Green Beauty Conversations by Formula Botanica

The fundamentals of formulation, such as the techniques of emulsifying, don't really change over the decades. What does change however are the ingredients. Each year, manufacturers release the latest innovative ingredients their R&D teams have been keeping under wraps. Interestingly too, we see old ingredients rediscovered and revamped into new forms. Tens of thousands of cosmetic ingredients exist, but there is one place that helps put them into context and shows us where the cosmetics' industry is heading; and that is in-cosmetics Global. This massive, annual trade fair draws in thousands of industry insiders to explore the hottest trends in cosmetic ingredients. The Formula Botanica education team attended the 2023 in-cosmetics Global in Barcelona and is here to report on the latest trends that will filter into our teaching, in particular The Lab, our CPD membership site, as well as inspire all of us in natural formulation. Podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier is joined by colleagues School Education Manager Ana Green and Cosmetic Scientist Beatriz do Amaral to pick out the highlights of in-cosmetics Global 2023 that are shaping the future of our cosmetics.

In this Green Beauty opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks about the resistence to change both consumers and the natural skincare formulation community face from the established beauty industry. Her guest in the previous episode, Candice Quinn, founder of MANISAFE is just one example of this in action, and Lorraine mentions others that proved to be less than music to the mainstream industry's ears. Yet, as Formula Botanica graduates have proved, time and again, there are plenty of niches in which they are pioneers whether in serving their customers' needs more closely, or in adopting eco-beauty practices. One beauty entrepreneur at a time, we are seeing more and more Candice Quinns dare to find solutions to problems the industry won't even admit to. Join Lorraine in this episode as she celebrates indie beauty's entrepreneurial mindset. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

We all know the saying:"your hands really show your age". Your grandmother or mother may have told you to take care of your hands and to protect them, not just your face, from the damage caused by UV exposure and other environmental stressors. Wearing gloves while doing housework may be your mantra already, but listen up. If you love caring for your hands and are in love with the perfection and durability of gel manicures, you may be exposing the skin on your hands to UV damage. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Candice Quinn, who is the Founder of MANISAFE, a multi-award-winning small business with a mission to make gel manicures kinder to hands' skin. MANISAFE created a collection of fashion-statement, UV-protective gel manicure gloves designed to protect the skin on your hands from the harmful UV light emitted by nail lamps to cure gel polish. Candice's aim is to save hand skin from damage in all situations – including their beautifying. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

Sustainable beauty can seem a mission impossible. Whether appraoching it as a beauty consumer or indie beauty brand, we can get dragged into a complex and depressing world of carbon emissions and waste recycling and despair that we can ever do the right thing for the planet. But, as we heard in the previous episode with Anisha Gupta of Bluebird Climate, sustainable beauty can be accessible to all and need not be costly, complex nor confusing. Bluebird's fascinating impact assessment tool for beauty brands and rather cool - yes, we can apply that word to sustainability - website widget puts a positive spin on the matter. In this Green Beauty Opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier explains the many reasons we have to be positive about embracing sustainable beauty. Let's call this episode a look on the bright side of the future of beauty. Forgot about overwhelm and start being overjoyed that we live in the era that will see sustainability go mainstream. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

Sustainable beauty is a term laden with grand visions and vague concepts. It is enough to scare off even those indie beauty brands wanting to do their best to reduce their carbon impact and waste. Unraveling sustainability as a small business is complex, so imagine our excitement at coming across a new platform aimed specifically at making sustainability a simpler process for small beauty and wellness companies to navigate. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Anisha Gupta, chemical engineer, sustainability expert and co-founder of Bluebird Climate, a climate-tech firm handholding small beauty companies in their mission to decarbonise their operations and make lifecycle assessments of their products. Based on low-cost access to their transparent benchmarking tools, Bluebird believes that it doesn't have to be complicated to tell a sustainability story. If sustainability has been on your mind, and whether your beauty business is pre-launch, a start-up or established, this is an episode to help you get going on your brand's sustainability journey. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

The word gentle is touted around in the beauty industry and familiar to consumers. However the ingredients inside certain cosmetics may be anything but gentle to our skin. The beauty industry creates products to help reduce the visible signs of ageing, like fine lines and wrinkles, by over cleansing, exfoliating and peeling our skin. But this removes the microbiome we so badly need for good skin health and for the maintenance of our skin barrier. We heard about the human microbiome and its vital role in maintaining skin health in our previous guest episode with Leo Salvi of Kind to Biome, a firm developing rigorous, verifiable tests to assess the microbiome gentleness of cosmetics. In this opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks: "Isn't it time we see the industry formulating with a different and gentler agenda than antiageing and turning back the clock on our skin?" To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

Imagine the human microbiome as a planet with millions, and possibly billions, of microorganisms living in harmony to protect their host - our skin and scalp. Incredibly, one square centimetre of our skin, depending on the part of the body, could have that number of microbes living on it. We are in early days of scientific research on the skin's microbiome and its function in maintaining the health of our skin and body. How then is it possible to have cosmetics sporting labels that say their formulations are microbiome friendly? Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier dives into the mysterious and magical world of our skin's microbiome. Her guest is Leo Salvi, a chemist, qualified safety assessor for cosmetics and the Co-Founder and Head of Science at Kind to Biome® which provides a scientifically-validated methodology to back up microbiome-gentle claims for beauty products. Will microbiome-friendly cosmetics be the next big industry trend? Listen in to discover and make your mind up. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

In this opinion podcast, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks us to look back and laugh – or else we'll cry with despair – at her chart-topping ten most ridiculous claims that the beauty industry has made. In the previous episode, Lorraine and colleague Ana Green unpacked the facts behind one of the latest claims in cosmetics' marketing – fossil fuel-free beauty. It proved to be yet another misleading term. As a follow up, Lorraine takes us through her choice of most ridiculous claims starting over a hundred years ago at the beginning of the modern cosmetics industry. While today, most of those historic claims could not be made, Lorraine notes that we still find similar, if subtler messaging circulating in the beauty industry. Look back and laugh or look back and be angry about what many global beauty firms are communicating today. We leave it up to you to decide. Listen in to an astounding round-up of ridiculous claims. You won't believe what makes Lorraine's top three.

Fossil fuel-free beauty - haven't we covered this one before on Green Beauty Conversations? Not in its new form. Fossil fuel-free is yet another distinct claim we've seen popping up on cosmetics' labels. You'd be right to think it's familiar as on this podcast we have delved into related claims of carbon-neutral, zero-waste and climate-neutral, along with a host of topics open to greenwashing such as waterless, green, clean and blue beauty. However, while it may overlap with those other terms, we realised that fossil fuel-free beauty needs its own episode in order for us to unpack its meaning. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier is joined by School Education Manager Ana Green to shed light on exactly what fossil fuel-free beauty is and why it may be among the most confusing and misleading terms yet applied to beauty products. Listen in to decide for yourself if fossil fuel-free is a claim too far. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

Big beauty has spent well over a century using fear-mongering to marketing its products to us. Even if today it is more sophisticated in its methods and use of media, the mainstream industry is still telling us we are not good enough or beautiful enough. In effect, it is telling us it's not alright to embrace and celebrate our unique, inherent beauty and the normal part and parcel of being human – ageing. But, there are some in the beauty industry daring to ditch this messaging and give voice to a different way of looking at beauty; one that celebrates us as we are and makes us feel good in our own skin without using negative messaging to make us buy their products. In this green beauty opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier explains how indie beauty formulators and entrepreneurs are helping dismantle decades of big beauty's domination of the beauty narrative. Lorraine concludes with a clarion call for more of us to learn to formulate and change the industry for the better. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

If you are thinking of indie beauty entrepreneurship, this episode is a must-listen. It has been a while since the podcast has featured a Formula Botanica graduate brand, and with well over 300 incredible founders and successful beauty brands featured in our online gallery, the decision about whom to approach wasn't easy. But, one name popped up time and again – Roshanne Dorsett, graduate of the International Organic Skincare Entrepreneur Program, and founder of The Glowcery. Roshanne has achieved incredible heights for her brand in just three years, having launched The Glowcery, a superfood, natural and sustainable skincare brand, in spring 2020 just before the Covid-19 lockdowns. In this interview, you will hear of the amazing, inspiring personal transformation that Roshanne went through in starting her gorgeous and multi-award-winning beauty brand. But, what are really fascinating are her insights as a new, beauty entrepreneur; how she overcame challenges, bootstrapped her business, grew in confidence and now has plans to take The Glowcery international and develop it as a lifestyle brand. Roshanne drops some mindset bombs on indie beauty entrepreneurship that you need to hear. So settle in for a fantastic episode that could change your life.

There are few corners of formulating beauty that are left untouched. We've seen just about every possible formulation category covered on this podcast alone. We've heard about carbon neutral, waterless beauty, and clean, green and blue beauty, along with net zero and zero waste and more. But, until our previous episode, with haircare brand entrepreneur founders of Climaplex, we had not come across a cosmetics business actively formulating to protect us from the myriad effects of climate change. Not only is Climaplex doing right by the planet by formulating to ethical, sustainable principles, their haircare products are designed to tackle multiple effects of the fluctuating, and ever more extreme environmental conditions on our hair and scalp. In this Green Beauty opinion short, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks if formulating to protect our skin, body and hair from the ravages of climate change could become the norm – in fact, a new gold standard in cosmetic formulation. To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

Retail shelves are full of haircare products aimed at repairing our hair. Too dry, too greasy, dandruff, split ends, issues with frizz, more curl or less curl required, or shine and gloss needed? Every product promises hair nirvana to encourage us to buy. But, if we're honest, many products may not work, or work as described. So, when podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier received a press release from a new haircare brand saying its products were formulated to combat the effects of climate change on our hair, she was sceptical, but also curious to find out more. The brand, Climaplex, has serious credentials. Its co-founders are industry veterans with several decades' experience in the consumer and professional haircare and cosmetics manufacturing industries. They had invested in clinical development and trials run by a leading EU university to prove the climate change-haircare link and the efficacy of their products. In this episode, Lorraine talks to guests Simon Ostler, a renowned hairdresser, haircare brand pioneer and former industry executive and Giannantonio Negretti, head of a leading, international cosmetics manufacturing group to hear first hand how this new category of climate change cosmetics came into being. And, importantly, how Climaplex is committed to resolving our climate-change-created hair and scalp issues honestly, holistically and sustainably. To learn more about this episode, Lorraine's guests, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

In the last episode, podcast guest Ekwy Chukwuji-Nnene, founder of indie, vegan haircare brand Equi Botanics, said that one cosmetics conglomerate had told her, in effect, that the beauty needs of people of colour didn't count. Ekwy explained that when she approached the firm with her tried-and-tested natural haircare formulations for coily and textured hair, the executives replied: "Black women will buy whatever we sell them". Ekwy shed light on what goes on behind the scenes of one giant in the cosmetics industry, but which is likely to be the prevaling attitude found across the sector. So incensed was podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier about the arrogant attitudes – and racism – in the mainstream commercial beauty industry that she just had to get on her soapbox in this green beauty opinion. Can indie beauty founders like Ekwy and consumers counter this arrogance and call the mainstream beauty out for its domineering attitudes once and for all?

When entrepreneur Ekwy Chukwuji-Nnene was told by a major cosmetics conglomerate that "Black women buy anything we sell them", she was at first stunned and then angry. Founder of indie, vegan haircare brand Equi Botanics, Ekwy was met with scepticism when she pitched her products to a global beauty firm. Ekwy knew that they worked. Her formulations had helped resolve her own devastating hair issues and those of her daughters and had gained her a loyal community of early adopters. She knew also that there was a vast, untapped market of women of colour who were being ignored by the dominant, established beauty brands. Why is it that well into the 21st century, the beauty industry still believes it need cater only to the Eurocentric beauty ideal of a white woman with straight hair? Podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier invited Ekwy onto the show to talk not only about the challenges inherent in caring for coily, textured hair, but also about the struggles facing beauty entrepreneurs of colour. To learn more about this episode, Lorraine's guest, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

From interviewing numerous founders for this podcast, we know that starting an indie beauty brand based on sustainability principles can be more expensive as well as limit your choices of packaging, ingredients, suppliers, partners and more. However, if you are a beauty brand founder of colour or from a minority, then both anecdotal and statistical evidence shows that you will face almost insurmountable barriers to entry just starting any beauty brand, let alone one founded on sustainability principles. In our last episode on the history of slavery in soapmaking, we heard indie beauty founder and minority community activist Dr Candace Parrish explain that embracing sustainability is expensive and that these extra costs limit entrepreneurs of colour from getting into this industry in the first place. In this green beauty opinion, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier explores the points Candace raises to take a look at the barriers to entry for entrepreneurs of colour and from minorities, especially when it comes to sustainable beauty.

Soap has been the mainstay of personal care for millennia, but in recent years, it has gone from household commodity to luxury cosmetic in homes and hotels. Soapmaking is thriving too as an artisan hobby and has launched many entrepreneurial beauty businesses. Formula Botanica graduate Sandra Velasquez started her successful Latinx heritage bath and body brand Nopalera in 2020, helping elevate soap to new heights. But, let's just stop for a moment. Do we ever ask ourselves about the history of soap? It is worth doing so as there is a whole era of soapmaking that has been almost erased from the records of social history. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier discovers the murky past of soapmaking with guest Dr Candace Parrish, whose studies in public relations, health communication, and visual communication led her to unearth a shameful period of American history and its enslaved soapmakers. Candace went on to create her soap and candle brand Odelia, Marie & Patrice to honour the legacy of African-American soapmakers, and as a platform to support activism for Black and people of colour in America today.

When you start a beauty brand, every aspect of it from your own unique formulations to your packaging and branding are up for grabs. Every detail is in your hands and even if outsourcing tasks, you, as the founder, have control. If you embrace sustainability in your brand mission at the outset, it will drive every detail and decision. How much easier this is than struggling to audit a beauty business later on against sustainability principles and finding it falling short. In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier discusses the advantages nimble, newcomer indie beauty brands have over the "oil tanker" giant firms of personal care. It will still take indie brands boundless energy, resources and resolve to be true to any founding mission to act on sustainability not just talk about it. However, the advantages and the market is theirs if they prepare ahead rather than retro fit sustainability as most personal care conglomerates must do.

Solid cosmetics are growing in popularity in line with our desire for less-is-more skincare and to do right by the planet. They can be multiuse, potentially use less water in their manufacture, strip out water as a "filler" in their formulation, and may not need preservatives. As they are waterless, they can be less weighty to ship thanks to their minimal packaging. For all their virtues however, solid formulations are often seen as fun, cheap and disposable and not attractive enough to deliver high-performance skincare. We may think of them as glorified bars of soap. However, there are innovative, forward-thinking cosmetics brands that are daring to reframe solid formulations to appeal to a more luxury beauty market. When we heard of the brand SBTRCT, we knew we had to find out their secret of making solid beauty not just the norm, but the luxury norm too. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to SBTRCT founder Ben Grace about his mission to disrupt the beauty industry and show us that anything is possible; even a facial serum bar perhaps.

Natural, indie, clean, green, organic skincare is now commonplace on store shelves and is talked about wherever you are online. This podcast is all about it, but if you've listened recently to Green Beauty Conversations, you will have noticed we've been focusing more on the topic of natural, sustainable haircare and attitudes to hair. But talk aside, are consumers actively looking to buy natural, more sustainable haircare products? Big, household-name international brands have generally had a comfortable monopoly on our haircare buying habits for decades. But recently, we have seen some high-profile brands having to do product recalls amidst safety concerns. Perhaps this will see shoppers start to question mainstream haircare ingredients. If so, we may have the same situation we did in the early 2010s when a fear of parabens kickstarted the indie beauty movement. In this green beauty opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks what it will take for consumers to move away from the mainstream brands and what role indie brands will play in the future of haircare.

Indie beauty and the organic and natural cosmetics sector have typically focused more on skincare than haircare. This is to be expected; people can be reluctant to change their haircare routines and products once they have found brands that work for them. There are other reasons too for natural haircare lingering behind, such as the perceived higher cost of using natural shampoos and conditioners whose precious ingredients are immediately washed off. However, we are witnessing an exciting rise in the number of natural haircare brands, and also in consumer awareness of the need to seek out more sustainable haircare products too. The tide is turning for the dominance of mainstream haircare, not least on account of some recent high-profile product recalls in the sector. To discuss the kind of changes we need to make the haircare sector more sustainable and, as brand founders, see natural, indie haircare leading the way, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Jana Blankenship. The founder, CEO and lead formulator of green beauty haircare and B Corp company Captain Blankenship, Jana made a conscious decision a couple of years ago to pivot her business to focus solely on haircare and embed sustainability into its operations.

Visualising through storytelling is a good way to set our sights on what is desireable and possible, and then make the imagined become reality. Beauty brands have long used storytelling to create an appealing narrative about their products. It is in this context that Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier dares to air a new format in this green beauty opinion episode – a short story of life in the beauty industry in 2100. Lorraine helps us imagine what may seem impossible today; a truly sustainable beauty industry – one not driven by ever-more consumerism, but founded on sound sustainability principles. Inspired by her guest on the previous episode, sustainability leader, activist, and artist Khandiz Joni, Lorraine asks us to listen to her hopes for a future beauty industry that has avoided breaching the 9 planetary boundaries – or tipping points of sustainability – Joni outlined.

Would you like to hear a single, simple definition of sustainability that you can apply to your daily life in the beauty industry, whether as an indie business founder or consumer? The beauty industry media is clamouring to provide one, and at Formula Botanica, we've had journalists approach us for short sound-bites on what sustainable beauty means. Unfortunately, things aren't so simple. In reducing talk of sustainability to the level of discussing this or that bottle for our beauty products or whether plant A is a more sustainable an option in our formulations than plant B, we are all guilty of missing the big picture. Of course, starting small and taking steps like changing packaging, seeking out refillables and formulating solid beauty products do make a difference. But, we also need to think big if we are to see a more sustainable beauty sector. Our guest in this episode Khandiz Joni, Chartered Environmentalist, independent sustainability consultant and, as she describes herself, a "sustainable-ist", returns to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast. Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier invites Khandiz to discuss the big conversations the beauty industry, both small and large scale, needs to have about issues fundamental to sustainabilty, such as its use of land and water and role in agriculture and in how it contributes to biodiversity loss.

Whenever podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier has tackled the issue of sustainability in the beauty industry, she has heard time and time again the refrain that various pioneering approaches can't be done or done safely, are too expensive or demand too much from beauty consumers to put into action. In this Green Beauty Opinion Lorraine shines the spotlight on some of the beauty industry's true pioneers to make the point that the "eco-beauty entrepreneurs" of today will be those who eclipse their peers in the future. These are personalities changing the beauty industry for the better as they run successful beauty companies. The future will thank these entrepreneurs of today who are daring to defy the norms and through sheer doggedness and innovation are finding viable, profitable, practical ways to bring beauty products to market with minimal impact on the planet. Who dares wins, perhaps?

As indie beauty consumers, formulators and brand founders, we want to act responsibly when it comes to making, packaging, buying and disposing of our beauty products. Yet, for all our goodwill, it is incredibly difficult to know if the measures we are taking to reduce, reuse and recycle, plastic containers in particular, are making a difference. We've talked to pioneering indie beauty brands running some exceptional return and refill schemes, but our guest in this episode has flipped the idea to create refillable packaging designed to last - not just one or two refills nor a few years, but in theory up to 2,500 years. Instead of worrying about the time it takes a plastic container to biodegrade (which can be up to 400 years), Izzy Zero Waste is an indie beauty company designing permanence into its packaging. Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Shannon Goldberg, co-founder and Chief Zero Waste Officer at Izzy Zero Waste Beauty to ask if the brand has created the ultimate solution to sustainable beauty packaging.

In this first Green Beauty Conversations of 2023, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier and all the school team wish you a healthy, happy, prosperous year. The start of the year is always an exciting time as we anticipate, envisage and make plans for the next 12 months. Lorraine dives right in to this topic throwing down some challenges. She asks what plans you have to change your life for the better this year, and to make a positive impact on those around you? What formulation goals are you setting? Are you dreaming big and thinking of taking steps to start your own beauty brand this year? Whatever your plans, don't let things beyond your control limit your horizons. Lorraine starts the year with an upbeat message for all of us in the indie beauty community.

What a year it's been for celebrity beauty brand launches. Not content with being on our screens, celebrities have been in overdrive in the beauty industry not as the "face" of this or that brand, but as cosmetic business founders themselves. In 2022 alone, we've seen Bradd Pitt's "Le Domaine", Jared Leto's "Twentynine Palms", and Kim Kardashian's "Skkn by Kim" launch along with a flurry of other celebrity beauty brands. As beauty consumers and indie brand founders, do we care? Some in the beauty industry, especially self-made beauty entrepreneurs who have grafted hard to bring brands to market without celebrity privilege, status and wealth, and social influencers presenting themselves as the moral compass of the industry, do care. Love or hate the celebrity phenomenon, it's time to stand back from emotions as we dissect their beauty businesses. In this episode, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier and School Education Manager Ana Green take a balanced view of the reasons for the rise in and resentment of celebrity skincare brands.

Haircare seems on the surface such an everyday topic. Who doesn't regularly see mainstream shampoo brand adverts touting the ease, speed and convenience of using their haircare products for instant well-groomed and manageable hair? But, there is so much more to unpack in talk of hair and haircare. As we discovered in our previous episode in conversation with Formula Botanica haircare diploma course lead and student mentor Suzanne Soto Davis, haircare can be minimalist and we should try to take a less-is-best approach to it. But, that does not mean that haircare is one size fits all, nor less complex or controversial a topic than skincare. In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier takes the issues involved in hair and haircare further. Before we can talk of swapping products for sustainability's sake, we must tackle deeper issues about hair that overshadow our choice of product; hair prejudice and discrimination and hair as a tool of social norms and mores and at times also of stereotyping and repression. Listen in to hear just how much is at stake when we talk about hair and how we should be mindful about how we choose to discuss hair and its care.

Are you a person who shampoos daily? Do you also use a shelf of other haircare products like conditioners, detanglers, moisturisers, serums, leave-in shampoos and conditioners, sun protection products, styling gels, foams, hair fragrances, sprays, waxes and more? If this sounds like your haircare routine, then it is high time to start using fewer haircare products and less of them too. Not only will your hair – and more importantly, your scalp – thank you for it, but you will also be adopting a more sustainable haircare routine. We have talked on the podcast about skinimalism, and now we are seeing the same concept applied to haircare. Joining Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier on the podcast to talk about minimalism in haircare is Suzanne Soto-Davies, founder of eco-friendly haircare brand Truu by Nature Obloom. Suzanne is also a Formula Botanica student mentor and course lead for our Diploma in Organic Haircare Formulation. If you currently use only shampoo and conditioner and think you are already on track as a haircare minimalist, listen in as you will be surprised to hear what Suzanne has to say about that daily shampoo too.

Does we really need more beauty brands? No, of course we don't, we hear you reply. With thousands of beauty products on the market, and with the hundreds more that arrive – often born of celebrity brands and containing trending, so-called high-performance ingredients – it is reasonable to assume the cosmetics' market is saturated. However, as with all opinions there are counter arguments to explore. In this Green Beauty Opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier delves into the question and flips it to ask: "Does the world need more unsustainable beauty brands?". Listen in for a soapbox opinion podcast that calls out the real problem underlying the majority of mainstream beauty brands – their inability to adopt sustainable practices. We may not need more, but we certainly need different kinds of brands to replace them; the kind of indie beauty brands many of our Formula Botanica graduates launch.

When we came across a cosmetics' company publicly declaring that it would love to see its customers buy fewer of its products, we knew we just had to interview its founder on Green Beauty Conversations. This podcast, as one focused heavily on the ethics and practice of green beauty, has heard industry journalists ask time and again how a cosmetics company would survive if it encouraged its customers to buy less. What kind of beauty business dare call out the elephant in the room - overconsumption as the root cause of an unsustainable economy, and planet? We have tackled the consumption issue in numerous episodes; Podcast 124: the four pillars of sustainable beauty spells out a blueprint of how the beauty industry can approach sustainability. But, until now, we had not talked directly to beauty brand that was so aligned with our own messaging. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to founder and CEO of Elate Cosmetics Melodie Reynolds to discover how her brand has built a sustainable business for a more sustainable planet by believing in less is more. Listen in to hear from Melodie, a driven and inspirational founder, about how Elate is putting those pillars of sustainable beauty into action.

This Green Beauty Opinion airs just before Black Friday; the day on which the world experiences a retail rush. With Black Friday now extending to a week – even a month – of heavy discounted prices on everything from big-ticket tech items to small business beauty products, we asked in our previous episode whether we – as beauty consumers and indie beauty businesses – should participate in Black Friday, and if so, in what way. The fact remains that Black Friday is a day indie beauty businesses too can make significant sales and reach out to customers with interesting offers. But, are they being heard in the noise of Black Friday mega deals from mainstream brands? In this opinion short, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier explains why natural indie brands have a lot to offer beauty shoppers and dispels the myth that only the cosmetics' conglomerates can create high-performance skincare. Listen in to discover why small, natural indie beauty businesses and their products deserve our support all year round and not just on Black Friday.

Black Friday, love it or hate it, is that annual event that sees consumers snap up bargains and big businesses add billions to their profits. Lasting a day, weekend, week and even a month for some businesses, Black Friday is embraced also by small indie beauty brands. It can be a tipping point in the year moving any size of business closer to its profit goals for the year. The sheer rampant consumerism of this particular Friday that falls just before the US Thanksgiving holiday - but which is now promoted as a shopping event the world over - has seen alternatives advocated. Some options include asking us on one extreme to boycott Black Friday altogether, to reminding us to shop more mindfully and support small businesses all year round. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier and School Education Manager Ana Green discuss the background to Black Friday and how it arrived on almost the whole world's calendar. They explore four main alternatives that both beauty shoppers and indie brands can adopt to make beauty consumerism that bit more sustainable on Black Friday and, in fact, all year round as well.

Is the metaverse a liberating space in which we can shake off our physical selves and explore multiple new identities freely and for fun? Or is it a means to escape very real-world, pressing and critical problems such as sustainability, climate change, and, where beauty is concerned, issues like body shaming? In other words, is the metaverse a place to bury our heads in the sand? In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botabnica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares her thoughts on the potential of metaverse, having had many of her preconceptions challenged by the previous episode's guest, Dr Alex Box, an internationally-renowned artist, identity designer and beauty futurist. Listen in to expand your knowledge and viewpoints on this next-gen version of the Web which we will all come across and have to negotiate sooner or later.

If you are a gamer, then the metaverse will be a familiar space. But, if you are a natural cosmetics' formulator helping friends, family and customers with real-world skincare and haircare issues, a hyper-virtual reality metaverse of avatars, immersive digital experiences and the concept of the post-human body is going to be light years away from how you live your life in the beauty sector. As with all advances in digital technology, what is new, weird and totally incomprehensible today is likely to enter the mainstream later. In a few years, you too, whether beauty shopper or indie brand founder, may well engage with the metaverse in all its Web 3.0 glory. You are probably asking what on earth the metaverse is anyway and wondering how you can embrace physical beauty products without using your physical body. Dazed and confused about what this means for beauty as we know it? So were we. To help decode the metaverse, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier interviews Dr Alex Box, a beauty futurist and internationally-renowned artist who has redefined the role of creativity in makeup, beauty and identity. Don't expect to hold on to reality in this episode as we immerse ourselves in a parallel universe.

Can synthetic biology offer a more sustainable way to bring "natural" cosmetic ingredients to market? Can a branch of bioscience that includes the word synthetic in its name ever be considered natural? These are questions Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier tackles in this opinion episode. Following her interview in the previous episode with Jake Wintermute, developer-evangelist at synthetic bioscience company Ginkgo Bioworks, Lorraine picks up on some valid comments and concerns of Green Beauty Conversations' listeners. Our recent episode with Dr Barb Paldus on biotech beauty – or lab-grown skincare – proved similarly controversial. Lorraine asks us to think carefully before we dismiss synbio and similar advances in biosciences as the anathema to natural cosmetics. Each of us must make up our own mind on these new frontiers in cosmetic science, and dig deep before deciding on what natural means to us. Listen in for a thought-provoking Green Beauty Opinion which might leave you with even more questions to answer.

Imagine a future in which bacteria is king and you might give a friend the skincare equivalent of a sourdough bread starter so they can grow their own moisturiser at home. Our podcast guest in this episode is on record as seeding this idea. We love the concept of cosmetic science being ever more in the hands of the home formulator, but is this concept just too futuristic? In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier, a biologist and Chartered Environmentalist, digs deeper into the world of lab-produced ingredients to investigate the field of synthetic biology. Lorraine interviews Jake Wintermute, developer-evangelist at US-based synthetic biology research company Ginkgo Bioworks who describes SynBio as genetic engineering on steroids. In Green Beauty Conversations, we recently covered another new frontier in cosmetic science – biotech beauty. It proved a controversial topic as many in our community felt that using lab-grow plant molecules as 'natural' cosmetic ingredients was a step too far. Listen in and use this episode as a primer to another new branch of science that could open up a revolution in cosmetic ingredients - or perhaps give us more to worry about?

You may not have loved history lessons at school, but there is plenty to love about the history of cosmetic formulation. It shows that everyone can become a natural cosmetic formulator and be part of our millennia-old birthright to make our own beauty products at home whether for ourselves or to start a new career or small business. Making skincare is not a recent phenomenon. The vast global beauty industry is a newcomer at just under 200 years old. Well before lab scientists in white coats featured in cosmetics' advertising came thousands of years of home formulation dating back at least to Ancient Egyptian times. Following her interview with Geoffrey Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School and author of Beauty Imagined – A History of the Global Beauty Industry, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier highlights in this episode events in cosmetic history that show humankind had the inherent skills to formulate cosmetics. This Green Beauty Opinion takes you on a brief journey through the centuries to show you that it is time to bring cosmetic formulation home. Listen in to hear how history shows us that everyone can formulate.

What can history possibly teach us about the modern-day beauty industry? As it happens, there is a quite a lot. The lives of early beauty industry pioneers alone hold clues to how we have arrived at today's global cosmetic industry. There are parallels, for example, between how those early-20th century industry personalities started their businesses and the indie beauty founders of today; word-of-mouth marketing of a century ago and social media marketing of today are similar in their aims. Fueled by a desire to unearth the secrets of today's phenomenally-successfully global beauty industry and discover indie beauty's place in it, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier read dozens of books on the sector. One in particular stood out for its sheer depth and breadth of analysis of how the past continues to shapes the beauty sector today. In this podcast episode, Lorraine interviews Geoffrey Jones, author of Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry, who is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at the Harvard Business School. Listen in for some fascinating insights into, among other topics, the myths, lies and makeup that helped shaped the modern beauty industry we know today.

Never has the barrier to entry to becoming a skincare formulator and starting your own beauty business been so low. Yet, with all the social media hype and hustle, we can get distracted by news of the indie beauty brand personalities who raise millions in funding and then sell their businesses to mainstream brands, and decide it's all too overwhelming to think about. It is easy to lose sight of what formulating your own natural, organic skincare is all about – from learning a new, empowering skill to changing your life in ways that don't necessarily mean becoming a superstar beauty entrepreneur. In this opinion short, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks about how indie beauty can empower you if you take the leap to learn to formulate. She urges us to go at our own pace and on our own terms without the pressure of comparisonitis. Don't wait for permission to start; just give it a go. Be the person you are meant to be. Create a natural beauty business that you shape and own and discover just how positive a life-changing experience it can be.

When you come across indie beauty founders on social media, you may feel overwhelmed. Their branding, websites and social channels seem so visually together and focused, while you may still be at the stage of wondering how to formulate, let alone build a business with a clear mission. What is it really like to start your own skincare brand? Until you speak to an indie beauty entrepreneur who has truly changed their life and you see it happen before your very eyes, being an indie founder can seem an impossible journey. If these thoughts have run through your mind, then listen to Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier interview Naz Bashir, founder of Solo Skin London. Naz's story is one of someone who started small, thinking of formulating for her own skincare issues only. From DIY hobbyist to trained organic formulator and indie brand founder with awards to her name, Naz Bashir talks about how her Formula Botanica courses changed her life. In learning to formulate professionally, Naz grew in confidence as a formulator and realised she was not alone with her skin issues. A business was far from her thoughts at the outset, but it is now her life's mission and very much a revenue stream for Naz and her family. We promise you that this episode will leave you feeling totally inspired about joining the community of natural, organic formulators. Just see where learning to formulate can take you too.

In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares the stories behind a poll she ran on refillable beauty. When asked whether they would go out of their way to clean, return and refill beauty packaging, some 75% of respondents said a resounding yes. While this is an encouraging sign, Lorraine paints a realistic picture of what is actually involved in realising a future where refillable beauty is the norm, not the exception. Some respondents commented that they simply didn't have time to go out of their way to make those refill trips. Others said beauty products were a luxury for them and they wanted shiny new packaging to complete their consumer experience. One said that reuse and refill was better suited to household cleaning products than beauty. However, Lorraine remains ever the optimist that refillable and reusable beauty packaging will prevail for the planet's sake. She challenges us to change our beauty consumer habits and help make refills the norm.

Imagine shopping in two years from now for anything from your favourite nut milk to face cleanser and struggling to see products on the shelves housed in plastic packaging. Futuristic perhaps, but it may arrive in a store near you sooner than you think if pioneering entrepreneur Jo Chidley, the founder of sustainable, natural personal care brand Beauty Kitchen, has her way. Jo's latest venture ReRe, an amibitious return, refill, repeat scheme, is tackling the seemingly impossible by championing a far-reaching reuse revolution. Jo and co-founder Stuart Chidley set up ReRe not only to implement cradle-to-cradle design into Beauty Kitchen's own products, but also as the world's first closed-loop solution for packaging through its ground-breaking Re programme and refill stations. Already counting some of the UK's biggest retailers like Asda, Marks & Spencer and Holland & Barrett as participating partners, ReRe is on a mission to change the way brands create packaging and bottle goods, how retailers sell almost anything, and how consumers shop. Join Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier as she interviews Jo Chidley, a circular economy expert, chemist, herbal botanist, and co-founder of Beauty Kitchen, the highest scoring B Corp in the UK beauty industry. This episode shows just how the power of the collective – manufacturers, retailers and consumers – can drive a truly circular economy in packaging.

If you are a regular listener to Green Beauty Conversations, you will have heard Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier and guests tackle numerous aspects of sustainable beauty. Circular, biodegradable, waterless, carbon and climate neutral, net zero and a gamut of other issues has come under the spotlight in our podcast conversations. Tackling the issues by examining the various certification schemes and looking at case studies one by one may, however, lead us to forget the bigger picture - and overlook some uncomfortable truths. Today's global cosmetics' industry is inherently unsustainable if it continues with its age-old model of economic growth. Business as usual with the production of billions of units of consumer products each year that still mostly end up in landfill, enter waterways and pollute the oceans is not an option if we wish to halt the planet's degradation and reverse climate change. In this green beauty opinion, Lorraine, who is also a Chartered Environmentalist and biologist, dares to talk about the elephant in the room - the need for the half-a-trillion US$ beauty industry to take drastic measures to change its behaviour. Infinite growth with finite resources has to end. Lorraine puts forward her four-pillar blueprint for a sustainable beauty industry that may come at a price to business as usual, but is critical if we are to address the crises humankind has inflicted on the planet. Listen in for some hard talk on the big issues and be inspired to act now, whether indie or large-scale beauty business, to take responsibility for, and to play your part in building a sustainable future for the industry and the planet. FREE FORMULATION RESOURCES Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

Natural, sustainable beauty is a phrase used liberally in the beauty industry. Today, we are used to beauty brands, mainstream and indie, touting the naturalness of their formulations and their sustainability credentials, but can we be critical of their products, words and actions if we are in the dark about what the terms mean? Do the brands themselves truly know what they are committing to when using these words? Consumers may be far more unclear about where the differences lie between natural and sustainable than insiders in the beauty industry. Among the many beauty industry terms we have covered on Green Beauty Conversations, natural and sustainable still stand out as being particularly misused despite their familiarity. They are interchanged in error, misunderstood at best or harnessed to mask green-washing at worst. The terms seem so deceptively simple that it is entirely possible to not think through the complexities that underpin them. Given the continued lack of clarity about natural and sustainable, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier and colleague Ana Green, the School's Education Manager, devote an entire episode to the origins, definitions and practical application of these words in the beauty sphere. Listen in to make sense of natural and sustainable beauty and as a result, feel empowered as beauty formulators, founders and consumers to demand clarity from anyone in the beauty industry throwing these terms into their own conversations.

Would you buy lab-grown skincare? While this might seem futuristic, biotech cosmetic ingredients are here now, and going to become more commonplace on our beauty shelves – and sooner than you think. In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier follows up on key takeouts from her interview with Dr Barbara Paldus, the founder of biotech company Codex Beauty Labs. In that episode, we heard how lab-grown ingredients derived efficiently and sustainably from single plant cells rather than from vast fields of crops will become the new normal in cosmetics. But, are we as consumers and natural formulators ready to embrace lab-grown ingredients? The scene seems set for biotech beauty to be the next naturals vs synthetics' battleground. But, as always, the issues are nuanced. Lorraine proposes we approach biotech beauty with informed debate and open minds. There is likely to be a hybrid model in the cosmetics industry as plants have given us a sense of calm, grounding and well-being for millennia and are inherent in our cultures, rituals and rites. And for now, biotech cannot efficiently lab grow every ingredient. Lorraine's challenges us to be receptive to the radical solutions required to sustain the industry and the planet and to look into the research from suppliers of biotech ingredients. How would we react if our favourite plants were threatened by climate change? The advent of biotech beauty brings with it searching questions, but ones we need to think of answers to now, not in decades to come.

The natural and organic cosmetics world loves sourcing the purest, sustainable plant-based ingredients that are ethically picked, plucked, farmed and harvested, and processed with as little artifice as possible. On this podcast, we have covered a raft of natural ingredient sourcing and formulation concepts from wild-harvesting and biodynamic farming to blue, waterless and upcycled beauty. All of these topics, we have assessed through the lens of sustainability. It is worth reiterating and remembering this as we tackle the topic of this episode of Green Beauty Conversations - biotech beauty. The next most potent, active botanical is possibly being engineered from plant stem cells using biotech right now, as a breakthrough natural cosmetic ingredient. But does the sound of lab-grown plant actives in your cosmetics excite you or worry you? Is it too futuristic or something you'd adopt willingly right now? How receptive would you be to using biotech-based ingredients if your ideal of natural organic cosmetic ingredients is their farming or wild harvesting from forests and fields? The truth is that biotech beauty is happening now, and is gaining momentum - in part, as an answer to some of the key sustainability issues surrounding the farming of crops as cosmetic ingredients. To give us insights into the world of biotech beauty, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier, herself a biologist and chartered environmentalist, talks to Dr Barbara Paldus of Codex Beauty, a firm pioneering biotech cosmetic formulation. Listen in to this eye-opener on biotech which, given current climate change predictions, could be the new normal for sourcing natural, and even organic, cosmetic ingredients sooner than you think.

We expect to find beauty brands that are certified clean, green, sustainable, Halal, vegan, carbon negative, plastic free and more. But, would you know which to choose if you had to opt for a vegan or plastic-negative version of the same product. "Have we over-certified the beauty industry to the point of confusion?", asks Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier. In this opinion short, Lorraine says that even those of us in the beauty industry struggle to make sense of all the schemes, so it is inevitable that many beauty consumers will simply have no clue about their merits. Now, retailers like Target and Sephora are coming up with their own standards and choosing to reject stocking brands on the basis of their own criteria. In her last guest episode, Lorraine interviewed Yashi Shrestha, Head of Science & Research at Novi Connect, an online platform helping cosmetic formulators comply right from product inception stage with a variety of standards. Similarly, another platform Provenance, also a recent podcast guest, helps with product transparency by using blockchain to verify brands' claims. But, even with these innovative, pioneering platforms, Lorraine says she keeps coming back to the question of whether the beauty industry needs all these certification schemes. Has the beauty industry gone too far and made life impossible for itself and its consumers? This podcast has covered a large number of the most commonly used terms and certifications on beauty and we urge you to delve into the archives to play catch up on them. All seem open to interpretation though. The fact remains that many cosmetic formulators are relying on obtuse supply chains that may not have all the documentation required to verify a claim or help certify a standard. The beauty industry is still working in the dark having made a rod for its own back by creating standards that for many are simply unattainable. Lorraine challenges us as formulators and beauty shoppers to ask ourselves what really matters to us. What standards and claims do we prioritise and why? Or, are we simply too exhausted and confused by the schemes to know? Listen in to another Green Beauty Opinion that challenges us to make the beauty industry a better, more sustainable place.

Confused by the plethora of standards, regulations and accreditation schemes at large in the beauty industry? You are not alone. Whether you are a big brand striving for sustainability or an indie founder needing to demonstrate Halal, vegan, clean, safe, GMO-free or any other mission for your products, there is every possible scheme to apply for and label to slap on your products these days. But, how do you really know the provenance and composition of your cosmetic ingredients and can your suppliers provide a paper trail to back up any claims? From Formula Botanica's years of experience working with natural formulators and indie brand founders, we know the pain involved in digging deep on the supply side of cosmetics. But, times are changing. More and more beauty shoppers - and conscious retailers - wish to know the truth about what goes into cosmetics and are pushing the industry to validate its claims. One innovative platform is managing to square the circle and open up industry minds to a brave new world in which ingredient information is researched in detail, divulged, shared, and validated against claims to the benefit of everyone in the cosmetics' business. In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host talks to Yashi Shrestha, Director of Science & Research at Novi Connect, a turnkey solution for formulators to build beauty and personal care products that meet the complex transparency needs of today's consumers. Put simply, Yashi and the Novi team are sorting out the whole mess for formulators and brands keen to make their product development cycles more transparent and sustainable. Listen in for an episode that could make conscious formulating a whole lot easier.

In this Green Beauty Opinion, we pick up on key issues of plastic waste raised in the last episode with guest Peter Wang Hjemdahl, co-founder of rePurpose Global. Here, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier sounds a note of realism and cautious optimism about how beauty can tackle its plastic dependency. While sceptical of offsetting and plastic waste credit schemes, Lorraine says that realistically a plastic-free beauty industry is not likely in our lifetimes. Offsetting and credits that help pay for the removal of plastic and global activism on plastic pollution are valid. Entities like rePurpose Global are making us aware of our responsibility to reduce, recycle and repurpose plastic already in circulation. This in itself is a first vital step to tackling the issue. Sustainability is a journey not a destination and we have to acknowledge that plastic is here to stay. Lorraine explains that plastic in itself is a fantastic invention. It is our use - or misuse - of plastic coupled with the lack of capacity worldwide to recycle and retain plastics within the supply chain that are at fault. Plastic is not the enemy. We are, along with the waste we create. Beauty and personal care industries should embrace circularity. We have seen this in action with past podcast guests; the US personal care company Meow Meow Tweet is a pioneer of return-and-refill schemes that keep plastic packaging in circulation. If all plastic in beauty could be cleaned and refilled and also made of PCR plastics that would be an enormous achievement. Lorraine challenges us to seek out beauty brands that use plastic responsibly and to cut down on our own consumption. Using less plastic and being responsible for the plastic on our doorstep is how we start to tackle those staggering figures on plastic waste, and make the beauty industry a more sustainable and better place.