CosmeticsDesign spoke with model founder Ericka Rodriguez about making the transition and the following steps for the model.
To start out out, inform me just a little bit about your model.
We’re a vegan, cruelty-free and clear make-up model. All of our merchandise include 10 substances or much less and we lately transitioned to changing into a 100% plastic-free magnificence model. We’re most well-known for our zero waste balmies.
We’re additionally palm oil-free, which isn’t simple to do, and folks can perceive what most of our substances are. They’re frequent substances like avocado oil, coconut oil and castor oil.
Inform me just a little bit concerning the resolution to cut back your SCUs.
I began this model as a result of I am a lifetime animal welfare advocate. I finished consuming meat once I was 11 years previous and I’ve actually centered on animals my complete life. I used to be in my early 20s once I found that animal testing was nonetheless a factor in cosmetics and that horrified me. I believed that that was a factor of the previous.
My model began as a vegan model. Because the model has slowly grown, I’ve maintained an curiosity in environmentalism. Lately, I heard that the wonder business is answerable for 120 billion models of packaging waste each single yr.
That basically triggered me, particularly once I was already feeling icky about all the waste. We inevitably have to provide waste as a model. That simply sort of sealed the deal for me, I actually do not need to be a part of that anymore.
I nonetheless wished to maintain Axiology alive, I nonetheless wished to supply a greater, safer various to plastic. So we determined simply to ditch plastic and grow to be plastic-free.
Are you able to inform me just a little bit extra about what the ‘rose and thorn’ of creating that transition was?
The exhausting half is discovering producers to assist us. That is really how we ended up creating our balmies as a result of we had been on the lookout for producers who might make a 100% recycled lipstick a number of years in the past. We could not discover any producers to try this.
The closest we received to our sustainability purpose was lipstick tubes with 50% post-consumer recycled plastic that isn’t recycled after that. On the time, we thought we might simply try this for the lipsticks.
However we nonetheless weren’t assembly our purpose of what we wished to place out into the world. That is how we began creating our balmies. We simply needed to do it ourselves, with none producers concerned. Now it is on us to innovate and discover the best companions or simply do it ourselves.
Inform me just a little bit about your sort of retail enlargement into Ulta.
We launched the balmies in Ulta with 100 doorways in October 2020. We lately expanded this month in Might into 100 extra doorways with our balmies
What is the subsequent step in your plastic-free transition and this focus in your hero SCUs?
We’re engaged on plastic unfavourable certification proper now. We discontinued all of our lipstick tubes which might be plastic and we’re relaunching these in paper tubes this coming fall. Then we have now a brand new product launching in early 2023 which shall be in paper. This product is just not historically in paper, so it must be fairly thrilling.
