T he beauty industry is notorious for using attractive packaging to entice customers – a marketing ploy that doesn’t always translate to being environmentally friendly (we’re looking at you, single-use plastic). In 2020, nothing is prettier than the three Rs. Make reduce, reuse and recycle an essential part of your beauty routine by choosing products in recycled materials or in packaging that’s reusable, refillable or recyclable. In the latter case, check the official recycling guidelines in your municipality to ensure that your packaging is blue bin approved. For example, the City of Toronto, where I live, doesn’t recycle black plastic (you can also get all your recycling information in Toronto on the TOwaste app).   To reduce new plastic production, some beauty brands are making bottles out of post-consumer recycled plastic. Others are partnering up with organizations like TerraCycle to collect hard-to-recycle materials. In 2018, L’Occitane launched its recycling program, where participating boutiques collect and recycle used beauty, skincare and hair care packaging from any brand. Clarins recently added collection boxes for its used packaging to all of its Hudson’s Bay counters. Burt’s Bees, mean-while, offers prepaid mailing labels for its used products to be shipped directly to TerraCycle.   Others have embraced the circular economy, where companies take back their products after use to be reused or recycled (think old-school glass milk bottles). M.A.C, for example, rewards customers with free products when they return their primary packaging, such as foundation bottles and lipstick tubes, to the Back-to-M.A.C program. How’s that for better beauty with benefits?   When brands do their part by using earth-friendly packaging, it’s up to you to make sure that it’s disposed of properly. Take Kaia Naturals’s The Vitamin Cleanse, for example. These all-natural wipes are fully compostable, but if they’re tossed in the garbage or flushed down the drain, that bio-degradation isn’t going to happen. “If people don’t know how to deal with the end product, it won’t actually reach the objective,” says Kaia founder Mary Futher. “The manufacturer can only do so much. You have to do the rest.”  

Best Bets

Refillable: M.A.C. Loud & Clear Lipstick in Baroque The Internet, $24, maccosmetics.ca TerraCyclable: Burt’s Bees Voluminizing Mascara, $14, shoppersdrugmart.ca Reusable: Lastswab Beauty, $18, lastobject.com (Check out six ways to go eco-friendly in under 24 hours.) Some ingredients used in personal care products, such as preservatives and fragrances, have been linked to a host of negative health issues, from contact dermatitis to fertility problems. The Canadian Cancer Society reports that phthalates, found in some nail polishes and perfumes, are being studied for their potential link to cancer. That risk has led to the green beauty movement and a demand for more-natural products that contain ingredients that are easy to recognize, typically in the form of organic botanicals, such as aloe, shea butter and coconut oil.   Though buying organic was costly at one time, it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg because greater consumer demand for natural alternatives has given brands an incentive to find ways to bring prices down. “It was our goal to give women an accessible, organic cosmetic range that they can easily buy and use daily,” says Anne Requier, a skincare lab engineer at Garnier International who recently introduced the certified-organic Bio range to Canada.   At Herbal Essences, an endorsement by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK verifies the efficacy of the brand’s botanical ingredients, such as aloe. “Because they have the biggest plant collection in the world, they can go back and get the standard,” says Rachel Zipperian, principal scientist for Herbal Essences. “They know exactly what aloe is supposed to look like, and they’re able to confirm that the aloe we’re using is high in [anti-oxidant] polysaccharides.”   For some, the future lies in clean beauty, a term used to describe products that include synthetic ingredients that mimic natural ones but can also be more stable, sustainable and even pure because this process eliminates potential contamination from toxins, pesticides and heavy metals. One such example is squalene, which was traditionally harvested from shark livers and olives to add moisturizing benefits to skincare. The California-based brand Biossance takes a different approach thanks to parent company Amyris, which bioengineered a plant-based, stable squalene using fermented sugar cane from Brazil, a plant that requires less resources than olives. (Check out the best mini clean beauty products to test drive.)   When it comes to understanding what’s going in your body, the onus is ultimately on you. According to Health Canada’s guidelines, labelling cosmetic ingredients is important because it “helps Canadians make more informed decisions about the cosmetics they use since they are able to easily-identify ingredients they may be sensitive to.” Reading the label sounds simple enough, but is it something that most of us are doing? According to Biossance president Catherine Gore, the answer is no. “It’s not that clear that you have to,” she says.   There are resources that educate us on product ingredients, such as Clean at Sephora and Environmental Working Group, but sometimes this wealth of information can lead to confusion. To help cut through the noise, Gore and her team at Biossance launched The Clean Academy, a series of YouTube videos hosted by Queer Eye grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness. Their mission is to offer real answers to topics that confuse us most at the beauty counter. “The tricky thing is that there’s a lot of information and sometimes that can be a lot to absorb,” explains Gore. “It’s also quite complicated in terms of some of the answers. We wanted to offer a platform that helps do that in a fun and entertaining way.”  

Best Bets

Endorsed by Kew Gardens: Herbal Essences Bio Renew Potent Aloe & Hemp Shampoo and Conditioner, $8 each, herbalessences.ca EWG-Approved: Biossance Squalane + 10% Lactic Acid Resurfaving Night Serum, $82, biossance.com Certified Organic: Garnier Bio Lavandin Facial Oil, $25, walmart.ca (Check out the 12 toxic ingredients that can be found in beauty products.) Animal lovers, rejoice! Being cruelty-free is finally cool. And we have The Body Shop to thank for that. Back in 1989, it was the first global beauty company to lobby for an end to animal testing. Today, the company has been joined by many others, including makeup giant CoverGirl, which went cruelty-free in 2018. “Listening to our consumers, we started this journey with CoverGirl to demonstrate our commitment to this issue by achieving such an ambitious certification at scale,” said Camillo Pane, former chief executive officer of CoverGirl’s parent company, Coty. Broadly speaking, a cruelty-free designation means that the product was developed without any testing on animals, while vegan means that the product does not include any animal-derived ingredients.   To find out where your favourite brands stand, it’s important to do your research, as product formulation isn’t always transparent and animal testing may occur at the ingredient level. Leaping Bunny is an organization that vets beauty products for compliance at all points (CoverGirl is the largest makeup brand with Leaping Bunny’s stamp of approval). Its Cruelty-Free App makes it easy to check on the go.  

Best Bets

The Industry Giant: Covergirl Clean Fresh Skin Milk Foundation, $13, shoppersdrugmart.ca The Pioneer: The Body Shop Shea Body Butter, $21, thebodyshop.com The Makeup Maestro: Kat Von D Beauty Tattoo Liner, $27, sephora.com Now that you’ve learned about the 3Rs for beauty products, check out the sustainable wellness items our editors love.

Scary fact #1: We dump around 2.12 billion tons of waste every year. Scary fact #2: As it stands, 75 percent of waste—including beauty products—in the U.S. is recyclable, yet only 30 percent is actually being recycled, according to the EPA. Unfortunately, your beauty routine has a major environmental impact, thanks to the overwhelming consumption of plastic and ingredients that may not be eco-friendly. Although it’s important to note that being sustainable is more than just a trend—it's the right thing to do all year long—with Earth Day coming around, there’s no better time to give your beauty routine an eco-friendly makeover. Here are five mistakes you’re probably making right now, and the appropriate solutions to fix them.

You’re not recycling your empties.

  Let’s kick it off with the most egregious beauty sin: not recycling your empties. Throwing your beauty products into the trash is a small move that has big consequences for our landmines and oceans.   The solution: Get yourself a dual compartment bin ($65; homedepot.com), that has a section for waste and another for recyclables. That way, when you go to throw any trash away, you’ll be reminded to recycle whenever possible.   If you don’t have a go-to source for dropping off your recyclables, beauty brands like Unilever have partnered up with Terracycle to collect hard-to-recycle items from around the world and convert them into consumer products. Not only will they pay for all shipping costs, they’ll also make a donation to charity for each brigade collection they receive.   Also, keep an eye out for beauty brands that offer recycling options in-house. L’Occitane has a great initiative where you can take any full-sized product from any brand to the store and it will give you 10 percent off any new full-sized product you buy that day. Origins allows you to bring back any empty Origins containers to the counter and the brand will ensure they are recycled. And Back to MAC is a program that gifts shoppers a free lipstick once they have returned six full-size empties to the store.  

2You’re buying from unsustainable brands.

  The beauty world is full of murky waters, especially when it comes to product sourcing. From vaguely worded promises to unclear labeling systems, brands that tout “cruelty-free” can have some misleading fine print.   The solution: Do your research! Ensure the brand is truly cruelty-free and against animal testing. The leaping bunny symbol is a guarantee that none of the products have been tested on animals. Sephora also has a green checkmark indicating products that are free of certain questionable and unwanted ingredients. Put down any product that contains phthalates, mercury, toluene, lead, or formaldehyde, as these chemicals are considered to be some of the most damaging to the planet.   When you’re shopping, look for sustainable beauty brands that have thoughtful packaging. Try to avoid Styrofoam, cartons, and PVCs where possible. Any packaging made with recycled material will be recyclable and likely list a disclaimer on the container. Case in point: Tata Harper‘s packaging is bottled in reusable and recyclable glass (with soy ink used for the labeling), while 85 percent of Aveda’s skincare and haircare products are made of 100 percent recycled materials.  

3You’re using disposable makeup wipes every day.

  As useful as single-use makeup wipes are, the cotton used to create makeup removal pads and buds are not biodegradable and don’t easily break down, causing too much trash to stack up in our landfills. What’s worse is that some are actually individually wrapped in plastic, doubling the amount of waste produced.   The solution: If you use a small mountain of cotton balls or wipes on the daily, consider switching to washable, reusable pads, like the Makeup Eraser Cloth ($20; sephora.com), that only require water to work. Not only will you be doing a huge favor for the environment, you also won’t have to restock as often and you’ll be saving your skin from all those harmful pesticides in regular cotton balls.  

4You’re not taking advantage of refill programs.

  Chances are you have some holy grail beauty products that you swear by—and you simply toss 'em and order another when you reach the bottom of the tube. Well, you might want to check if your favorites are refillable. More and more beauty brands are starting to offer intelligent refill systems that allow you to reuse your existing jars and containers.   The solution: Limit your packaging consumption with refillable makeup and skincare products. Myro, a chic deodorant company, has a subscription service that periodically sends you new scent cartridge refills that are ready to be popped in whenever you're running low. Rituals, an ayurveda-inspired bath and body brand, offers eco-friendly refills for their skincare and body products—just take out the bottom of the jar and replace. And Kjar Weis is a sustainable makeup brand with gorgeous compacts that can be used again and again. Simply remove the cartridge and refill with a fresh one when you hit pan.   But wait, there’s more! Loop is a program that gives customers the chance to buy products from beauty brands, like Dove, Pantene, and The Body Shop, while renting the packaging. You just pay for the contents and a deposit for the bottle and it’s delivered to your door via a carbon-neutral mode of transport. Let Loop know when you’re running low, return the empty bottle to be cleaned, and they’ll send a new product to you in reused packaging.  

5You’re a serial beauty dater.

  Every beauty lover is probably guilty of this one (myself included). Do you like to use different beauty products on rotation? From those products, do you tend to barely dip in before moving on the next one? If you’ve answered yes, you’re a serial beauty dater. This mindset feeds into the buy-and-throw-away mentality, which takes a hard toll on the environment (and your bank account).   The solution: Streamline your beauty routine! A good system to practice: Only add one new product to your routine once you’ve finished another one.   If you want to experiment, try doing it with brands that remove packaging from its products altogether. Lush, Ethique, and Love Beauty and Planet all have shampoo bars that come wrapped in recyclable paper that clean your hair without ingredients that hurt the environment when they go down the drain. Meow Meow Tweet and Davines also has a wide range of products, from bar soaps to facial products, that utilize paper tubes instead of plastic.   Now, if you do have a stash of products you just don't want anymore, lilah b. has a system that takes away your unwanted beauty goods (even if it's not theirs) for free. Just e-mail declutter@lilahbeauty.com to receive a prepaid return shipping label and ship over your unwanted stuff. They'll work with a dedicated partner to process and recycle them so you get to declutter and give back to the system.

The Long Beach Environmental Alliance (LBEA) began with a cigarette butt clean-up in downtown Long Beach.   The focus has been on collecting discarded cigarettes, a ubiquitous element of refuse that litters streets and ultimately washes out into the ocean.   “All of the cigarette butts are so easy to miss, if you’re driving on the street or walking too fast. If you stop and look closely, they’re there, on the sidewalks, in the gutters and all around our public bus stops,” John Kindred, co-founder of LBEA, said.   Cigarettes pose a huge detriment to both local and global marine life. According to the FDA, cigarettes contain as many as 93 potentially harmful constituents that are either carcinogens, respiratory toxicants, cardiovascular toxicants, reproductive or developmental toxicants, or addictive. In 2018, the Ocean Conservancy group recovered 2,412,151 cigarette butts as part of their International Coastal Cleanup effort. 842,837 of those were collected on American shores.   A study paid for by the University of California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program found that “leachate from cigarette butts is acutely toxic to representative marine and freshwater fish species” through a number of controlled tests.   “All of that gets in the food we eat,” Kindred said.   Kindred started the Long Beach Environmental Alliance in 2017 with co-founder Sokha Ny. Their mission statement reads, “Working together for local solutions to environmental issues through action, passion, and advocacy in the city of Long Beach.”   A cigarette but collection planned this coming Saturday, March 28, was canceled after "Safer At Home" restrictions prompted by the coronavirus pandemic was put into place. When collected, cigarette butts are sent to TerraCycle, a waste recycling organization. The residual tobacco from the refuse is used to make compost, while the non-biodegradable plastic filters in cigarettes are repurposed into construction pallets and other industrial products.   Before the ban on gatherings, the Long Beach Environmental Alliance conducted a beach clean-up event every fourth Sunday at Alamitos Beach. Kindred said cleanups are a great opportunity for students to log service hours.   “I tell the students that there is no greater way to see the impact we make on our environment than volunteering,” Kindred said.   LBEA will be attending a variety of Earth Month events at Cal State Long Beach in April. Events are posted to the group’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LBEnvironmentalAlliance.  

Today, environmentally conscious parents can feed their babies organic baby food and use recyclable non-BPA plastics. They can buy 100 percent fair trade cotton clothing and hand-crafted toys. These are easy choices.   But many parents still face the diaper dilemma. Baby's go through a lot of diapers and that means either using cloth which is labor intensive for a new mom or dad or going the disposable route. While this is more convenient, 20 billion diapers (even the greener brands) are tossed into landfills in the US every year according to the EPA and they can take 500 years to decompose. One company came up with a better option.   Parents can now ship their baby's dirty diapers  to be composted through a diaper subscription company called Dyper. The company that makes sustainable bamboo diapers has operated a subscription service since 2018 according to Fast Company.   The diapers are free of chlorine, latex, alcohol, perfumes, PVC, lotions, the chemicals tributyltin, or phthalates, and ink. While the diapers have always been compostable, city dwellers have had no way to do so until now.   “We talked to many moms that wish that they had that opportunity to compost, because they’re living in New York City in an apartment on the 24th floor and they have no option to do that,” but Taylor Shearer, content manager at Dyper told Fast Company.   Dyper just teamed up with TerraCycle to launch its ReDyper program where subscribers can send back the soiled diapers in special bags and boxes that meet the UN's HazMat shipping standards. When the box is full, parents only have to print out a prepaid shipping label and ship them. TerraCycle will compost the diapers to be used in places like the green areas of highway medians.   “It’s got to be super convenient. It’s got to be, frankly, as close to convenient as possible relative to throwing it out,” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. The company has run a small recycling center in Amsterdam for Pampers but nothing on this large a scale or with compostable diapers before.   There is an additional charge for the ReDyper system over the cost of the regular Dyper subscription. While these diapers cost more than picking up disposables at a local store, the value of these diapers are that they are eco-friendly.   “The value isn’t just calculated on the specific cost. We are not the least expensive and we’re not the most expensive, but we feel when we take this whole approach of using safe ingredients such as bamboo and nontoxic chemicals, and we don’t print on our diapers and our boxes, and offsetting, and trying to compost and getting people to compost, we feel the value is very real,” Bruce Miller, president of Dyper.   The company pledges to keep reinventing their products and improving their supply chain to become as  environmentally friendly as possible. Now we can protect our babies from chemicals and protect our planet too.

In the US, the new pouch will be available exclusively on TheGerberStore.com for Gerber’s Organic Banana Mango Puree beginning in May 2020.   It will be 100% recyclable through Gerber’s national recycling program with TerraCycle. In Finland, the pouch will be available for Piltti’s Apple Pear Blueberry Raspberry widely sold in supermarkets.   Thierry Philardeau, head of the Nutrition Strategic Business Unit, Nestle, said, “We are proud to have found a solution for the recyclability of baby food pouches.   We began in the US and Finland for two product variants, and we aim to gradually extend the use of single-material pouch to our baby food pouches range globally.”   This is in line with Nestle’s commitment to making 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.   The newly designed-to-be-recyclable pouch is made from polypropylene (PP), a versatile form of plastic available commercially.   This switch is expected to make more plastics infinitely recyclable and increase the value of the material for the recycling industry.   “This launch is an important milestone in how we execute our ambition to create a wider market for recycled plastics that are safe for food.   We will continue to work with other stakeholders to ensure that the infrastructure needed to recycle matches material innovation,” added Thierry Philardeau.

Do you know how to recycle an empty shampoo bottle or an old razor blade? Most of us do not and that is why it is estimated that in 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. Learn how to reduce your environmental footprint by starting in the bathroom . The cosmetics industry produces around 120 billion packages a year and most are not recycled, says Alex Payne , a spokesperson for TerraCycle, an organization specializing in salvaging difficult-to-recycle products and giving them a second life away from the landfill.   Throwing things in the recycling container without knowing what they are and if they are recyclable or not in your city is a phenomenon known as wish-cycling and that unfortunately is more common than you think. Another big mistake is not to empty and clean the containers before throwing them away. If you don't rinse them they can't be recycled! "Many products contain plastic microbeads that end up in the sea when they go down the drain," Payne explains. Look for natural and biodegradable alternatives, like this one with jojoba grain. Bia Exfoliating Wash, by Codex Beauty. $ 45. codexbeauty.com   If you want to contribute your grain of sand, pay extra attention to the materials from which your cosmetics are made, choose recycled and recyclable containers, and try to reduce the amount of plastic in your dressing table. For more information on how and where to throw your products, visit the TerraCycle website . Venus Embrace Swirl Color Blocked by Gillette. $ 12.99. In pharmacies.   Razor blades are one of the most difficult products to recycle because they combine plastic and metal, and we use so many! TerraCycle collaborates with brands like Gillette through programs where consumers can mail in their used blades or drop them off at gyms, stores and institutions that are part of the program and they take care of recycling.

Do you know how to recycle an empty shampoo bottle or an old razor blade? Most of us do not and that is why it is estimated that in 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. Learn how to reduce your environmental footprint by starting in the bathroom . The cosmetics industry produces around 120 billion packages a year and most are not recycled, says Alex Payne , a spokesperson for TerraCycle, an organization specializing in salvaging difficult-to-recycle products and giving them a second life away from the landfill. Throwing things in the recycling container without knowing what they are and if they are recyclable or not in your city is a phenomenon known as wish-cycling and that unfortunately is more common than you think. Another big mistake is not to empty and clean the containers before throwing them away. If you don't rinse them they can't be recycled! "Many products contain plastic microbeads that end up in the sea when they go down the drain," Payne explains. Look for natural and biodegradable alternatives, like this one with jojoba grain. Bia Exfoliating Wash, by Codex Beauty. $ 45. codexbeauty.com If you want to contribute your grain of sand, pay extra attention to the materials from which your cosmetics are made, choose recycled and recyclable containers, and try to reduce the amount of plastic in your dressing table. For more information on how and where to throw your products, visit the TerraCycle website. Venus Embrace Swirl Color Blocked by Gillette. $ 12.99. In pharmacies. Razor blades are one of the most difficult products to recycle because they combine plastic and metal, and we use so many! TerraCycle collaborates with brands like Gillette through programs where consumers can mail in their used blades or drop them off at gyms, stores and institutions that are part of the program and they take care of recycling.

A couple of years ago, luxury retailer Nordstrom collected data from its customers to get a better sense of their actions and sentiments about circularity, shopping and its impact on the environment. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they would drop off items for resale or donation, and 35 percent said they worried about the environmental impact of the clothing they owned. Nordstrom used these data points and others to inform its sustainability efforts. "We’re seeing circularity as an opportunity as well as an impact area for us to think about," said Chelsea Evans, sustainability lead at Nordstrom, during this week's GreenBiz Group webcast about how retailers can embrace the circular economy.  (You can watch the discussion on demand by signing up here.) There is no one perfect approach for a retailer to embrace circular business models or practices. There’s also no one way to prove the return on investment that comes from shifting to this mode of doing business. But there are plenty of compelling reasons to explore it — from doing less damage to the environment to meeting consumers’ growing desires to support businesses that are sustainable. We’re seeing circularity as an opportunity as well as an impact area for us to think about. In Nordstrom’s case, the retailer is using several approaches to embed circularity into its business model. One way it is doing so is by driving demand for products that are made or sourced from recycled materials. It is also getting everyone — including consumers — "on the same page with language" about what it means for a garment to be made of recycled materials. For example, when a company says a piece of apparel is made from recycled plastic bottles, what that really means is that the garment is made from recycled polyester. The retailer has created a section on its site to help customers filter through products that are sustainably sourced. As part of this resource, it includes brands that use at least 50 percent sustainably sourced materials — organic cotton, recycled polyester and materials that are Fair Trade Certified. The decision to create this guide was informed by the 59 percent of customers that said their purchasing decisions had been influenced by information about a company’s social or environmental policies, Evans said. Additionally, Nordstrom recently has launched a recommerce shop through a partnership with Trove (formerly Yerdle) where it takes back products and refurbishes damaged items for resale. "We’re excited to show our customers another way Nordstrom is striving to leave the world better than we found it, and circular fashion is another piece to this puzzle," said Pete Nordstrom, co-president at Nordstrom, in a statement.

Connecting circularity to emissions

Retailer IKEA, which sells an entirely different portfolio of products from Nordstrom and therefore has different needs when it comes to circularity, likewise started with the data to inform its priorities. In 2016, IKEA measured and cataloged the main source of the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to its operations. It found that more than 60 percent came from raw materials and consumer product use — at 38 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Lisa Davis, sustainability manager at IKEA, said one of the biggest challenges the company is trying to tackle is unsustainable consumption. "That brings us to how we connected those emissions to our strategy," Davis said, noting that one of IKEA's commitments is promoting circular and sustainable consumption to its customers. In 2016, IKEA collaborated with Goodwill to run a pilot take-back program in Charlotte, North Carolina, inviting customers to bring back furniture that was no longer of use to them. Workers from both organizations inspected the furniture and determined whether it would be taken to a Goodwill store to be resold or broken down and recycled. The following year, IKEA expanded the pilot to 41 stores. Davis said success for the program varied across sites, but IKEA is using its findings to inform future programs and has been working to implement circular economy principles in other parts of its business. Two places where strategies are under development: eliminating food waste and revamping its reverse logistics protocols.

The allure of reuse

Walgreens is another retailer that is embracing circular economy ideals, in partnership with Loop. Loop, a shopping service created by parent company Terracycle, enables customers to buy everyday products  — from deodorant to ice cream — that are packaged in reusable containers. "They’re basically operating off of the milkman model from the 1950s and a little after that but really looking at this very wide variety of products that people are using on a daily basis," said Lauren Stone, director of corporate social responsibility at Walgreens, during this week's webcast. In Loop's current, launch iteration, customers must ship back or find a UPS location to drop off the totes that are used to deliver products. Now in partnership with The Kroger Co. and Walgreens, customers will be able to drop off packaging in person at return kiosks that located are in physical stores. The launch is aimed for fall 2020 in Walgreens stores. Stone said that the Walgreens-Loop partnership will help customers who want to make more sustainable decisions about the retail products they purchase. While the concept of reuse is still novel to many people, by including exclusive, reusable options in stores, Walgreens is seeking to resolve consumer confusion while adding a layer of convenience for consumers who aren't comfortable with an entirely online experience. Don’t wait for a perfect solution because it doesn’t exist ... Take a first step in an area that is of importance to you, learn from that scenario... Walgreens acknowledges both the opportunities and challenges that come with implementing a reuse model in stores. The benefits include the chance for Walgreens to offer exclusive products and improve the sustainability of its operations, while the challenges include educating consumers about the process and making accommodations for the space that the return kiosks and merchandise will take up in stores. Each of these retailers on this week's webcast is implementing different strategies for embedding circular economy processes, and those initiatives will continue to adjust along the way. When the webinar wrapped up, each speaker offered advice to people working in other businesses thinking about embedding circularity into their work. They all echoed the line of thinking that you have to just start. "Don’t wait for a perfect solution because it doesn’t exist," Davis said. "Take a first step in an area that is of importance to you, learn from that scenario, get the data from consumers, get the results and use that to look at how you move forward."

With a large portion of storefronts shuttered across the country, the retail business is being slammed by the fight against COVID-19. In this edition of Beauty Independent’s ongoing series posing questions relevant to beauty entrepreneurs, we ask 12 retailers: What can beauty brands do to help you get through this crisis?