On March 25, Loop x Ulta Beauty hosted “an all-female panel to discuss their careers in sustainability and the future of beauty in the circular movement.” The Sustainable Beauty Circle panel consisted of:
- Moderator: Rachel Cernansky, Senior Sustainability Editor at Vogue Business
- Laura Beres, Senior Director Strategic Portfolio Delivery at ULTA Beauty
- Lindsey Casella, Senior Global Marketing Manager at Loop
- Olayinka Credle, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Melanin Essentials
- Kathy Pazakis, Commercial Executive Vice President at TerraCycle
- Saba Williams, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Melanin Essentials
Loop x Ulta Beauty launched in March. This new partnership extends Loop’s zero-waste model to beauty. When ordering from Loop by Ulta, you pay a small deposit for the packaging and a Loop delivery tote. However, you get your deposit back when you return the packaging and tote. Loop by Ulta then cleans the packaging, refills it, and sends it to the next customer.
My summary of this event is not a chronological recap. Instead, I share the themes I noticed throughout the event. You can watch the entire panel on YouTube, but here are my key takeaways.
Takeaway 1: Brands are listening to consumer demands for sustainability
Sustainability bloggers have been saying it: the best way to show companies we want sustainable products is to buy sustainable products. And Ulta’s Laura Beres confirmed it when explaining the impetus for Ulta’s Conscious Beauty program, “Everything really starts with our guests. This is an area of importance for our guests, and therefore it is an area of importance for us at Ulta Beauty.”
Kathy Pazakis of TerraCycle added, “the consumer is getting more sophisticated and is really voting with their dollars.” In discussing refillable beauty, she said, “consumers, 100%, are just continuing to push the edge for what they want their brands to do.”
Takeaway 2: The beauty industry is responding to the amount of waste it creates
Saba Williams from Melanin Essentials shared, “It’s estimated that this industry creates more than 120 billion units of packaging globally every year and about 8 billion units in the U.S. alone are plastic. So that’s a ton of waste that’s being created.” Loop’s Lindsey Casella revealed that this statistic is why Loop wanted to work with Ulta to offer refillable beauty.
Ulta also recognized that they play a role in addressing this issue. In addition to partnering with brands like Loop and Melanin Essentials, Ulta formed a Conscious beauty council and is working to educate brands about sustainability.
Furthermore, TerraCycle helps brands develop end-of-life solutions for packaging. Pazakis explained how droppers, pumps, and mixed materials, make it hard to recycle beauty packaging curbside. TerraCycle helps brands enhance the customer experience by providing mail-in and drop-off services, making it easier to recycle hard-to-recycle materials.
Takeaway 3: Environmental racism extends into the beauty industry
Early on, Williams and Olayinka Credle recognized environmental racism as part of Melanin Essential’s social mission. Still, they met resistance. At one point, a panel of all-male, white investors wondered if black people care about climate change. Credle explained how people of color are the most impacted by environmental toxins and climate change but are often excluded from the conversation
[A study by the American Journal of Obstetrics found] that compared with white women, women of color have higher levels of beauty product-related environmental chemicals in their products. And if you look at the environments that a lot of urban areas are in, [a lot of] people of color communities are within one mile of a railroad track or gas emissions.”
Olayinka Credle, Melanin Essentials
Williams shared that their success is a testament that people of color care about sustainability.
Unfortunately, the systems in place inhibit marginalized communities’ access to sustainable products. Nevertheless, the panelists are confident that the beauty industry can overcome affordability and access issues through collaboration.
It was a very informative panel. These are only a sampling of the info gems dropped by the Sustainable Beauty Circle. To learn more, visit Loop x Ulta, TerraCycle, Melanin Essentials, and Conscious Beauty by Ulta Beauty.
