It is not every day you get the chance to have a refreshingly honest, down-to-earth conversation with the founder of a beauty brand that is taking the world by storm. Sarah Brown, founder of Pai Skincare, joined podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier for an epic Green Beauty Conversation that takes us on Pai's journey from garage start-up in 2007 to being voted the 5th most popular skincare brand in the world in 2021 with almost 5 million global online searches. A proudly independent, organic brand and unswerving in its commitment to making products in house, Pai stands out as not only one of the first natural cosmetics brands to arrive on the scene, but also as one that has stayed true to its founding principles. Financially viable, forward thinking and walking the walk on sustainability, Pai is at heart still very much an indie brand and a rarity in a beauty industry rife with greenwashing, buyouts, outsourcing and hype. This episode is a mine of information with behind-the-scenes insights into the daily life of a growing brand, and valuable to any would-be or early-stage beauty entrepreneur. Sarah Brown tells it straight with no fluff. If you want to know just what it takes to build a business born of a personal skincare need and grow it into a brand that has gained customer loyalty and is driven by ethics, passion and purpose, then settle in for 45 unstoppable minutes of beauty industry hard talk. Sarah launched Pai in 2007 as a certified organic skincare line for sensitive skin. Pai formulates and manufactures all its products from its custom-built facility in London. Previously, Sarah was International PR Manager for E&J Gallo Wines. In 2015, she joined the Board of Cosmetic Executive Women.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion in which Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier picks up on an important issue raised in the previous episode on carbon neutral beauty in her interview with the co-founders of BYBI Beauty. BYBI’s Elsie Rutterford and Dominika Minorovic said that to date, the time, effort and money spent on developing BYBI as a truly sustainable brand was not making a mark on consumer consciousness as a key reason to choose their brand’s products. Is sustainability not such a big issue for consumers after all? Lorraine quotes several leading opinion polls conducted in the past few years that tell a different story showing consumers are keen to buy from brands that put sustainability at the heart of their business. Lorraine points out that there is a clear mismatch between what consumers say they are doing or wish to do and what they are actually doing at the point of purchase. They are simply not voting with their wallets and choosing brands that embed sustainability in their DNA. Why is this? Some polls show that consumers don’t know how to tell if a brand or product is sustainable. So does the blame lie with the brands or the consumers? This grey area of responsibility blurs the action needed now which is for us all to reduce our consumption and go out of our way to question the brands we buy from. With greenwashing still rife - as we have heard in our episodes on waterless beauty and biodegradablity - we all as consumers need to take the responsibility for sustainability and not lay the blame elsewhere. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable. FREE FORMULATION RESOURCES Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

Uncontrolled beauty consumerism is inherently not a sustainable economic activity. We’ve said it before on the Formula Botanica podcast but it’s worth stressing again: the entire life cycle of a consumer beauty product from cradle to grave can be a long list of carbon-producing processes. The growing, harvesting, processing and shipping of raw, natural materials coupled with beauty product packaging, distribution, retailing and waste create a complex chain of potentially carbon-emitting steps and unsustainable practices. So, faced with this reality and a sense of overwhelm about the daily news on the climate crisis, what can an indie beauty brand meaningfully do to ensure it doesn’t burden the planet, or do even better by becoming planet positive? With this key question in mind, Green Beauty Conversations’ podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier invited the founders of indie brand BYBI to shed light on their mission to become not just a carbon neutral but also a carbon-negative – or planet-positive – beauty brand. In this insightful, no-holes-barred episode, Formula Botanica graduates and BYBI co-founders Dominika Minorovic and Elsie Rutterford prove the sceptics wrong. Listen in for some refreshing honesty in a world of greenwashing and hear how one beauty brand is carrying out sound plans to sink carbon while successfully selling skincare.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion in which Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares her opinions on the polarised debate about the sustainability of beauty ingredients that pits naturals vs synthetics - yet again.   Lorraine’s interview in the last episode with Emily King of FairWild raised nuanced questions about not just the sustainability of wild-harvested cosmetic ingredients, but also that of natural botanicals and synthetics in general.  Sustainability can be seen as a three-legged stool that functions  only if each leg - planet, people and profit - is in balance. Should we opt for a synthetic alternative if local communities who gather and trade ethically in the natural ingredient have their livelihoods wiped out?  Regulated, sustainable practices may support future generations and keep alive valuable cultural know-how and traditions.  As you can see, there is no black and white answer to the sustainability of any cosmetic ingredient, natural or synthetic. We simply don’t know if a synthetic or natural ingredient is more sustainable across all three pillars without meticulous research. Yet, some in the beauty industry, particularly voices on social media, would argue that synthetics are the more sustainable route to take now. This is far too simplistic a viewpoint. It dumbs down the discussion and ignores the complexity inherent in sustainable beauty.  Lorraine challenges us to think carefully about the arguments we hear articulated, and urges us as indie beauty advocates to keep an open mind.  Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Wild harvesting plants as cosmetic ingredients sounds idyllic. It conjures up visions of nature's botanical bounty going straight into beauty product formulations, barely processed or adulterated by human hand, and carefully selected from woodlands, hedgerows, forests, mountains and moors. Wild harvesting is certainly a marketer's dream. You will no doubt have seen beauty products sporting 'wild harvested' labels and brands mentioning on their packaging and websites that their products include wild-harvested botanicals. But harvesting any plant, whether a commercial crop or a wild plant, has an environmental impact. Wild harvesting may sound the ultimate way to source natural beauty ingredients, but how do we as consumers know if the wild harvesting of precious botanicals isn't leaving its own damaging footprint on the planet? Wild harvesting could turn out to be a far cry from the sustainable image it portrays. To help unpack the truth about wild harvesting, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier invited Emily King, business engagement officer in the secretariat of the FairWild Foundation, on the show. FairWild is a non-profit initiative with the mission to secure a fair and sustainable future for wild plant resources and people. Listen in to hear just how wild harvesting can be a real force for sustainable good - for planet, plants and people - if managed the right way.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion in which Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier asks if by using trending terms like 'waterless', the beauty industry is shying away from the very real challenges of sustainability.  Waterless is on the beauty industry’s lips, and follows on from concepts like carbon neutral and biodegradable beauty, skinimalism, beauty miles and more. But, waterless is a particularly irritating term as behind the scenes every beauty product leaves a water footprint, large or small. Waterless is no doubt used by well-meaning beauty brands keen to do the right thing for the environment. But, as Lorraine argues, by heralding the latest concept as yet another definitive blueprint for sustainability, the beauty industry is glossing over issues and avoiding the elephant in the room: its inherently unsustainable model of rampant economic growth built on finite resources. Latching on to single concepts deflects attention from the far more challenging blueprint for sustainability the industry needs to adopt. Lorraine invites us all to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk in our drive for beauty industry sustainability. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Waterless beauty is on everyone's lips these days and waterless products are being touted as a key pillar of the beauty industry's drive for sustainability.  But, as with most beauty industry buzzwords, the term waterless has the potential to be hype, hot air and just another case of greenwashing. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier, a biologist and chartered environmentalist, is joined by colleague and deputy education manager Ana Green to unpack the waterless beauty trend. Listen in for a reality check on the meaning of waterless. Does it have substance or it is just another beauty industry marketing term that doesn't stand scrutiny? In this episode on waterless beauty, you will hear: How the term waterless has gone from meaning simply anhydrous products and then more concentrated solid products to being equated firmly with sustainability. About the 4 key reasons waterless beauty products have captured consumers' hearts and minds. How a beauty product may have a totally waterless formulation, but will inevitably leave a water footprint throughout its life cycle. Why waterless beauty can be considered window dressing and that the sustainability issues facing the beauty industry are far more nuanced. Key take-outs include: Waterless skincare in the true sense of anhydrous products has plenty to offer beauty consumers.  Water plays an important role in skincare products. An optimal beauty routine would involve hydrating the skin topically with water-based products which can also impart water-soluble, active ingredients. It is misleading to use waterless to imply a product is automatically a more sustainable option. Instead, the beauty industry should be talking about 'water-responsible' beauty and practices.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion in which Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier shares her main takeouts from the previous episode interviewing Jessi Baker, MBE, Founder and CEO, of Provenance, a software solution helping brands build trust and enabling change through transparent communications. Traditionally, the beauty industry and consumers have thought of transparency as relating to ingredients alone, and focused on the near polar debate of natural good, synthetics bad. However, when it comes to transparency about sustainability, the debate is more nuanced. Eradicating greenwashing requires us to ask questions about beauty brands’ commitment to recycling, waste, the climate, their social footprint and far more. And we need transparent, verifiable evidence of any claims they make. Thankfully, with the power of tech solutions, companies like Provenance are independent auditors of claims, helping propel brands to a more sustainable place and in doing so helping consumers make more sustainable choices. Lorraine challenges us to think about what is important to us in the beauty products we buy and to press beauty brands for transparency about more than their ingredients. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenge us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

The beauty sector is a half-a-trillion-dollar global industry, but it's only recently that beauty brands are finally starting to take part in the sustainability conversation. Largely, this is in response to greater consumer demands for transparency in how beauty does business - all the way from its supply chains to the truth behind its claims. We've seen this play out on this podcast. Over the past year, sustainability has featured in just about all our episodes in some form. We have covered topics such as circular, net zero, zero waste and climate neutral beauty along with the issues like biodegrability, sustainable retail and skinimalism. But, there are plenty of brands, from multinationals to indie beauty, who are are out there using sustainability terms as a veneer; green-washing us in other words. How do we as beauty consumers verify the truth of a beauty brand's claim that their packaging is made of recycled materials? Or that they’ve offset their last year’s carbon emissions? None of us can hold every single beauty brand to account on every single impact. One ambitious entrepreneur is on a mission to change that by encouraging the beauty industry, as well as many other industries, to verify their claims and turn positive social and environmental impact into brand value; a win-win for brands and consumers. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Jessi Baker, MBE, the founder and CEO of Provenance, a software solution verifying sustainability claims and helping empower shoppers to make sustainable, ethical choices at the point of purchase.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion on the challenges indie beauty faces in sourcing natural ingredients. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares her views on the main takeouts from the podcast interview with Timo von Bargen of Covalo, a one-stop platform representing 40k beauty industry suppliers. Lorraine welcomes the arrival of innovative marketplaces like Covalo and praises entities like in-cosmetics Global, which facilitate the matchmaking of suppliers with customers. But, she reminds us that indie beauty has faced an enormous uphill struggle to be recognised by ingredients' manufacturers as a force in the industry. Even today, some in the industry don’t understand that the indie businesses of today can be the giants of tomorrow. Formula Botanica has seen this attitude change and is itself now approached by suppliers keen to reach indie beauty brands. However, the industry seems to have forgotten that some famous, decades-old beauty brands were in fact started by indie formulators. Lorraine challenges us to connect and communicate as a collective voice to change the dominant culture in some quarters of beauty industry that downplays the value of indie business. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Finding cosmetic ingredients is one of the first challenges every indie formulator faces. After all, we want our ingredients to be natural, sustainable, efficacious and, ideally, available in small Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs). However, the big wide world of cosmetic ingredient suppliers has not set itself up to cater for indie beauty. Suppliers generally don't realise that today’s indie formulators may become tomorrow’s industry giants. We've a good many of our graduate brands at Formula Botanica which have grown large and fast and are now taking overseas markets by storm.  So, how do indie beauty brands find and source the innovative, plant-based ingredients that will set them apart and help them formulate effective products and grow remarkable brands? In this episode, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Timo von Bargen of Covalo, a comprehensive search platform that connects beauty brands with over 40K suppliers. Covalo offers access to a huge ecosystem of cosmetic ingredients as well as listings of suppliers of packaging, and services such as contract manufacturing, formulation, regulatory compliance and testing. These are all areas of the beauty supply chain and business that small indie brands have to grapple with. But how do they find their way through the thousands of possible solutions and ingredients? We encourage you to listen in for some very useful advice and tips to help you on your formulating journey.

Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion on the sustainability of the beauty industry. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares her own views on the main takeaways from the previous episode with guest Anna Teal of the British Beauty Council. Lorraine, a chartered environmentalist herself, praises the British Beauty Council’s 2020 report ‘Courage to Change’ which raises the industry's unsustainable practices and challenges it to change. But, she asks if the industry can ever do more than pay lip service to sustainability if rampant consumption of beauty products lies at the heart of its economic model. There needs to be a complete rethink in the way the entire sector operates, from manufacturers, retailers and buyers to the media right down to individual shoppers. Lorraine is astonished that the beauty industry, while talking sustainability, has gone silent on the elephant in the room: its traditional model of volume-driven profit. After all, we can't shop our way to sustainability. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

"For beauty brands, the risk of not changing is starting to outweigh the risk of changing, uncertain and fraught with challenges as it may be." When Green Beauty Conversations' host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier read words like these in the British Beauty Council's report, The Courage to Change, she realised that the beauty industry had reached more than a light bulb moment in its drive for sustainability. The Council's 48-page report, which is full of wake-up call statistics and hard-hitting quotes from surveys and leading industry names, is more than window dressing. It shows that the British Beauty Council, a not-for-profit body founded just over three years ago, is already a catalyst for that change. The beauty industry impacts the environment heavily and touches all of us whether we're directly involved in the industry or not. From the obvious actors such as personal care manufacturers and beauty retailers to each of us taking a shower every day, this is one industry that we all participate in. The beauty industry is not traditionally known for its collaborative approach nor to value the environment more than the volumes of product it churns out. However, the Council's report states that some 88% of consumers want brands to do more to help them make a difference. Given the sheer diversity and scale of this sector, how can its players collaborate and be the actors of change consumers are demanding? Lorraine spoke to Anna Teal, The British Beauty Council's Pillar President for Innovation and a leader with over two decades in the commercial beauty sector. Listen in to hear how the Council, headed by visionaries like Anna Teal, is determined to help the beauty industry change the habits of a lifetime.

Welcome to our Green Beauty Opinion on the sustainability of essential oils hosted by Lorraine Dallmeier, Formula Botanica CEO, who is also a Chartered Environmentalist and biologist. In this short opinion piece, Lorraine picks up on the key takeouts from the last episode when she spoke to Dr Sally Gouldstone, a long-time conservationist and founder of Scotland-based natural skincare brand Seilich. The overuse and misuse of essential oils is worrying not only qualified aromatherapists but also environmentalists. Essential oils can leave a heavy production footprint to the detriment of the planet. Urging us to reduce our use of essential oils, Lorraine points to botanical alternatives that formulators can explore for their scent and skin benefits and talks about the option to go fragrance free. Can you cut down on your own personal use of essential oils? Would you pay more to buy the limited amount you need from ethical suppliers that support a sustainable essential oil industry? Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

A few decades ago, essential oils were used mainly by aromatherapists and barely featured in our daily lives. Now, we use essential oils in everything from cosmetics to household cleaners. Essential oils are also a mainstay of natural skincare where they are used for their gorgeous scents and also as skin-beneficial ingredients. However, our use of essential oils is putting pressure on plants, pollinators and the planet's sustainability. Essential oils are big business for entities like multi-level marketing companies and large cosmetics' manufacturers. Even indie beauty, which generally works in small batches and low volumes, is contributing to the global demand for essential oils. Lorraine Dallmeier, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO, talks to Dr Sally Gouldstone, conservationist and Founder of natural skincare company Seilich. Sally puts forward some controversial opinions on essential oil use and starts by asking: "Just how essential to our lives are essential oils?" This episode challenges Sally to square the circle for natural formulators who want to continue using essential oils, but mindfully and sustainably.

Welcome to our Green Beauty Opinion on sustainable beauty retail. Lorraine Dallmeier, Formula Botanica CEO, a chartered environmentalist and biologist, voices her views on the key takeouts of the last episode with Jazmin Alvarez, founder of retailer Pretty Well Beauty.  In this short opinion piece, Lorraine says that the retail industry has the power and responsibility to make sweeping changes to the way cosmetics are sold.  While we are now seeing schemes such as Clean at Sephora and Target Clean, most large beauty retailers are fumbling in the dark about what to do.  Should mainstream retailers start refusing to stock some big name brands because they can’t demonstrate their sustainability credentials yet - if ever?  Can we envisage a retail world with store categories such as Circular, Biodiversity, and Zero Waste?  Consumers are seeking out these labels already. Systemic change won’t happen overnight but we encourage beauty retail to start having those conversations with brands. Lorraine challenges us to speak up and ask retailers for evidence of beauty brands’ sustainability credentials.  Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Sustainable beauty is sometimes seen as a subset of clean, green, natural beauty and more, however the single word sustainable hides a very complex set of questions and definitions. What is sustainable to one beauty brand, may not be for another. So when a beauty retailer sets out to attract and sell only sustainable beauty brands, it challenges itself to define sustainability and sort out the pseudo sustainable from those beauty brands blazing a trail in the field. Green Beauty Conversations podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Jazmin Alvarez, founder of New York-based clean beauty retailer Pretty Well Beauty about her drive to showcase the best sustainable, clean beauty indie brands about. Pretty Well Beauty already stocks one Formula Botanica graduate brand. Rarely do you find a clean beauty brand that isn't passionate also about reducing its environmental footprint and in promoting sustainability. But just how do you go about vetting beauty brands' credentials and finding out about their journeys to sustainability? This is the mission Jazmin set herself when she launched Pretty Well Beauty. And as a 14-year veteran of a parallel sector, fashion, before setting up her pioneering retail enterprise, Jazmin is well attuned to the issues of sustainability - or its lack - in the beauty world. In this episode, Jazmin explains her views and definition of sustainability and talks about the mutual and beneficial relationship sustainable retailers can build with indie brands who together are dedicated to paying more than lip service to sustainability.

Welcome to Green Beauty Opinions. In this five-minute short, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier reflects on the key takeouts of the last episode with Austin Whitman, CEO and founder of Climate Neutral; a non-profit actively assisting beauty brands to become certified to its carbon neutral standards. Sustainability will define the next decade in beauty and beyond. With indie beauty brands coming under intense pressure to demonstrate their sustainability credentials, and facing a bewildering number of new certification options, Lorraine queries how they can decide which schemes to embrace. And how does a brand measure its carbon footprint and in a way that is open to public scrutiny?  Lorraine prompts us as beauty consumers to be a ‘sustainability task force’, pressing for change in the industry, but also reflecting on what we really need to use and buy.  Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Climate neutral is one of the hottest trending terms in the beauty industry at the moment. But, claiming carbon or climate neutrality is a massive undertaking which is why beauty brands that are investing in ways to reduce their carbon footprint tend to work on offsetting instead. When we came across a non-profit entity set up to help companies devise a road map to become climate neutral, we were enthusiastic about its mission but also sceptical about how this would be possible. At Formula Botanica, we praise any efforts indie beauty brands take to incorporate sustainability into their business. But what does it mean to become climate neutral? What's involved? And how do you know a brand is doing the right thing? To shed light on carbon neutrality and its application to the beauty business, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier spoke to Austin Whitman, CEO of non-profit Climate Neutral. Founded in 2019, Climate Neutral is a new certification scheme helping businesses in every sector become certified to its standards. With Lorraine a chartered environmentalist and biologist, this episode of Green Beauty Conversations drills right down into the grey areas about how we measure our carbon footprint and asks how small, indie beauty brands can hope to make sense of it. This episode demystifies carbon footprints and inspires beauty brands of whatever size or stage in business to start their own journeys to climate neutrality.

Welcome to our Green Beauty Opinion on biodegradable beauty.  In our five-minute opinion pieces, Formula Botanica CEO, chartered environmentalist and biologist Lorraine Dallmeier voices her thoughts on key issues facing the beauty industry and sets us a challenge to make the sector a better place.  Commenting on the topic of biodegradable beauty, Lorraine says that the industry isn't yet leading the conversation on the issue. Despite all the noise about biodegradability, it is shocking how little information there is on how the beauty industry is embracing it. Having a 'biodegradable' label on products and packaging can hide the environmental impacts of production; for instance, the use of resource-heavy industrial composting plants.  Lorraine acknowledges that some big beauty brands are investing in biodegradability but says that many claims are not backed up. And how can indie beauty brands hope to join the biodegradable movement?  Are bioplastics the answer? What about the use of child labour in producing green packaging options? Should the change start with consumers buying less? And what about circular beauty's prospects? Not every solution is clear-cut and consumers are left in the dark.   Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.

Biodegradable is a common label today on consumer packaging but what exactly does it mean? After all, everything can biodegrade over time, although it might take thousands of years. And while we tend to focus on the biodegradability of packaging, there is also the matter of the product itself. What happens to the expired face creams we dollop into our household waste bins or the hair conditioners that wash away with the shower water?  This podcast digs deep into this most complex of concepts. We weren't surprised to discover that biodegradable lacks a rigid definition, that it is easily confused with composting - a related but different process - and that even many giants in the beauty industry fail to provide clear facts about just how their packaging and products are biodegradable. Biodegradable is yet another grey area for beauty consumers. After this episode, we're sure you will be asking questions about the biodegradable labels you come across and demand to know more. But would your best policy be to simply reduce the amount of beauty products you consume? Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier, a chartered environmentalist and biologist talks to colleague Ana Green, who is Formula Botanica’s Deputy Education Manager and has for many years been taking a long hard look at the environmental impacts of the beauty industry and its packaging. Together, they put a definition to this term and explain the complexities of breaking down a cosmetic formulation and its packaging in the environment.

Eryca Freemantle joins Green Beauty Conversations to take us through her life's work championing diversity in the beauty industry. Her career literally started out by accident and led her on a mission to help shape the lives of women of all skin tones working in the beauty industry.  From her own experiences in an empowering career in makeup artistry to stars and celebrities, Eryca has created a movement and platform that is a force for others. Formula Botanica CEO, Chartered Environmentalist, Biologist and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier caught up with Eryca Freemantle to discuss how her powerful personal story became a catalyst for her motivational, inclusive platform E.A.T.O.W - Embracing All Tones of WoMen - with the capital 'M' denoting the inclusion of men too. E.A.T.O.W. offers mentoring, courses, coaching and business strategy as well as runs a Make-up Artist of the Year Award. Eryca is proof that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, 'Accident is the greatest of all inventors'. From starting with nothing to traveling the world as makeup artist to stars and celebrities such as singers Seal, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson and later as an advisor to the London College of Fashion and the UK's Prince's Trust, Eryca is a life force and inspiration for the beauty industry; and a women of her time, helping others in her sector embrace the diversity the industry sorely needs.

So what's new in the world of CBD or cannabidiol skincare? Quite a lot it seems. Cannabidiol cosmetics are now mainstreaming as major supermarket and drugstore shelves testify. You can find CBD cosmetics ranging from skincare to haircare as well as, more surprisingly, in cosmetics like makeup - even mascara. With CBD in cosmetics commonplace - though still illegal as well as highly regulated in some parts of the world - we wondered whether brands' and consumers' fascination with cannabinoids is likely to fade. Is the beauty industry milking the CBD trend as a cash-cow while it lasts? Has it gone too far by including cannabinoids in formulations where it makes no sense? And just how can indie beauty brands use CBD in their formulations and gain a share of what is now a very crowded CBD skincare marketplace? To answer these questions and more, podcast host, chartered environmentalist, biologist and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier turned to Colleen Quinn, who is an award-winning, celebrated clinical aromatherapist, cosmetic chemist and researcher specialising in cannabis research, formulations and education. With a book on CBD skincare publishing as we go on air, Colleen is certainly the go-to industry expert to help unpack the truths from the myths and make sense of CBD as a highly effective, active cosmetic ingredient. Colleen Quinn, Founder LabAroma and Labcannamist, is committed to delivering functional, therapeutic, plant-based products. Her mission is to inspire and empower people to become a confident plant enthusiasts skilled in curating truly effective therapeutic plant remedies by understanding plant science and backed with evidence. 

Circular beauty is on the beauty industry’s lips and may seem yet another trend that’s here today and gone tomorrow. However, circular beauty should not be seen as a ‘trend’ at all. It comes under the concept of the circular economy or ‘cradle-to-cradle’ principle, which sees products as having a lifecycle in a loop. Most of us have heard of the ‘cradle-to-grave’ linear lifecyle in which products see out their useful life to be disposed of sustainably. In the cradle-to-cradle product loop though resources used in and for product manufacture effectively stay in circulation. They are reused, recycled, reclaimed, upcycled and so on. The circular economy has zero tolerance of any waste and byproducts that can’t be recovered and returned to the loop; if not the original product loop, then someone else’s. While the concept of the circular economy is fairly easy to grasp, the same cannot be said for putting its principles into action. The beauty industry in particular is a newcomer to the concept, which is why circular beauty may seem yet another sector trend. As beauty products are ultimately washed off, absorbed by the skin, evaporate, are sloughed off with the skin or ditched – responsibly, we hope – it is impossible for the beauty sector to truly conform to the circular economy. However, there are ways in which beauty product manufacturers, and we include indie beauty here too, can change their outlook and their processes to adopt circular economy practices. They can start to design its principles into their businesses and set their sights on aspiring to its aims. At Formula Botanica, we have yet to come across a really insightful, practical definition of the term as it applies to beauty, and in particular, indie beauty. So, in this episode, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier discusses with colleague Ana Green the very challenging concept of circular beauty giving us plenty of encouraging, practical examples of it in action. The beauty industry has always had its pioneers. Circular beauty needs current and next generations of beauty entrepreneurs to take up its challenges now and not pay lip service to it as a ‘trend’ – for the planet’s sake. In this episode on circular beauty, you will hear: The 4 key principles of circular beauty and how they differ from and go way beyond the 'do no harm' mantra of most beauty industry efforts to be sustainable. Examples of big and small beauty industry players who are taking practical, meaningful steps to include circular beauty in part of their production processes; and how some indie beauty business are leading the way! A run through some of the barriers facing beauty businesses and a realistic assessment of just how challenging circular beauty is to the industry. The effective and easier to implement ways indie beauty can play its part; for instance, by formulating products that can be used in lower quantities and therefore keep resources out of 'the loop'. Key take-outs The key take-outs include the first steps a beauty brand should take if they want to bring circularity into their business model, which are: Digging deep into the supply chain of all your supplies, from ingredients to packaging, which might prove challenging and take resourcefulness and perseverance; Looking at redesigning products to reduce their footprint and keep sourced materials to a minimum; Knowing exactly how much waste your business creates - and include packaging waste you pass on to your customers; and Seeking ways to create environmental net gain, not just mitigating your footprint's damage by, for example, giving to charities.

The story of green beauty in Africa is simply not shouted about. The natural cosmetics' world is familiar with African ingredients in their raw state, such as that mainstay of anhydrous formulations shea butter or newer oils on the market such as baobab and moringa. But what do we know about African green beauty entrepreneurs who view their native ingredients as an integral part of their cultural heritage and who are pioneering beauty brands within their continent? They are not only working with the raw natural ingredients their forebears did, but they are also creating innovative, high-performance cosmetics from their native, plant-based resources. The world just doesn't hear much about how the African green beauty industry is growing rapidly, creating and responding to demand for quality and high-performance cosmetic products. It deserves recognition as a rich, diverse and valuable economic sector not just as a raw ingredients' supplier. Today, for the most part, the rest of the world has little exchange with the African beauty industry apart from its commodities. But we hope this will change, and soon. To find out more about the green beauty sector in Africa, we talked to two amazing women pioneers of green beauty within Africa. Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier hosted a panel discussion with Nancy Ndukwe-Ositelu, Executive Director of BeautyFestAfrica, the first and largest learning conference for pan-African beauty business professionals within Africa and the diaspora; and Valerie Obaze, beauty entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the award-winning skincare brand R&R Luxury in 2010, following the birth of her first daughter. The two guests explain the main challenges facing beautypreneurs across the continent and about some solutions that the international cosmetics and business world can help with. Importantly, we explore what green beauty in Africa can teach the global beauty and cosmetics world.

May Lindstrom, CEO and founder of cult LA-based indie beauty brand that carries her name, mother of two young children, and partner in business with her CFO husband, joined us for a remarkable episode of Green Beauty Conversations. If you know May Lindstrom, the chances are it is through her brand's fabulously coloured Blue Cocoon Beauty Balm Concentrate; a product that has seen many a copy-cat. This episode of Green Beauty Conversations only touches on this hero product because it is the truly unique, quiet and mindful way May Lindstrom has built her business that caught our attention. In some ways, May's personal journey to starting 'May Lindstrom the brand' resonates with many founders in the indie, natural beauty space. She has hypersensitive skin and spent her childhood to early twenties desperately seeking ways to alleviate a raft of skin problems triggered by using synthetic ingredients in mainstream personal care. But, this is where May Lindstrom's backstory parts ways with other indie beauty founders. A childhood amidst nature and parents who taught her to see magic in the great outdoors, gave May her lasting sense of responsibility to humanity and nature. Her formative experiences and deeply-rooted personal philosophies drove the brand at start up, and still do today even as it has reached iconic status. Interestingly, May, ever a creative child, became an art student, model and make-up artist but had once set her sights on becoming a chef with her own restaurant. May is not called 'The Skin Chef' for nothing. Her products are renowned for their high-quality, ethically- and sustainably-sourced ingredients. May takes obsessive care in sourcing natural botanical cosmetic ingredients directly from trusted, vetted farmers and other suppliers just as if she were cooking with them and nourishing her own family from within. In this podcast, host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier reveals the May Lindstom behind her now celebrity status to discover a truly atypical, indie beauty brand founder. May puts sourcing the highest quality ingredients before growth and people most certainly before profit, is unphased by copy-cat products and will pull out of big retailers even when profitable if they can't support her brand in line with her high standards. As she says, with each product having her name on it, May Lindstrom is still a very personal business with all the good times and the difficulties that come with keeping things relatively small in a very big, profit-driven industry. Listen in for a chance to hear how May Lindstrom founder and brand thrive by bucking the beauty industry normal. In this episode with May Lindstrom, you will hear: How in formulating for her own skin issues and for individual clients with severe skin problems gave May her expertise in ingredients and how to make products effective, but that skincare needs also and as importantly to be sensorial, magical and beautiful and take you to a different space. Why May deliberately formulated a capsule collection beauty range rather than felt pressured to continually release new products. 'Choice can be paralysing', May says. A multitasking, smaller range is also in line with the current minimalism trend in skincare. Why your customer's opinion comes first. Listen directly to clients about what they like or don't in a formula and reformulate to respond to their needs. Do this rather than pump out new stock to suit retailers (who often don't have the systems in place to sell your current stock well before its Best Before dates anyway!). How May Lindstrom retains complete control over her company to ensure they own the entire manufacturing process. 'Ingredient integrity' is of paramount importance to indie beauty brands if they wish to differentiate. Outsourcing means you often lose control over the provenance of your ingredients and you won't know how they went from seed to skincare. Why May doesn't like to focus on categories such as 'green', 'clean' beauty. Her philosophy is to make skincare with kindness that connects people to themselves and helps them find their own kind of beautiful. This approach underpins all her formulations. Key take-outs include: If you think of sustainability as just packaging, you are so far behind! May Lindstrom ensures every aspect of the company seeks to operate sustainably; by paying a living wage (and in line Los Angeles rates); hand selecting ingredient suppliers and farmers who run ethical, sustainable businesses; and drilling down into the provenance of every component in their operations. A successful beauty business needs to change lives, not just turn a profit. Ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing, and if it lifts others up either changing their skin and/or changing their relationship with their skin. Any brand can create good skincare, but to differentiate itself it needs compassion, commitment and courage to think differently. May Lindstrom is growing direct-to-consumer business in preference to expanding into more retailers as it wishes to keep greater control of its values and and product quality at the point of sale. Copycat brands and products are unlikely to be a threat if you work to establish your credentials as an ethical brand. Products may be copied but you alone own your founding philosophy as an indie beauty brand. Discover May Lindstrom: Website: maylindstrom.com Instagram: @maylindstromskin

Parabens is a collective name for a group of chemicals used as preservatives in consumer products such as food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. They have been synthesised in labs for almost 100 years. So far then, parabens seem quite boring ingredients. But, in just under two decades, parabens have become the bogeymen of the beauty industry, pitting at times the mainstream personal care industry and science against indie beauty, the media and beauty consumers. Even someone with just a passing interest in the personal care industry is bound to have heard about parabens in cosmetics products. Just take a look at row of cosmetics on any drugstore shelf these days and you're likely to come across a good many brands sporting the words 'paraben free' on their packaging; even though in some places, like the EU, it is considered unfair competition. Parabens are permissible in cosmetics in the EU at regulated levels. If they have been known of and in use since the 1920s, surely we know a great deal about their possible side effects in our consumer goods like cosmetics? When and why did consumers' parabenoia, as we call it, take hold and is the vilification of parabens justified? In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier, a biologist and Chartered Environmentalist, digs deep into paraben science, history and hysteria. She takes a neutral standpoint to dissect the facts from the fiction. Lorraine talks us through the controversy and timeline as parabens moved out of science labs into media stories provoking a crisis in beauty consumer confidence and on to their pivotal moment in pioneering the indie beauty movement. This is the episode to listen to if you've ever wanted to get behind the headlines and truly understand the furore over parabens in cosmetics. Will parabens continue to coexist with natural, paraben-free beauty? Has indie beauty been too hard on them? Lorraine presents the debate, but only you can decide. In this episode on parabenoia, you will: Find out that the defining moment for parabens was research published in 2004 showing that parabens had been found in breast cancer tissue. While no evidence of causal linkage was provided by this research, from then on, parabens were vilified by many as 'toxic chemicals'. Learn that no scientific evidence has yet suggested that all parabens need to be removed from cosmetics but that the lack of concrete evidence hasn’t shifted public opinion on parabens. Hear that since the outcry over parabens, a long list of chemicals used in cosmetics including Sodium laureth sulfate, phthalates and PEG compounds were added to those to avoid in personal care - often to the disdain of cosmetic scientists. Discover that first the DIY beauty movement and then early entrant natural beauty brands emerged as consumers sought to avoid buying 'nasty chemical-laden' beauty products. Early indie beauty products often couldn't compete with mainstream products in terms of performance. This gave big beauty leverage - and so the two camps of natural and mainstream cosmetics became even more divided and not only over the paraben issue. Key take-aways include: Thanks to the paraben saga and its aftermath, consumers are far more aware of science's role in cosmetic formulation and are sceptical of claims whether made by mainstream or indie beauty brands. Indie beauty/natural beauty are coming of age and realising they need to present the inherent benefits of natural cosmetics rather than live off scaremongering and using 'free-from' claims. The paraben story has now come full circle as mainstream cosmetics giants and ingredients manufacturers are ploughing research into natural ingredients and products and also listening to and even investing in indie beauty brands. Parabens and their fellow decried chemicals not only created the indie beauty sector but also changed the mainstream too - time will tell just how defining parabens have been to  both camps in the beauty industry!

Over the three years of the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, we have looked critically at almost all trending catchwords, phrases and terms used in the beauty industry. Clean, green, waterless, zero waste, upcycled, microbiome, essential, raw and blue beauty are just some we've covered. A term very much on the rise in early 2021 is conscious beauty. And who better to define conscious beauty than The Conscious Beauty Union; an entity committed to informing and guiding beauty professionals such as makeup artists, beauticians and salon practitioners on how to make sound, informed conscious choices about the cosmetics they buy, use or promote? In this episode, host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier talks to the three co-founders of The Conscious Beauty Union (CBU) - Khandiz Joni, Tahira Herold and Lou Dartford - to find out not only about the CBUs' role but also to drill into the fine print on conscious beauty, and in particular what it means to the wider industry as well as beauty consumers. The Conscious Beauty Union is an informal education platform helping beauty professionals develop sustainable practices but its voice should resonate with anyone engaged in beauty. The CBU defines conscious beauty as making informed choices about one product over another by knowing as much as we can about its full lifecycle. While sustainable beauty is about looking at perhaps single aspects of a brand or product, such as the packaging or how a key ingredient is harvested, conscious beauty takes a holistic, global view. Conscious beauty examines categories that go beyond sustainability. The aim is for us all, from beauty industry insiders to consumers to be able to make conscious beauty purchases based also, for example, on a brand's transparency, promotion of inclusivity and its ethics. In this episode on conscious beauty, you will: Find out about the key differences between conscious beauty and sustainable beauty; Discover that conscious beauty is about giving us the information to start our own journey of travel towards making better beauty consumer choices and is not a prescriptive way of engaging with beauty products; Realise that conscious beauty will mean different things to different people; our ability to put conscious beauty into practice will vary with location and budget and, in the case of beauty professionals such as makeup artists or salon practitioners, with the role of beauty products in their jobs; and Find out that conscious beauty can mainstream if we all make steps to start asking questions everyday about our beauty purchasing habits and about the beauty brands we use. Key take-outs include: The Conscious Beauty Union offers an educational platform and movement to help beauty professionals (and others) start to ask the questions to make conscious choices about their beauty buying and usage habits. It has member-only advice, educational webinars, articles and other training and information as well as invaluable free resources on its site. We should celebrate and feel proud as beauty consumers, professionals and brands of the small wins on our journey to more conscious beauty rather than feel guilty about how we engaged with and used perhaps less ethical or sustainable beauty products in the past. We need to accept what we can do with the information we have at the time on a product or brand and lever that to motivate us to educate also our own audiences and circles, whether friends and family or beauty industry colleagues, partners and customers.

Did you know that the age of minimalist skincare had dawned in the beauty market? But is our desire to do more for our skin with less really filtering down to our habits as beauty consumers? Can we resist the allure of new products with their promises and claims? Just ask yourself how many beauty products are on your bathroom shelves? If you've 16 and counting then you are in good company as that is the average number of beauty products women use daily. A glance at the social media 'shelfies' shows just how much we are in love with having a range of cosmetics. But, there are two sides to the story of how we consume beauty products. The beauty industry is one of the world's most unsustainable as its business model is driven by its need to constantly bring new products to market. As beauty consumers we therefore need to take a long hard look at whether we need a latest, new, improved or wonder product. Perhaps one product can multitask and save us the need for more. And we need to ask if the products we use are truly essential for our skin health and our well being? In this episode, host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier, a passionate advocate of less is more and a biologist and chartered environmentalist, discusses with colleague Ana Green how both the beauty industry and beauty consumers must share responsibility for making the industry more sustainable. From our purchasing habits and our hoarding of products to how the industry is geared for profit, this Green Beauty Conversation explores the meaning of 'essential' in beauty consumerism today. In this episode on minimalist skincare, you will hear: About the difference between essential, functional, pleasurable and minimalist skincare; How essential means different things to different people and that one person's 'essential' may be irrelevant to another beauty consumer so there can be no standard defining essential; How consumers have difficulty navigating the swathes of new beauty products with their new ingredients and efficacy claims; That while the beauty industry is looking at packaging and recycling in its quest to be more sustainable, it has largely refused to address its age-old business model which requires it to make more and encourage consumers to buy more, thereby depleting world resources; and how Big beauty brands should be encouraged to share their findings in areas such as sustainable packaging with smaller brands and indie beauty so the gains made for the environment are multiplied. Key take-outs include: Don't be led into thinking that affordably priced, single ingredient skincare is necessarily the ideal. You may end up buying more low-priced, single focus products. The layering of multiple, single focus skincare products, especially those not designed to work together, can have a detrimental effect on the skin, impairing its natural barrier. Over exfoliation and damage from over use of Retinol are two examples often cited on social media these days. Beauty consumers should aim to reduce consumption by buying fewer, longer-lasting products and choosing multipurpose products with fewer (essential) ingredients and by ensuring they finish a product before buying more. Hoarding shelfies of product should not be an option. Minimalist skincare habits start at home. Consumers need to think mindfully about what they really need and change their cosmetic usage and pare back their needs well before they get to the point of purchase (when shiny new products are there to tempt them!). Further Reading In the podcast, Loraine mentioned two industry report that make interesting further reading on the beauty industry, its business model and sustainability: The Ecodesign Research by L’Oréal and the British Beauty Council, Courage to Change report

This is a very special episode of our podcast as it marks three years since we launched Green Beauty Conversations. To celebrate our anniversary, we go behind the scenes at Formula Botanica. School CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier invited some of our now 40-strong team to chat about their roles and to share their insights and stories - both the fun and the mishap moments - in day-to-day life at Formula Botanica. We're a truly multinational team dedicated to serving a global student body of 12K students and growing.  We celebrate also the very people who make our work possible; our students and graduates who show us each day the limitless possibilities the green beauty space can open up. Green Beauty Conversations: 3 years in brief Over the past three years, Green Beauty Conversations has clocked up 60 episodes, almost 300,000 downloads and interviewed some 60 guests. We've hit the number one spot in iTunes for beauty and had deep dive conversations into both trending and controversial topics in the green beauty industry. We have redefined what natural and clean beauty are, examined so-called blue beauty and raw beauty, and challenged the mainstream personal care industry to look behind short-term gains and discussed its sustainability credentials. We have shown that you don't need to be a cosmetic chemist to be a competent skincare or haircare formulator. Along the way, we have pushed our guests on their topics and learnt from their expertise. We've been amazed by the innovation and tenacity of many of the green beauty business founders we've interviewed and never cease to be surprised by the sheer range of indie beauty niches they represent. Our Team Behind the Scenes If you have come across Formula Botanica from our podcast only, you may not know that we are a large, ever-growing team of dedicated professionals behind the scenes. It takes around 40 of us to run Formula Botanica which now has over 12,500 students in over 175 countries. We received thousands of emails, chats, messages and comments on all our platforms from our school helpdesk to our many social media channels. To celebrate the three-year mark of our youngest media outlet - this podcast - we chat in this milestone episode to members of our Education, Student Experience and Marketing & Tech teams. We will let their voices take you behind the scenes on what has been an incredible roller coaster journey from a small-scale student body following a single course delivered by email to the world's largest online education platform for natural organic formulators and indie beauty entrepreneurs.

Think of upcycled beauty and you probably think of DIY home formulators mixing up a body scrub or face mask from kitchen store cupboard ingredients. You may have even tried using left-over coffee grounds as scrub particles. But it takes brave, inspired and curious minds coupled with phenomenal drive and business sense to turn waste coffee grounds into a global and sustainable beauty business in just four years. Our guest in this episode did just that, and more, by upcycling organic waste and redundant byproducts from food and drinks' industries into star ingredients in a line of natural, sustainable cosmetics. In this podcast, we hear from Anna Brightman, co-founder along with her brother Will, of Upcircle Beauty which launched in 2016 with the vision of "..leaving the world better than they found it" by finding useful, profitable purposes for others' waste. There's treasure in waste and Upcircle Beauty is proof that this old saying rings true. The sibling pair discovered that more than 500,000 tonnes of coffee grounds that are consumed each year in the UK alone are sent to landfill. They decided to start collecting coffee from cafes across London and transforming them into their sustainable skincare range. Since their launch four years ago, the brand has saved over 275 tonnes of coffee. By the time we interviewed Anna, Upcircle were upcycling 10-plus food and other botanical byproducts and were set to launch a further three products to add their impressive range of over 40 variations of exfoliants, moisturisers, serums and masks. At first, investors and others in the beauty industry were sceptical and doubted that an industry as fickle as beauty would grasp the concept of upcycled ingredients let alone embrace it. But Anna, Will and their growing staff along with a dedicated network of upcycling partners in the food and drink sector have successfully upscaled to sustain a British-based operation selling beauty products into 800 retailers in the US alone. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier, a Chartered Environmentalist who has a passion for delving into sustainability, spoke to Anna Brightman about the challenges of building a business that relies on difficult, often messy waste byproducts and where Upcycle find inspiration for new products from new sources of waste. Whether a beauty consumer or natural formulator, you'll find this an inspirational listen about a company truly pioneering circular and byproduct beauty. In this episode on upcycled beauty, you will: Learn the two definitions of an upcycled ingredient. Discover that upcycled waste and byproducts, despite first impressions, can provide the beauty industry with innovative, reliable and sustainable ingredients. Find out that the most important attributes beautypreneurs need in looking for innovative waste byproducts to upcycle are imagination, curiosity and determination to research and pioneer their viability. Learn that using upcycled ingredients is a huge step for a business wanting to grow along sustainable principles, but that business owners needs to take a rain check also on how sustainability is factored into other aspects of their operations. Key take-outs include: If you are green beauty entrepreneur, look around you actively for inspiration for upcycled waste. For example, Anna Brightman is now working on how to upcycle flowers and plants into cosmetic ingredients after she noticed local florists discarding them. Think laterally about how to work not just with the end waste, but also with local farmers and other businesses to provide a win-win for both of you. For instance, Upcycle has helped other industries profit by working with them and training their staff on how to process their waste or byproducts for cosmetic ingredients. If you want to scale your business and need to rely on sources of upcycled ingredients, think about which industries or venues are already producing that waste product in volume. For instance, hotel chains might be throwing away in bulk a particular waste product you have your eye on. Be prepared to do a lot of research and experimentation when using upcycled ingredients you source. Not all will work. Anna mentions that only certain type of coffee grounds suit their products. It takes perseverance and you need to build good relations with your source industries.  

Google raw beauty for a definition and you'll find it described as "stark and powerfully impressive" and the possessing qualities that fire up the senses. This is about raw beauty describing physical appearance. Raw beauty is also used to talk about outer radiance derived from inner wellness and often linked to a wholesome diet rich in raw, natural foods. So where does raw beauty skincare fit in? Raw beauty skincare can be bundled up with on-trend beauty descriptors such as clean beauty, green beauty and even blue beauty. It is a subset of these natural beauty categories but takes a unique approach to formulation which starts at the beginning of a product's lifecycle with the sourcing of ingredients. Our podcast guest in this episode. Nadine Artemis, founder of Living Libations, has spent the past 25 years making raw beauty her life's mission. To Nadine, raw beauty is more than about the practicalities of handling natural ingredients and issues such as their temperature or the manufacturing processes involved. Those are just the first, but far from only aspects she considers when sourcing natural skincare ingredients. For Nadine and Living Libations, raw beauty harks back to the ancients' understanding of the life essences of plants. Living Libation's philosophy is about using raw natural ingredients in synergy with our body by drawing on the innate power of natural carrier oils and essential oils. Nadine calls her line 'pure renegade'; two decades ago when Nadine pioneered the idea of minimally-processed ingredients in skincare as a way to boost our natural radiance, her ideas bucked the trend - and still do in a world now abuzz with talk of pure, natural and organic beauty. In this podcast interview with Nadine, Formula Botanica CEO and host Lorraine Dallmeier drills into the nuances of raw beauty and its role in a cosmetics industry driven by expectations of high-performance skincare. This episode certainly dispels the myths about raw beauty cosmetics as DIY skincare. Raw beauty is an exciting, complex journey into the benefits of botanicals and perhaps also a philosophy for natural skincare. In this episode on raw beauty, you will: Find out the differences between raw beauty and natural, pure, clean and green beauty. Discover why raw beauty is as much a philosophy of how we interact with the natural world as a beauty niche. Learn that using raw beauty is about creating a symbiotic relation between what goes on the skin and what is going on in the skin; in the skin biome, for example. Hear how the potency of plants was known to the ancients and that current-day raw beauty philosophy harks back to the theories of Essentialism and Vitalism which proposed that botanical, organic matter has unique, innate, vibrant qualities. Learn why raw beauty is far more than simply about the temperature, handling, processing and manufacture of natural ingredients. Key take-aways include: How raw beauty goes to another level in using pure ingredients. For instance, raw beauty formulations will include botanical oils that are not only cold-pressed and sustainably sourced, but also not rendered 'joyless' through processes such as bleaching, winterising (a form of refining) and de-odourising. How raw beauty is formulated to work with what the mainstream cosmetic industry might see as limitations - such as the shorter shelf life of its products. It sees the benefit in ingredients that are fresher and more nutritious for the skin and rejects those that are processed and refined to artificially extend their shelf life or iron out variations in their scent, feel and properties. Understanding that raw beauty as a business relies on the formulator-founder developing a sixth sense for ingredients like essential oil and carrier oils. They also need to build strong, long-lasting relations with ethical supplies of quality ingredients to ensure they can source the ingredients at their most pristine.

Do natural deodorants work? If you have tried natural deodorants and been disappointed by their performance in combating sweat and body odor, then this episode of Green Beauty Conversations will be a real learning curve and eye opener. The first question to tackle though is what is sweat? Body sweat has a primordial purpose even if today's taboos and societal conditioning have put paid to us broaching the subject of sweat in a reasoned way. Sweating has a core function in cooling our bodies when we're hot or under stress. Its other role of signaling 'fight or flight' hints at how homo sapiens functioned millennia ago. Once we understand the role of sweat, we can choose the right natural deodorants to work in tune with our own particular needs. If you buy regular, mainstream antiperspirants or deodorants, you may choose them for their scent and strength. Yet, using the same one-size-fits-all, drug store deodorant or antiperspirant year in year out is not necessarily the best nor healthiest approach to masking body odor nor to our overall well-being. To unpack the discourse on sweat, shame and body image, we speak to Ada Juristovski, Co-founder and CMO of Nala Care, a natural, personalised deodorant brand based in Vancouver, Canada. Ada gives us an in-depth, enlightening insight into physiological and psychological aspects of sweat and, in the process, helps us understand sweat better so we can choose healthier deodorant options for our daily personal care routines. Research has shown that we each have differing armpit microbiomes, which is an aspect of our skin that Nala takes into account in formulating its natural deodorants. Listen in as Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier digs the dirt on the types of sweat, how we deal with body image and underarm cleanliness, and the pros and cons of natural deodorants, including their reliance on baking soda and activated charcoal. We think you'll come away realising it pays to understand more about sweat, and to get hot under the collar about ideal body images. In this episode, you will: Learn about the different types of sweat and its function in keeping our bodies in a state of healthy equilibrium. Hear about how societal conditioning has influenced notions of the female body image and fostered the pursuit of beauty over health and well being. Discover that sweat is now beginning to be talked about more positively as it is associated also with exercise, sex, empowerment and strength. Find out about how natural deodorants work in tune with our bodies by letting us sweat again rather than by clogging sweat glands. Key take-aways include: We all sweat to different extents and in different situations, so we should think of mixing up our deodorant product choices to suit varying needs. Our lifestyles, our water consumption, whether we are on medication and so on can affect our levels of sweat and on a daily basis. Natural deodorant formulas usually include and rely on the odor-neutralising ingredient baking soda which is highly alkaline and therefore not in line with the skin's pH. So look out for brands which offer different formulation strengths, including a baking soda-free option. Other ingredients play a huge role in natural deodorants' efficacy too. Copaiba oil, for example, has stress-reducing properties so by inference has the potential also to reduce sweat production when we face stressful situations. Be more mindful of what causes you to sweat; and be mindful too of the products you use to mask body odour. Using a deodorant isn't just a routine, two-second affair each day.

We've all heard of sustainability. After all, barely a week goes by without news of activist movements' agendas, political and corporate pledges and celebrity campaigns on sustainability issues. Yet, do we really stop to ask ourselves how we as individuals can live more sustainably? For a start, do we know what sustainability is? Sustainability is made up of three pillars: economy, society, and the environment, which are informally and more memorably labeled: profit; people; and planet. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals comprise 17 areas in which sustainability must be a paramount consideration. These include not only the obvious ones such as climate action and sustainable and renewable energy, but also zero hunger and zero poverty and a right to quality education. As you can see, the three pillars were identified as they need to co-exist in equilibrium for the planet to be on a truly sustainable trajectory. These are huge questions that you may feel beyond the capabilities of indie beauty brands to address as they go about starting up and growing their businesses. The larger companies may have the cash to splash on reports and in publicising their sustainability credentials, which may not be all they seem either, but there are plenty of opportunities for indie beauty brands to make a difference. Even the small steps indie brands make can help their customers understand how individual actions deplete or sustain the world's finite natural resources. Listen to our CEO Lorraine Dallmeier, a chartered environmentalist, and our Membership Coordinator Ana Green who is also a long-time green beauty blogger, discuss why the beauty industry is perhaps tackling sustainability from the wrong perspective and where indie beauty brands can have an edge in playing their part. In this podcast, you will hear: Why the size and scale of a beauty business should not be a deciding factor when it comes to embedding sustainability into a business. Why sustainable practices are far more than about the manufacturing or use of resources. That on a positive note, the five, big-brand beauty companies we researched all had sustainability commitments and policies well publicised and easy to find on their websites. However, that some of these big beauty brands pledged themselves to long-term goals that had vague benchmarks against which to measure the success of their actions. About our survey of indie beauty brands in our community which showed their huge desire to operate sustainably, but that they faced overwhelm at how to go about that and stay profitable. Key take-aways on indie beauty brands and sustainability include: Examples of three indie beauty brands that have made significant progress in operating sustainably in three different areas of their business: refilling; upcycling; and circular beauty. How indie beauty brands can start their sustainability journey more easily by focusing on a single area of their business, such as plastic waste reduction, or sourcing ingredients from suppliers who support Fair Trade. Why indie brands have an enormous opportunity and edge over big beauty businesses by shifting the conversation to talk about slowing down our relentless consumption of beauty products. How indie beauty can educate its customers about the need to consume less in the first place by buying for example more multi-functional and longer-lasting products.

It's a first for this podcast to talk about green makeup, but rest assured we've been thinking about it for a long time. Behind the scenes at Formula Botanica, our R&D team is working on an organic makeup formulation course. A question we asked ourselves at the start was whether green makeup could take on mainstream colour cosmetics as a viable alternative? The natural beauty industry has been dominated by skincare. The global colour cosmetics market size though is expected to reach $9.9 billion by 2024 - rising at a market growth of 7.6% (CAGR) between 2018-2024. No doubt, the green colour cosmetics' segment will rise on this tide too. Key growth in the colour cosmetics market is forecast to come from Asia-Pacific and Latin America, which is interesting given our podcast discussion covers also green makeup's role in inclusivity. As we learned in conversation with our podcast panelists, consumers are demanding greater transparency on the ingredients in colour cosmetics and not just those in their skincare products. You may have come across the much-quoted factoid that women eat about 3kg (around 7lbs) of lipstick in a lifetime. Whether fact or myth, figures like this went viral and startled beauty consumers into taking a closer look at exactly which ingredients go into their colour cosmetic products. Meet Our Green Makeup Discussion Panel Today, the naturals' sector is occupied with more reality checks; this time on the efficacy of green makeup. Can natural colour cosmetics offer the same palette, applications, textures and performance of mainstream makeup? The answers to these questions lie not just in how green makeup is formulated in the lab, but also in our perceptions and expectations as consumers. Our two expert panelists in this episode - one a green makeup entrepreneur and brand owner; the other an accomplished makeup artist and blogger - respond to the criticisms leveled at green colour cosmetics. Their own paths and stories are encouraging as they show us just how far green makeup has come in a few years. Listen in to hear also how they feel green makeup can be a force too for inclusivity in the cosmetics' industry. Kim Roxie is the Founder & CEO of LAMIK Beauty, a clean beauty brand that caters to multicultural women. After opening her own bricks-and-mortar makeup shop at age 21, in Houston, Texas, on a $500 investment, Kim ran the store for 14 years. She was also the youngest African-American woman to have her products carried in a major department store. In 2019, Roxie pivoted her business and launched LAMIK as an e-commerce beauty company. Roxie was featured in CEW, CNBC, and MarthaStewart.com for her rapid growth since the launch of LAMIK 2.0 in March 2020. Canadian-born Samantha Kolk, aka 'hullosam', has been a content creator in the green beauty space for over five years and has a background in makeup artistry. Her goal is to make her clients feel as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside. Sammie has hosted makeup masterclasses and other fun beauty events where she educates on the brands and ingredients being used, as well as giving makeup 101 tips. She spent most of her life with sensitivities and intolerances. Her passion for all things 'green' arose when she realised that she not only wanted to put healthy, pure and safe things in her body – but also on her body. Sammie believes that if the health of our skin is nurtured, it will help promote full health to the body and mind. In this Podcast on Green Makeup, you will: Hear why our panelists believe that by swapping to green makeup, you needn't compromise on applications, colour ranges, textures and performance. Learn that formulating green makeup is liberating once you shift mindset and explore the exciting green, all-natural ingredients on offer. Discover how indie cosmetics' brands can be quicker and nimbler in responding to consumers' desire for natural, colour cosmetics as they are generally founder-led and more in touch with their customers. Hear how green makeup brands can lead by example and be a clear voice for inclusivity in the beauty industry. Hear some insightful predictions on where green makeup is going next. Key take-aways include: Our panelists point out that green makeup should not be another elite segment of beauty by excluding consumers on the basis of price, culture or choice. It would be a hypocrisy to have green colour cosmetics create more exclusivity. Green makeup actually looks to mainstream cosmetics to push itself to innovate as it aims to create products consumers desire but to formulate them as truly high-performing green alternatives. Women of colour spend up to 80% more on makeup than other beauty consumer segments so it is high time that cosmetics' brands see them as regular customers, not a segment, and formulate comprehensive colour palettes. Consumers these days are savvy researchers and are an indie, green beauty brand's best resource. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You've heard of green beauty, you've heard of clean beauty, but have you ever heard of blue beauty? In the last 12 months, the beauty industry has started to talk more about environmental sustainability and one of the new terms that has emerged during this period is blue beauty. Formula Botanica aims to bring you the latest topics and conversations in the beauty industry, so our Green Beauty Conversations podcast (or should we say 'blue' beauty conversations?) today brings you the low-down on blue beauty, how it differs to green beauty and why beauty brands should be thinking about their environmental footprint and giving back to the environment. In this latest podcast episode, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier interviews Jeannie Jarnot, who is on a mission to deliver beauty you can trust, one Hero product at a time and wants to make clean beauty the rule rather than the exception. The complexity of navigating cosmetic ingredients only fueled her passion to make it simple to discover safe, effective and luxurious skincare. Today, as the founder of Beauty Heroes, Jeannie brings a lifetime of beauty, wellness and ritual to her company and her customers, delivering healthy beauty through the thrill of discovery. What is Blue Beauty? As you'll learn in this podcast episode, Jeannie has defined blue beauty as "green beauty with benefits". Blue beauty brands are those who aim to have an environmental benefit - not simply offsetting their impacts, or donating to charities that align with their ethos, but actually doing the hard work and looking at how they themselves can put back resources into the environment. Of course achieving that lofty goal will be challenging for any beauty brand, because it will involve looking very closely at a brand’s ingredient sourcing strategy, packaging choices, manufacturing processes and the rest of their supply chain. The only way to have a positive environmental impact is either through putting back into the environment, perhaps by sequestering carbon through the ingredients farmed for your formulations, or through offsetting, which as we discussed in our recent podcast on whether beauty brands can ever be carbon neutral, is not a panacea as it is simply a component of your overall environmental strategy and it ultimately isn’t the answer. Nonetheless, regardless of whether we call it blue beauty, green beauty, teal beauty, or verdant beauty, we hope you’ll agree that it’s refreshing to hear tales of beauty brands around the world who aim to have an environmental benefit. Listen to Lorraine and Jeannie as they discuss the topic of blue beauty.  In this podcast, you will: Find out how Beauty Heroes and Jeannie Jarnot define blue beauty as part of their Project Blue Beauty Learn how the concept of blue beauty goes beyond brands who aim to make sustainable formulations that don't impact our oceans and waterways Hear examples of indie beauty brands around the world undertaking environmental initiatives Learn how indie beauty brands should incorporate sustainability reporting into their communications strategy Key takeaways include: Consumers are setting the bar higher now and expect beauty brands to embrace environmental sustainability. Being an environmentally sustainable indie beauty brand is challenging, as it involves small brands telling their story and delving deep into who they are and how they operate. Reporting on your sustainability initiatives involves having a two-way conversation and trying to change your customers' hearts and minds. Simply paying to offset your environmental impacts is not enough. Beauty brands need to go much deeper. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The latest industry buzzword to emerge as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is safe beauty. The thinking behind the term 'safe beauty' is that consumers are now more willing to accept preservatives and synthetic ingredients to ensure they don't experience product contamination and expiration. In fact, some industry players are now claiming that the arrival of COVID-19 will further push the notion that natural isn’t always better, especially when it comes to ingredient safety and shelf life. It's safe to say that the Formula Botanica team was fairly horrified to discover the emergence of the term safe beauty. After all, shouldn't all beauty be inherently safe to use? Why should a pandemic suddenly encourage the beauty industry to look for a new marketing term, when Good Manufacturing Practice should ensure that the billions of beauty products manufactured globally? Do you think that safe beauty is a credible term or are some industry players simply trying to play on people’s fears? Would you buy a formulation labelled as ‘safe’ or do we as consumers simply expect all beauty products to be safe? And do you agree with us that safe beauty is the latest industry buzzword we should all resolutely ignore and move on from?   In this podcast, you will: Hear the Formula Botanica team discuss how the term safe beauty has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn why all cosmetics should be inherently safe for use and why this latest buzzword is trying to play on people's fears, when fear-based marketing has already created so many subsets of the beauty sector. Listen to Lorraine and Ana discuss why we should all ignore the term safe beauty in the latest marketing hype to come from several mainstream industry players and resolutely move on.   Key takeaways include: The beauty industry does not need any further buzzwords to cause confusion amongst consumers and polarisation amongst brands. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) exists to ensure that all cosmetics are manufactured to industry safety standards. As long as GMP is met and formulations are adequately tested, all cosmetics should be safe for sale. The terms clean beauty, natural beauty and safe beauty are not mutually exclusive. In fact, Formula Botanica redefined the term 'clean beauty' in a recent podcast to include formulations that are safely and hygienically made. The very meaning of the word 'clean' is hygienic, after all. Consumer opinions are not shifting towards enhanced safety in personal care formulations. If anything, consumer opinions are shifting towards enhanced sustainability of beauty products, as people emerge from lockdown aiming for a modified, greener society where beauty brands work as activists for change. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Indie beauty brands are taking over the beauty sector. With tens of thousands of small brands globally, there is simply no doubt that they are swallowing up a percentage of the global beauty sector which traditionally might have gone to the mainstream giants. Shoppers are increasingly looking to support small, local businesses and often place a greater degree of trust in a founder-led brand. However, this increase in consumer confidence and support has seen some of these indie beauty brands soar in terms of their revenues, reach, distribution, channels and size. If you follow the latest news in the beauty industry, then you cannot have missed the stories of founder-led brands being bought up by the mainstream giants who see enormous potential for growth and development by bringing these indie beauty brands into their portfolios. In the latest episode of the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, we’re joined by Wizz Selvey of Wizz&Co to discuss when an indie brand goes mainstream. What does it take? What defines the tipping point for an indie brand to go mainstream? And does everyone agree with this definition? But is an indie beauty brand still indie if it’s achieving global domination or has been bought up by a major multinational? What makes an indie beauty brand truly indie and at what point can you no longer really call yourself indie? If a business is selling millions in stock, can they still be indie? In this podcast, you will: Discover what the main difference is between mainstream beauty and indie beauty brands. Learn what it takes to grow an indie beauty brand to the stage that it can go mainstream (spoiler alert: it takes many years of blood, sweat and tears!). Hear how growing an indie brand to mainstream global domination requires input from distributors, retailers, investors and community. Discover how the mainstream beauty industry is starting to take indie beauty more seriously, which is of course why they're buying indie brands. Hear about the massive opportunities for indie beauty brands globally, as retailers, social media and technology make indie beauty far more accessible to customers. Key takeaways include: A true indie beauty brand has gone under the radar so far and not yet attracted any investment. They are waiting to be found by consumers and have lots of potential ahead of them. Once an indie brand scales and has the potential to be taken over by a larger corporation, their formulations might suddenly be discovered by a large part of the general public who had never heard of the brand before. The founder's heritage story is integral to the success of an indie brand. It creates an emotional connection between the brand and the customer and allows the customer to relate to the story and formulation. Large multinationals buying out indie brands will often try to keep that brand founder ethos in place. Beauty is emotive and personal. Consumers want to talk about brands that have made them feel different about themselves and this is where indie brands can capitalise on opportunities that the mainstream industry often misses. Wizz Selvey is the founder of Wizz&Co, a retail strategy consultancy in the UK. Wizz was formerly Head of Beauty at Selfridges and has worked in the beauty industry for fifteen years which has provided experience across brands at all stages of their development. Wizz also works with both indie and mainstream beauty brands so is well placed to discuss the transition from kitchen table to global multinational. Visit Wizz&Co's website, follow Wizz&Co on Instagram and sign up for Wizz' freebie on how to think like a CEO. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Is the cosmetics industry ready for disability friendly beauty? We've been pondering this question for a while and decided to convene an expert panel to discuss the topic of disability friendly beauty in our latest Green Beauty Conversations podcast episode. It feels as if disabled beauty shoppers are sometimes (often? mostly?) overlooked, but it's important to remember that 1 billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability. Let’s not forget that all of these 1 billion people will buy personal care or beauty products, which is why it's so shocking that it's taken us this long as an industry to embrace disability friendly beauty. Luckily, the topic of accessible and inclusive beauty is one that is gaining traction in the industry. Furthermore, in the social media era, where shoppers can have a direct conversation with brands on a variety of topics, beauty businesses are receiving real time feedback on what we want and need - and they're hearing from customers who want them to do more. Recently, someone even filed a lawsuit against Fenty Beauty accusing them of engaging in intentional discrimination due to the current inaccessibility of its e-commerce site for customers who are visually impaired. Meet our Beauty and Disability Discussion Panel Disability friendly beauty is a topic that everyone in the beauty industry should be thinking about, which is why we invited a panel of experts on this topic to talk to us about their experience and work in the industry. Some people might think only about the packaging of a product when it comes to making accessible and inclusive beauty. But what are the different ways that people with disabilities might struggle with the beauty industry and the products it sells? Our fantastic panellists on this month's edition of Green Beauty Conversations discuss disability friendly beauty in more detail to help you understand the changes that need to happen for shoppers and brands. Emily Davison is a blogger and freelance journalist who, at birth, was diagnosed with a rare congenital condition called septo-optic dysplasia. She started her blog Fashioneyesta with the aim of challenging people's perceptions of sight loss through her love of fashion, beauty and style. Trishna Daswaney is the founder of Kohl Kreatives, an innovative make brush company who make adaptive equipment for applying making in the form of flexible brushes that bend both forwards and backwards, making them perfect for everyone, including those with motor disabilities. Victoria Watts is the founder of the natural beauty brand Victorialand Beauty, which as well as empowering women through their skincare range also has developed a beauty inclusive business model where products are made accessible for people who are visually impaired. Victorialand Beauty is one of the emerging disability friendly beauty brands on the market. In this podcast, you will: Hear the expert panel discuss whether they believe the beauty industry is disability friendly. Understand some of the key issues that may affect disabled people with regards to accessing and using personal care products. Hear about the amazing work being undertaken by several brands and advocates to speak up for people with disabilities. Learn the changes the beauty industry needs to make to become more inclusive and accessible. Key takeaways include: Whilst progress is being made, clearly the beauty industry has a way to go in terms of becoming more accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. We think the indie beauty sector can play a huge role in can play a huge role in improving accessibility, inclusivity and visibility for people with disabilities. Keeping this important conversation going is essential for the beauty industry to make further progress and we can all pay our roles in this as entrepreneurs and consumers. Disabled consumers can give constructive feedback to brands on their experiences with both products and the purchase experience. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. In today’s In Conversation with Formula Botanica podcast episode, we are talking carbon neutral beauty and the environmental impacts of the beauty industry. This is a big topic, but with the rise of conscious consumerism it’s also a topic that we need to be talking about. We ask: Can a Beauty Brand ever be Carbon Neutral? Sustainability is a really key topic for many indie beauty brands, but how easy is it to be truly sustainable and what steps do brands need to take? In this podcast we answer the burning questions our community had on the topic of carbon neutral beauty and sustainability. Carbon Neutral Beauty vs Beauty Miles Carbon footprint is one aspect of overall sustainability. In our previous podcast episode we tackled the topic of Beauty Miles, which feeds in to the topic of carbon neutral beauty and covers how far your ingredients and finished product travel and how to calculate that environmental impact. Read more - Episode 48: Do you know your Beauty Miles? In this Podcast you will: Learn how carbon output for beauty products impacts their sustainability. Understand different ways that we can reduce or offset carbon emissions. Be challenged to think about some of the different ways you could tackle your carbon emissions if you run a beauty business. Key Takeaways Include: Brands often rely on offsetting carbon rather than reducing their carbon output. We believe both of these measures have an important role to play in reducing environmental impact. Brands of any size can take measures to assess and reduce their carbon footprints and aim for carbon neutrality. In the age of conscious consumerism, customers are keen to hear from brands about what they are doing to reduce their environmental impact. What do you think? Is it feasible for indie brands to be carbon neutral? How can smaller beauty brands stay ahead of the big players, who are now setting big sustainability targets and publicly declaring them? Can indie brands lead the whole beauty industry in terms of sustainability or is this too big a burden for small businesses? Whatever your views on this controversial topic, I want you to join the debate and leave us a comment on our social channels. The Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you so come and tell us your views. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show.Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on: Facebook. Twitter; and on Instagram.

Have you ever wondered how a cosmetic formulator innovates and creates new formulations? What is it like to formulate? How does the creative process work? In this episode of The Green Beauty Conversations podcast we delve in to the mind of a cosmetic formulator and explore the processes involved in creating new and innovative products. We speak to Timi Racz, Formula Botanica's Head of Research and Development about the formulation process. Whether you are a new or experienced formulator, this fascinating insight in to the formulation process can help you develop your own formulas and skills. More on this topic - Episode 37: Do you need to be a Cosmetic Chemist to Formulate Skincare? In this Podcast you will: Hear Lorraine Dallmeier Formula Botanica CEO and Timi Racz the Head of Research and development at Formula botanica discuss what a formulator does. Learn the three stage process for creating a formula: Preparation, Perfecting the formula, testing and feedback. Understand the most important aspects of the formulation and how to adapt your formulation process. Key Takeaways Include: Formulators are very creative people as is the process of creating new products. Preparation is a key phase in creating a formula which includes researching ingredients. Formulas require many different trials before they are ready for sale, it is not an instant process. Feedback on your formulations is key, ideally through focus groups to get a wide variety of opinions. Indie brands are leading the way in producing inspiring and creative products and the formulation process is a key aspect of this. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show.

You've probably heard of food miles, but have you ever heard of beauty miles? Food miles measure the distance that your food travels before it reaches your plate, while beauty miles measure the distance that our beauty products are transported from the time of harvesting, to processing, to manufacturing, to retail until that lotion finally ends up on your bathroom shelf. Similar to food miles, beauty miles are one factor that we can potentially use when testing and measuring the environmental impacts of our beauty formulations. But are they the right tool to use when determining the sustainability of our formulations? For this podcast episode the Formula Botanica team reached out to our community, to ask their burning questions on this topic and they were answered by Chartered Environmentalist and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier. In this Podcast you will: Hear the Formula Botanica team discuss beauty miles and answer key questions on this topic. Learn some key questions that we should be asking as formulators and consumers about the cosmetic ingredients we use and their environmental impact. Key takeaways include: Knowing your supply chain and asking key questions is essential for formulators who want to calculate the overall carbon footprint of their formulations. Every formulator should be thinking about the carbon footprint of not only their ingredients but also their entire operation as a business. We expect to see more brands make claims about the carbon emissions of their products in the future, including claims for carbon neutral products achieved by carbon offsetting. Conscious consumerism is on the rise and customers are more interested than ever in all aspects of sustainability. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Found out more about our award winning courses at - formulabotanica.com

Should vegan beauty brands be run by vegans? That is the question we tackle in this episode of the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, the podcast that challenges you to change the way you think about the way you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. Veganism is on the rise Interest in veganism has increased seven-fold in the last five years according to Google trends. And as part of that rise, cosmetics represents the fastest growing sector in brands gaining the vegan trademark, where the indie beauty sector sees a great opportunity to appeal to the ever-growing vegan community. But should beauty brand founders be vegan in order to make and sell vegan cosmetics? If you’re making and selling cosmetics, should you walk the walk as well as talking the talk?  In this episode we speak to three people with an interest in veganism. Firstly we speak to Louisa Sales, a Beauty Therapist currently working in the beauty industry training other professionals, who is also a passionate vegan. Louisa believes that brands using veganism in their marketing should be founded and run by people who live and support a vegan lifestyle. Next we speak to Abigail Stevens, Trademark manager at the Vegan Society who established the definition of veganism. The Vegan Society certifies individual products as vegan and enables brands to carry their trademark. Our last guest is Claire Michalski of the certification Vegan Founded, an organisation that certifies brands as vegan based on their ethical choices and those of their founders. Vegan Founded controversially posted on their Facebook page that supporting meat eating brand founders could be supporting the meat industry and prefers to give their support to brands who are founded and run by vegans.  In this Podcast you will: Hear different and sometimes controversial answers to the question: Do you need to be Vegan to make vegan cosmetics? Directly from experts in the field. Get an understanding of some of the complexities that exist when it comes to marketing or certifying your cosmetics as vegan. Explore the current vegan beauty market and how it is changing. Key takeaways include: The ethics of veganism can be complex and individual. Brands need to be aware of the claims they are making and what they might mean to their customers. Veganism isn't just about cutting out certain food groups, it is a lifestyle. Attention to detail and authenticity is key for brands making ethical claims for their products. Some vegan consumers feel disillusioned that brands are jumping on the vegan beauty bandwagon for money making, rather than ethical purposes. This has potential to impact brands, especially with the rise of call out culture on social media. The rise in choice in the vegan beauty market is viewed as a whole as a positive for people who have a vegan lifestyle and presents opportunities for brand founders whose ethics align with the vegan movement. Find out more about our Podcast guests: The Vegan Society Website Vegan Founded Website Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show.

Can Indie beauty brands ever partner successfully with large multinationals? Or are Indie brands who sell to large corporations, in fact selling out? In this episode of The Green Beauty Conversations Podcast, we tackle the tricky subject of Indie brand acquisitions and why all brand founders should have an exit strategy for their business. Recently, brands such as Dermalogica, Schmidt’s Naturals, TooFaced, Tatcha and many others, have all been snapped up by major multinationals such as Unilever, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and Procter & Gamble. Over the last five years, these huge beauty corporations have spent billions on acquiring beauty brands from across the world – including many successful indies. Drunk Elephant’s recent $845 million dollar sale to Shiseido, is the latest acquisition to cause controversy and receive comments also within the Formula Botanica community. We interview two beauty entrepreneurs on the topic of selling your business, to hear their views. First we speak to Julie Longyear, the founder of independent natural beauty brand Blissoma based in the USA. Julie founded her brand in 2001 and creates raw, plant-based, skincare by hand, using herbs and essential oils, in her herbal studio in St. Louis, Missouri. Our second guest is Sian Sutherland, beauty brand founder and multi-award winning serial entrepreneur. In 2005, Sian created Mama Mio Skincare, a premium pregnancy range followed by Mio Skincare for active women. Sian sold her business in 2015 to The Hut Group, a global eCommerce company based in the UK. Sian now runs A Plastic Planet, a social impact non-profit with a single goal - to ignite and inspire the world to turn off the plastic tap. In this Podcast we explore: Indie Beauty brand attitudes to selling to multi-nationals How and why an Indie brand may want to sell to a large corporation The public perception of Indie brands that are sold and if the sale changes how they are run Key take-outs include: All business owners need to think of an exit strategy that suits their business There are many different options available to Indie beauty brands as an exit strategy There is no right or wrong choice as to what to do with your business and here at Formula Botanica we celebrate all entrepeneurs Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show.

This is Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations.  We tackle topics that that will make you think and encourage debate about Green Beauty with your friends, followers or customers. In this episode we delve in to the difficult topic of conscious consumerism and its effect on the beauty industry. What does it mean to be a modern consumer of beauty products?  A conscious consumer is someone who wants to encourage positive impact through their buying choices, encouraging brands to be more eco-friendly and sustainable overall. Anyone who spends any time in the natural beauty sector will know that there is a polarised debate around the way ingredients are chosen and used – on one side you have a hardcore group of naturalistas who reject synthetic ingredients and on the other side you have a group of frustrated chemists, who are upset about their ingredients being vilified without science.  In our previous podcast - Clean Beauty: A redefinition, we discussed some of the controversy surrounding the term Clean Beauty and what it means. In this podcast we build on that further by asking whether consumer trends should inform how brands formulate? Should brands shun ingredients with a proven safety record simply because they have become unpopular with the public? How can consumers who want genuinely natural products shop with confidence? To help us understand more on these issues we interviewed two key industry professionals.  Firstly we spoke to Sam Farmer, founder of a namesake range of unisex personal care products for young adults. Sam is passionate about science communication within the beauty industry and feels strongly that the industry should be leading with facts and an evidence based approach, rather than simply reacting to consumer trends when it comes to the complex topic of formulating and ingredients. Our second guest is Dr Mark Smith the Director General of NATRUE, an international private standard for natural and organic cosmetics. NATRUE sets standards for the ingredients, packaging and product formulations carrying the NATRUE label and also advocates on behalf of the natural and organic beauty industry. Mark is a chemist and has a long career in research, science and regulatory policy.  In this episode on the topic of conscious consumerism we explore:  What conscious consumerism means and how this applies to beauty. Whether our beauty choices are being led by populism and ask the important question: Is the consumer always right?  How we think the industry can move forward and start to join the contrasting view points.  Key take-outs include:  Although consumers are engaging more than ever with what is in their beauty products, product formulation and ingredient information isn't always easy to communicate or understand Formula Botanica believes that conscious consumerism has a role to play when it comes to the sustainability of the beauty industry and we feel strongly this is an area the industry needs to improve. Opinions are still split on whether consumers should be driving formulation choices. Although there is clearly a need for education, we also have to accept that not everyone will engage with that information or use it in their purchasing choices.  Learn more about our guests:  Find Sam Farmer on Twitter  Learn more about certification on the NATRUE Website  We want to hear what you think. Whatever your views on this controversial topic, we want you to join the debate and leave us a comment on our social channels. The Formula Botanica team love hearing from you so come and tell us your views. Find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

What is clean beauty? It is one of the current buzz words in the cosmetics industry with major brands such as Drunk Elephant adopting the term as a key part of their marketing message. Large retailers such as Sephora now stock a selection of brands they consider clean and have adopted their own clean standards.  Despite its rapid rise, clean beauty can also be controversial. There is an increasing backlash from many in the industry, who believe that clean beauty is driven by fear mongering and poor science. As there is no official standard of what is meant by 'clean', consumers need to be aware that individual brands and retailers all have their own definition, which can vary greatly.  In this episode of the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, we discuss the origins of the term clean beauty, why it has been driven by concern regarding certain cosmetic ingredients and is intertwined with a consumer search for products that will support their wellbeing. We also discuss the Formula Botanica Philosophy on clean beauty, where we redefine what the term means and talk about how it should evolve.  Ingredient safety data sheets (SDS) will contain key information about toxicity and environmental impact. A key tool for formulators to understand some of these issues further. Misunderstanding of data and an ingredients ability to do harm is fuelling the clean beauty debate online and maintaining the controversy. We also explore the legalities of cosmetic claims in Episode 3: How to Comply with Cosmetics Regulations. In this episode of the Green Beauty Conversations Podcast you will learn about: The origins of the word "Clean Beauty" in the cosmetics industry. We delve in to other current buzzwords such as "non-toxic" and talk about why when it comes to cosmetics, dose and exposure are so important to understanding toxicity. We also discuss the difference between acute and chronic toxicity. The Formula Botanica philosophy for the four points that we think should define Clean Beauty: 1) Bringing together the concepts of beauty and wellbeing 2) Transparency and Ethics 3) Clean for the planet as well as people 4) Clean products should be safe and hygienically made.  We also discuss why transparency is particularly key for natural and indie beauty brands.  "Transparency in the beauty industry isn't a trend, it is a movement" - Lorraine Dallmeier Director of Formula Botanica  Key take-outs include: Beauty products should be clean for the planet as well as people. Topics such as overall sustainability and pollution are becoming increasingly important for eco-conscious consumers. Formulators should also consider more complex issues such as their water and carbon footprints when creating their brands.  At Formula Botanica we would like to see the conversation focus on overall sustainability looking at the whole picture, rather than single ingredients or a natural vs synthetics approach. Impact can be measured in different ways, including community and supply chain impact.  Brands need to have a clear vision of their own philosophy and use this to connect with their consumer.  Terms like Clean Beauty should not be used to make people guilty about their personal choices. Customers should be choosing products based on their own preferences and to enhance their personal wellbeing.  Brands should be celebrating their ingredient choices rather than simply focusing on what isn't in their products. The term Clean beauty shouldn't be used as a way of denigrating mainstream or synthetic cosmetics.  Clean Beauty should be hygienically made following GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) and safely and efficiently preserved. We believe formulators should be proud to use preservatives, as this ensures consumer safety.  If you enjoyed this podcast why not listen to Episode 1: What does Natural Beauty mean?  Please like, share and subscribe Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on: Facebook, Twitter; and on Instagram.

If you're dreaming of launching an indie beauty brand you may wonder if you have the mindset to become a successful skincare entrepreneur. Even just a decade ago, we would tend to use the word entrepreneur to describe the personalities driving big conglomerates and reserve the epithet for figures like Richard Branson. Now though, entrepreneurs are just as likely to be individual makers and creatives launching businesses from kitchen tables. This wider use of the label entrepreneur can still be daunting for the small indie beauty brand founder. We may fall into comparisonitis and doubt ourselves capable of executing our plans and following through on our dreams. Our guest in this episode of Green Beauty Conversations removes the mystery of beauty entrepreneurship by taking us on her own business journey. Zeze Oriaikhi-Sao, founder of Malée Natural Science, says that the mindset of a beauty entrepreneur can most certainly be learned and is not something we are born with. Zeze's story is one of a young African woman in the UK who had to become entrepreneurial after a move to South Africa where she faced a period of unemployment. Creating an ethical, luxury fragrance, bath and body care range was furthest from Zeze's mind when she started her working life. Having gained two degrees at just age 24, Zeze was aiming for a corporate consulting career when life changed and set her on her entrepreneurial path. Zeze is a woman who discovered by chance almost her passion for the people, natural beauty and healing rituals of her home continent. She went on to harness those to create a brand that could change her life and others’ for the better. Her motto to any would-be beauty entrepreneur is to stay true to your beliefs even in times of failure: "My biggest successes have come when I was focused on my beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you fail, but don’t let your fears rule you. Focus on the people you want to solve problems for. That becomes more enriching. How you approach your journey is the most important point." In this episode on the mindset of a skincare entrepreneur, you'll hear about: The four types of entrepreneur around today and how the indie beautypreneur is likely to be a blend of all four; Why knowing your purpose - the reason why you started out - is the most important guiding factor in your journey; Why running an ethical business that is founded on beliefs will give you more joy and be able to sustain your passion for business; How not only adopting the mindset of a beauty entrepreneur but becoming a sustainable, successful business takes time; remember, Amazon took 19 years to become profitable! Be patient and give things time to work Key take-outs include: Setting business goals is fine, but what you really need to focus on is the purpose of those goals and understand them thoroughly. Your overriding goal should to be the best you can at what you do and what you offer. Every rejection or failure has its reason. For example, if a retailer turns your brand down then realise that it's probably not the right time in your business journey to be stocked with them. See the rejection or failure as a way to sharpen your tools and get back out there with a better offer, mindset and approach. Remember that work-life balance is not some idealised vision or version of your life. Just work on your own terms and own that balance, making it individual to your needs and lifestyle. Work smarter not harder. Document what you do and when so you can see where time is wasted on non-priority actions. Time is the only finite in our lives as entrepreneurs, so don't squander it. Find out more about Malée Natural Science and Zeze's story: Malée website. Malée on Instagram. Malée on Facebook Malée on Twitter. Listen, Download and Subscribe to Green Beauty Conversations Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on: Facebook, Twitter and on Instagram.  

It seems that barely a week goes by without beauty industry headlines covering the latest Asian beauty trends or the meteoric growth of the cosmetics' spending in Asia, including also the rise of the natural beauty market. Cosmetics Business commented in early 2019 that online beauty sales were set to help Asia-Pacific outpace North America as global cosmetics' leader: "Growing e-commerce and online shopping will shift the country leading the biggest beauty spends and change the nation of 'beauty obsessed". While Cosmetics Design Asia noted that the demand for premium and prestige global beauty brands, particularly in China, is continuing apace in line with the growth of disposable income and the rise of a middle class traveling internationally. These headlines tend to focus on the success of mainstream, premium global cosmetics' giants like the Estee Lauders and L'Oréals of this world, but there are signs that the natural beauty market in Asia is gaining foothold. Our guest in this episode of Green Beauty Conversations gives us fascinating insider insights into the natural cosmetics' market in Asia and dispels the myth that the business opportunities are only for large multinational brands. Allie Rooke studied Chinese at university and then spent nearly a decade living and working in Asia for luxury brands Chanel, L'Oréal and Burberry before setting up her consultancy Clean Beauty Asia. Allie focuses on helping natural and indie beauty brands gain the know-how, confidence, strategies and cultural savviness to grasp the business opportunities this region offers. Her key message is not to be scared of setting your sights on selling in the Asian beauty market. "Don’t be scared of Asia and especially don't feel it’s all about big brands. Don't be put off because they are not English-speaking markets. There is absolutely an indie beauty market in Asia Pacific, and when a new beauty idea, trend or product does grow, it can grow fast and explode." If you have aspirations to retail your beauty brand in Asia, our interview with Allie will give you a good feel for what's required to succeed in the dynamic, vast and diverse beauty markets the region offers; and importantly, what is going on behind those headlines.   In this episode on the natural beauty market in Asia, you'll hear about: The diversity of markets and consumers across the Asia-Pacific region and how each market lends itself to different brand propositions and positioning. For example, China offers huge potential to prestige brand, while Singapore and Taiwan are more price sensitive; Why distributors in the region are key brand allies and can be powerful advocates for your brand but why you need to be actively involved in brand building in local Asian markets as well; The importance of being established and sufficiently known in your own home markets before expecting to make it in Asia. Typically, Asian consumers like to check out a new brand online and feel they can trust it, even if they are keen to embrace the new experiences and products international indie beauty brands can offer; Why you need to understand the social media scene in your chosen Asian market as both beauty brands and influencers are big on key Asian platforms and run sophisticated set-ups. Again, start out getting known on social media in your home markets as Asian consumers comb these platforms for 'the next big thing' as well. Key take-outs include: Asian consumers are often more interested in the safety of a product than whether it's sustainable or not. They need the information to judge whether they trust a new brand, and this is all the more so for indie, natural brands. Ensure transparency in all your communcations, media collateral, marketing and social media aimed at Asian markets. Don't leap into signing an exclusive distributorship that spans several Asian countries. The region's diversity means that few distributors will truly have the ability to support your brand sufficiently in multiple markets. You can sell to Chinese consumers and avoid the issue of animal testing. Hong Kong's Freeport status offers one route to gaining access to Chinese customers who flock to the autonomous territory which is a major shopping destination. In addition, you can sell online to the Chinese mainland using fulfillment warehouses in Hong Kong. To get to know more about Asia-Pacific customers and consumer habits, especially those of the Chinese, start by understanding Asian consumer behaviour in your home market. See if you can find out where, for example, Chinese tourists like to shop and what they seek out. Even a local Chinese community can be an ambassador for your products in Asian markets. Find out more about Clean Beauty Asia Allie’s Get Ready for Asia Masterclass is a comprehensive 9-module course. It is designed to provide all you need to know to get your Asia business dreams off the ground. It will save you hours of research and equip you for more effective and powerful conversations with potential distributors, retailers and other partners - you want to be fully prepared to avoid pitfalls. Use this special code ASIAN-SUCCESS to claim 15% off the Get Ready for Asia Masterclass if you sign up before the 20th of September, subject to availability of places. Clean Beauty Asia website. Clean Beauty Asia on Facebook. Clean Beauty Asia on Instagram. Listen, Download and Subscribe to Green Beauty Conversations Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on: Facebook. Twitter; and on Instagram.