Richmond-based Wildly Free uses packaging that can be recycled or reused. (Photo courtesy Wild Heart Creative)
When Gabi Day founded Bright Body, her Midlothian-based clean beauty line, she was unaware of the negative impacts that the beauty industry has on the environment. Less than a year after Bright Body’s launch in 2017, Day’s environmentally conscious friends convinced her to switch to sustainable, refillable packaging on all of her products.
“I like to say I was positively peer-pressured,” she says.
Day, like so many others, has realized that recycling single-use plastics should be the last option when striving toward sustainability. Around 91% of single-use plastics end up in a landfill or in the environment, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council; in addition, many single-use plastics can be especially difficult to recycle and often are not accepted at recycling centers.
Given this striking data, large companies like Ulta Beauty have joined the effort to reduce packaging waste. According to an April 2021 Vogue article, Loop by Ulta Beauty is working with beauty brands to clean and reuse packaging so it does not end up in landfills.
Another concern is that many beauty products are not made from sustainable sources. For example, Day says, palm oil, a common ingredient in beauty products, is a “red flag ingredient,” because it is derived and manufactured using unsafe practices that have negative environmental impacts.
Day says that she researches her suppliers and her suppliers’ suppliers to ensure that all of the ingredients in her formulas are obtained ethically and sustainably.
Jenn Brosch, the founder of Wildly Free, another environmentally conscious beauty brand based in the Richmond area, says working in the beauty industry for over a decade has made it clear to her just how unsustainable the products can be. She says that consumers deserve a better understanding of the products that they are using and the impact they have on the environment. Richmond resident Abbey Philips, a longtime consumer of sustainable beauty products, appreciates the transparency that brands like Bright Body and Wildly Free offer.
Gabi Day of Bright Body (Photo by Amanda Arnold Photography)
Not only are the products that Philips uses refillable and sustainably sourced, but she tends to use less of them, which further cuts back on the environmental impact of her personal seven-step skin care routine.
“These clean, natural beauty products are curated in really small batches,” Philips says, “so there is a lot of goodness packed into a little punch.”
Both Bright Body and Wildly Free offer reusable pouches, shipping directly to the consumer and then taking them back to be cleaned and reused. Brosch says glass bottles are heavy to ship, so using pouches reduces the carbon footprint of shipping products, while maintaining the convenience.
Day notes that sustainable beauty can be convenient, but consumers might need to adjust their definition of convenient. Small, independent companies may not be readily available through large online retailers, so you may have to do your research to locate them and buy direct.
Philips contends that it’s worth the effort. “[There’s] such a beautiful benefit to [using sustainable beauty products] for your community, and for the planet, and for you,” she says. “And it’s kind of hard to argue against that model.”
