital notebook containing ocean-bound plastics and the company has committed to a goal of using 30 percent post-consumer recycled plastic across its portfolio of printers and personal computers by 2025. What our devices are made of is about to become an even bigger selling point for the eco-minded consumer. And so is a product’s potential staying power. "Extend- ing the product life as long as you can is an important consideration,” says Edmonds. “It’s very tempting to buy a cheaper product, but if it doesn’t last you as long, then you’re really defeating your sustainability goals,” she says.  

WE LIKE:

 

Beauty brands are struggling to find the balance between sustainability and design. 

When thinking about your last delivery from your favorite skincare or cosmetics brand, how many things did you need to unwrap before you made it to your product? We all love cute and chic packaging but scary to think about all of the excess. Even with so much research that says how plastic is destroying our planet brands aren’t always ready to invest the time and money into 100% recyclable packaging. This, especially if they think it will hurt their chances of profit or aesthetics.       A 2019 Zero Waste report noted more than 120 billion units of packaging are produced globally by the cosmetics industry each year. Unfortunately, not much of that is recyclable. The good news is beauty brands to major conglomerates like Unilever have announced that by 2025 they will halve their use of virgin plastics and commit to using post-consumer recycled plastic or, ‘PCR.’ This would make Unilever the first major global company to commit to an absolute reduction in plastics across all of its brands. Hopefully, many other companies follow suit.   In lieu of Earth Day, here’s everything you need to know about beauty, sustainability and the future.    

What is PCR plastic?

  Post-consumer recycled plastic or PCR is plastic that has already been recycled before and ultimately repurposed. So by recycling your beauty products, cans, oat milk bottles, and cardboard boxes, you’re contributing to the revolving amount of PCR that brands have to use and distribute.  

Recycle, Reuse, but Refuse to do it

  As we mentioned, if we don’t take steps to recycle we can’t change the future of packaging. Our bathrooms and skincare collections are filled with products waiting to be recycled. But, more than have us actually put those bottles and jars in the right bins. Johnson & Johnson once reported nearly 60 percent of people rarely recycle or have never recycled their bathroom products. The conglomerate also once reported that 20% of Americans didn’t recycle because they didn’t have a recycling bin in their bathrooms.  

Clean your recyclables!

  You can’t just throw it and think you’re doing good. Recycling beauty products actually takes a lot of energy on your part. Because not everything is 100% recyclable, you’ll have to take your products apart. Certain face cleansers and shampoos often have the bottle and then an additional pump. In most cases, recycling the bottle is no problem but the pump can be a little confusing since it’s made of mixed materials, its small, and oddly shaped (more on recycling difficult items below). You’ll also need to clean your bottles and remove your labels. While you don’t need to stress yourself out by washing every last drop, spending a good two minutes washing out your bottles and jars will go a long way. If you just toss your recyclables without washing them, there’s a pretty good chance they won’t be able to be sorted when it comes time to be.  

When in doubt, head to TerraCycle.

  TerraCycle is a company that hopes to eliminate the idea of waste. Remember those pumps to your shampoo and face cleansers? This is where TerraCycle comes in. Some things are harder to recycle than others but, TerraCycle won’t take no for an answer. Their goal is to recycle anything and everything and teach you how at the same time. You can drop off anything that is difficult to recycle at a TerraCycle collection site, or mail it to them!   Have a product you’re unsure about? Head to terracycle.com and type in what you have via their search bar. They’ll tell you everything you need to know and what collection program(s) can take your recyclable goods.  

Bottom line: You have the power to change the industry standards.

  Recycling saves energy, space in landfills, and ultimately helps our earth. The most important thing though is the more we recycle, the more opportunities companies will have to create packaging out of PCR plastics and other materials. The future of packaging within the beauty industry is in our hands.   If you have questions about collections within your state or are wondering how to recycle a certain item, visit Terracycle.com. Many beauty brands like Acure,  Burt’s Bees, and Paula’s Choice have their very own programs and incentives!