ON A MISSION
The newest swag of beauty products and initiatives come with a clear direction and a purposeful agenda that’s beyond skin deep. By Remy Rippon.
POT LUCK
Easy swipe pads have become a beauty mainstay for their on-the-go usability but as far as being a serious skincare player, serums always packed more of a punch. The newest formulas however, are spiked with a host of effective ingredients (think vitamin C and hyaluronic acid) delivering the best of both worlds.
HELPING HAIR
You probably haven’t given much thought to what happens to your hair once it’s lopped from your crown at the hair salon, but for Paul Frasca and Ewelina Soroko it’s become the basis of their business. The duo co-founded Sustainable Salons, a social enterprise that collects up to 95 per cent of hair salon waste – paper, plastic, metal and of course, hair – for re-use and recycling, with all proceeds donated to charities in Australia and New Zealand. The pair has also driven the research and development of ‘hair booms’ – cylindrical stockings filled with hair – which have been instrumental in mopping up oil spills in our oceans. Just this year, when a ship began leaking copious amount of oil into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mauritius, hair booms were deployed to soak up the oil, minimising the impact to the surrounding ecosystem. With more than 1,000 salons taking part in the initiative, there’s never been a better reason to consider a drastic chop.
BRAND TO KNOW: EMMA LEWISHAM
There are two things New Zealand-based skincare brand Emma Lewisham believes should not be mutually exclusive: high performance and clean skincare. In other words, overhauling your regimen to hero clean, 100 per cent natural products shouldn’t mean forgoing targeted, efficacious ingredients that genuinely improve your complexion. Since launching late last year, Emma Lewisham has stayed true to its MO with a handful of highly concentrated formulas – a hyperpigmentation serum, sunscreen and hydrating cream among them – that don’t skimp on results. Plus, the brand’s Beauty Circle recycling program, in partnership with TerraCycle, offers a kerbside collection of used plastic and glass skincare vessels. There’s a seamless refilling program, too.
Supernatural Triple Vitamin A + Face Oil, $127, made with bakuchiol, the hyped-about natural retinol alternative.
WATER FALL
On the topic of sustainability, get ready to start hearing a lot more about beauty going ‘waterless’. Put simply, many of the beauty products sitting in your bathroom cabinet are either predominantly made of H2O or require a great deal of it to be produced. The problem? Water is a precious resource and just as having shorter showers is important, so too is what we put on our skin each day. You can do your bit by reading ingredients (aqua is often listed first) and stocking your cabinet with powders and products that are more sustainable, as well as following the simplest water-saving method: turning off the tap.
Aveda Foam Reset Rinseless Hydrating Hair Cleanser, $32; Alpha-H Vitamin C Paste, $70; Garnier Organics Konjac Botanical Cleansing Sponge, $13.