NEW SUSTAINABLE

How are legacy beauty brands responding to consumer expectations for cleaner formulas, sustainable practices and less plastic use?

Green beauty is no longer a niche subcategory. This is how legacy brands are stepping up to meet demands.

GARNIER Clean beauty has proven to be not just a fleeting market trend but, rather, an irreversible direction for the industry and, increasingly, the new normal. So if you are a legacy beauty brand that has always talked up your use of natural ingredients and you want to remain relevant in 2019, you have no choice but to up your game. And that is exactly what Garnier—one of the world’s oldest and top-selling mass beauty brands—is doing.

It has been a five-year process to transition from a company that uses natural ingredients to a truly natural brand, says Delphine Viguier, former global brand president at Garnier.

Knowing that more than half of women are now inspecting the labels of their beauty products, Garnier started by removing ingredients that had been vilified in the media, such as parabens (though Viguier considers public opinion on the preservatives to be “fake news”). The company has also been developing new products across all categories, like Garnier Bio, an Ecocert-certified organic skincare line launched in Europe this year that is likely arriving in Canada in 2020.

The company is also focusing on transparency when it comes to formulas; SkinActive, an up to 100 per cent natural skincare line, has very clear packaging to minimize confusion: For some of the products, the source is indicated next to each item on the ingredients list, as well as whether or not it was naturally derived. “Glycerin can be natural or not,” explains Viguier. “On the list, we say ‘glycerin coming from lettuce.’”

Because a brand of its size requires a large volume of ingredients, Garnier has been working with local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in various parts of the world to establish sustainable sourcing and supply chains for its raw materials, such as argan oil from Morocco, aloe vera from Mexico and oat extract from Finland. “It has taken a long time to put this sourcing into place, but it really guarantees the quality of the raw materials,” says Viguier, “and we are changing lives within some of the communities,” such as the women in Burkina Faso who not only earn a fair wage for producing shea butter but also have access to health care.

Garnier is also focusing on its footprint in other areas, such as no longer including silicones in its formulas because they make products less biodegradable. And the brand has reduced its plastic use by making its packaging lighter; soon, it will only use 100 per cent recycled plastic. But the ultimate goal is to find a biodegradable alternative. The decision to hopefully eliminate plastic altogether underlines another paradigm shift in the ways in which women are shopping for beauty products. They want to know that their purchasing decisions will “protect the planet and future generations,” says Viguier.

DOVE

In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, lead character Midge indulges in her nightly skincare routine while sitting at her vanity table. Set in the late ’50s, the show hearkens back to a time when many beauty products—such as Midge’s cold cream—were housed in glass and porcelain. But with the popularization of plastic and the rise in popularity of showers over baths, the personal care industry was one of many that swiftly embraced the light, flexible material, and grooming practices soon moved to bathrooms, where if an item was dropped, it wouldn’t shatter.

Today, most beauty products are housed in plastic, contributing to the current global crisis. Studies show that if something isn’t done immediately, and severely, landfills will contain 12 billion metric tonnes of plastic by 2050. The Canadian government finally stepped in, announcing this past June that Canada will ban single-use plastics by 2021. In the meantime, companies are feeling the pressure and modifying their own business practices. “We’re at a seismic moment now where people want change to happen,” says Siån Sutherland, co-founder of the campaign group A Plastic Planet. “Because people want it, brands will change as that’s their audience.”

One such brand is Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, which owns Dove. Two years ago, the company stated that it was going to make all of its plastic packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. “There was a real thought that we have to accept responsibility for this,” says Gavin Warner, director of sustainable business at Unilever. Warner believes that taking ownership for one’s role in the problem is essential. That goes for “every player in the space,” he says, and, beyond that, to “finding a way to change the system.”

Though Dove currently uses 25 per cent recycled plastic in its packaging—a figure that seems low but is due to a lack of supply—the plan is to move to 100 per cent in North America and Europe by the end of 2019. It means that the packaging will be less than pristine, with small imperfections like dots and marks, but it’s a trade-off the company is willing to make.

But Unilever’s most ambitious plan, which includes Dove and a few of its other brands, involves moving away from plastic completely with Loop, an organization run by TerraCycle. Launched in New York and Paris this past May and coming to Toronto by the end of the year, the new business model is centred around a refill system. “Someone will collect your packaging, clean it, refill it and bring it back to you,” says Warner. At the moment, Unilever is testing stainless steel prototypes for Dove deodorant, and toothpaste tablets are being developed for its brand Signal as well. While companies and individuals slowly move the needle to create reform, Warner thinks we may see behaviour-change campaigns that are similar to those we saw for seat belts, drinking and driving and smoking. “It happened in big, systemic areas,” he says. “I imagine it’s going to come.”