Mascara for sight
BONNIE HOWLAND AND HANNAH DUDER HAVE THEIR EYES SET ON CURING TREATABLE BLINDNESS IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.
For a little tube of black goo, mascara sure does a lot of heavy lifting. Only a few coats of the stuff can give you a Bambi-like gaze; disguise the fact you were up scrolling through social media until the wee hours of the morning; and freshen your whole look. But what if your mascara could do even more? What if it could help cure blindness, too?
Bonnie Howland and Hannah Duder are the duo behind New Zealand’s Indigo & Iris, the self-described “beauty brand that gives a damn”. After years of research and planning (which began when Bonnie was just 18 years old), they’ve recently launched their first official product – a vegan and cruelty-free mascara called Levitate. Aside from being environmentally sound, the business is sending good vibes into the world in other ways: half the profits from product sales go to The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, an aid organisation providing sight-restoring surgery to folks in the Pacific Islands.
“It’s this beautiful connection,” Bonnie says of their relationship with the charity. “You look in the mirror, you put on your mascara, and you know someone can see again because of it. And it’s not just their sight they get back – it’s the ability to go to work, for their kids to get an education, and even just to go to the bathroom by themselves.”
The idea came to Bonnie after a visit to Vanuatu in 2014. On the trip, she met a young girl who’d dropped out of school to care for her mother, who had a treatable form of blindness caused by cataracts. Bonnie discovered that four out of five Pacific Islanders who are blind don’t actually need to be – in fact, sight-restoring surgery can cost as little as $25 NZD. Soon after, she was working as a backstage assistant at New Zealand Fashion Week, and was struck by the cultural influence of the beauty industry. She decided to find a way to bridge the two worlds of make-up and altruism – mascara seemed like the logical fit for her chosen cause.
“I found vegan make-up brands, but none that had personality and were doing cool stuff with their money. That’s when I had the idea for Indigo & Iris,” she says. With encouragement from a local social entrepreneurship program, Bonnie started experimenting with mascara recipes in her kitchen. Eventually, she dropped out of uni and moved to Wellington to work full-time on her fledgling business. Meanwhile, Hannah – whose past projects include a Tinder-style voting app for young people – came on board as CEO.
As it turns out, Bonnie’s kitchen-made mascara was a “disaster”, so she found an Italian make-up manufacturer to help her whip up the perfect formula. A successful Kickstarter campaign followed, and in January the ladies were able to make their first $3000 donation to Fred Hollows – enough money to restore the sight of more than 120 people. “Pushing that send button was overwhelmingly exciting,” Hannah says. “I’ve got this overall belief that for the world to get better, corporations need to step up.”
On a more practical note, the ladies swear their mascara holds up against traditional brands. “We don’t want people buying Levitate as a one-off donation only,” Hannah says. “We want them to buy it because it’s epic.” For the moment, the pair is focused on mascara, but plans are in the works for eyeshadow palettes and glossy lip balms, too. One thing is for sure – whatever they make will do some good. “We’re really looking forward to building a successful business that has a positive impact on the world,” Hannah says. “That’s what drives us, and that’s what we get excited about when we think about the future.”