Pic: Unsplash We love a planet-friendly beauty trend, we do. We're mad for it. So we're extremely here for circular beauty, which is essentially the act of using food waste to make new, eco-concious beauty products. Coffee, banana and ugly, discarded carrots - they're all being used to make lush new cleansers, creams and masks.
It's a relief to hear that companies are taking up the circular beauty challenge, changing the way their production line works and making ingredients last much longer than they ordinarily do. As reported on Refinery29, the beauty industry produces 120 billion units of packaging each year. By 2050, there will be 12 billion tonnes of beauty packaging in landfill. It's just astonishing - and circular beauty is a positive step towards helping reduce our impact.
Meanwhile, every year, 18 million tonnes of food waste ends up in landfill. According to Food Aware, it's £23 million worth of food waste; a third from producers, a third from retail and a third from households. Smart-thinking entrepreneurs have thought to themselves: what if we could use some of that waste to make sustainable beauty products?
So, here's where you can stock up on your own circular beauty products. UpCircle use leftover coffee grounds from London cafes to make delicious skincare products. There's this dreamy face serum, made with coffee oil. They make gorgeous soaps from chai syrup, too. They're currently looking into which other waste products they could use - like avocado stones and the petals left over from weddings and at florists.
Beauty Kitchen encourage all their customers to reuse their bottles, which they refill with their entirely sustainable products. Last year, they created a special Berry BritishSustainable Beauty Oil using oils from the waste made by juicing. MontaMonta use coffee waste products to develop their Sage and Coffee Body Scrub, which is now stocked by Liberty London.
Meanwhile, The Body Shop are rounding up gnarly-looking carrots to make skincare products. Try their Carrot Wash Energizing Face Cleanser or their Carrot Cream Nature Rich Face Moisturizer for starters.
Hopefully, we'll start seeing even more companies taking up the circular beauty principle to create sustainable skincare products. Keep an eye out for them.
[Via GLAMOUR UK]
