Guest Post| 10 Best Sustainable Skincare Brands You Need To Know About

We all want to look and feel our best, but sometimes in order to do that we need a little help from the skincare products we use. Did you know that an estimated 122 billion beauty products with packaging are created each year? And that only 10% of this packaging is actually recycled?

In recent years, there has been a huge shift in consumer behavior. More and more of us are looking for high quality skincare products that are good for the environment. While some of these products come with higher prices than we may be used to, they’re well worth it in the long run because they preserve our planet’s natural resources.

In order to help you find some great brands that fit this category, I’ve put together a list of the best sustainable skincare brands that offer different types of products and have their own unique take on sustainability

“When you uncover the connectivity between self and Mother Earth, you understand that to be Earth-first is to be self-love centric”

Josie Maran

1. Activist Skincare

This is one of my favorite brands when it comes to skincare. They have a full line of products for the face, body and hair. They use 100% vegan ingredients, and they ensure that these are sourced from sustainable suppliers.

Activist sell low-waste refill pouches, which I love because you can initially buy the glass bottle and once that runs out you can refill using a pouch. It also means that you’re spending less on your skincare as the pouches cost less than products in bottles.

What I really love about Activist is that they give back 5% of their revenue to environmental organisations, such as Environmental Defense Fund, Rainforest Trust, and Better Environment.

2. Follain

The name Follain comes from the Gaelic word Folláine, meaning ‘all that is wholesome, healthy and natural’. They have a ‘no compromises allowed’ mentality when it comes to their products.

They want to provide you with the best natural skincare available, and for this reason they also package their products in recycled materials where possible.

Follain don’t just use cruelty-free ingredients in their products, but they have gone a step further to become EWG Verified.

3. Alba Botanica

While this brand is 100% vegan, it’s not just all about being ethical with their appearance and texture; it comes from within too! None of their products are tested on animals and none of the ingredients used in their products are either.

One of my favorite things about Alba Botanica is that their sunscreen is made from biodegradable ingredients. Why is this important? Because, did you know that regular sunscreen washes off swimmers, snorkelers and divers and causes damage to our beautiful coral reefs?

4. Indie Lee

Indie Lee was one of the first cruelty-free skincare brands to come on the market and were fully committed to eliminating animal testing from day one, so they ensured they were Leaping Bunny certified.

Indie Lee are also starting to transition to using more sustainable packing for their products. Until they have this fully in place, they are more than happy to take your old empty packing and recycle them so they don’t end up in a landfill.

5. Ursa Major

This brand is all about making socially conscious decisions when it comes to sourcing and manufacturing their products. They use only clean, naturally derived ingredients for their skincare and use renewable energy in manufacturing in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

While they haven’t fully moved to using sustainable packing for their skincare (yet! It’s in the works), Ursa Major have partnered with rePurpose Global in an effort to be one of the first plastic negative brands in the skincare market.

It’s always great when big brands give back and this is the reason I really like Ursa Major too – they fund projects with organisations, such as National Park Foundation, National Wildlife Federation and One Tree Planted, as well as many more.

6. Credo Beauty

Credo Beauty are one brand who are at the forefront of clean beauty and are passionate about making cruelty-free skincare more accessible for everyone.

All their products are tested on humans (voluntarily!) and are completely cruelty free when it comes to animals.

They are also one of the only beauty brands to eliminate all single use plastic from their company. This includes sample sachets, sheet masks and single use wipes! Credo have introduced guidelines for all their partners to ensure that specific standards are met when it comes to non-recyclable items or single use plastic.

7. Ethique

Clearly people who care about the planet, and one of my favourite sustainable skincare brands, Ethique was created for the plain and simple reason that the owner was sick of seeing how much waste was being produced by the cosmetics industry.

The company aims to reduce waste in landfills by using only 100% recycled paper printed with vegetable-based ink. They only use recyclable packaged materials and are proud to be 100% plastic free. Ethique also plant one tree or mangrove for every single order their customers make!

When it comes to their carbon footprint, Ethique’s offices are all powered by renewable energy and when they need to travel (and they only do this when absolutely necessary) they offset their travel emissions not once, but twice! Ethique’s staff even go so far as to implement these efforts into their personal lives too!

8. Acure

All the ingredients used in Acure products are certified organic (as you’d expect from a natural brand!) and are always kept as clean as possible. They are 100% vegan, and are cruelty free, paraben free, mineral oil free and sulphate free.

Acure’s products are also 100% biodegradable with green packaging. They have teamed up with TerraCycle to put a recycle program in place whereby you can request a cardboard box and return any packaging back to the company for recycling (at no cost to you) and redeem points for use at a later stage. Pretty cool right?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

9. Josie Maran

Josie Maran’s skincare products all centre around her love for Argan Oil. The company sources all the Argan Oil from a UNESCO protected area in Morocco, however they only ever use the oil from nuts which have already fallen to the ground.

Their products are all cruelty free, paraben free, synthetic fragrance free and formaldehyde free, resulting in a clean, natural skincare range. While not all their skincare range is vegan, they do offer some vegan products. Josie Maran are another company to team up with TerraCycle in an effort to recycle their packaging and ensure that it doesn’t end up in a landfill.

10. Blue Heron Botanicals

Known for their pure and gentle ingredients, Blue Heron Botanicals only use high quality naturally ingredients which are minimally processed, locally sourced, organic or grown in their own garden.

This brand has thought about the environment when creating their products, even down to the biodegradable eco-tubes and 100% recyclable packaging.

Blue Heron Botanicals give back by donating a percentage of their proceeds to saving baby sea turtles, which I love (well, who wouldn’t love baby sea turtles)!

Impressively, this company are 100% powered by solar energy and are completely off grid.

Conclusion

The increased demand for sustainable skincare products is a great shift towards conscious consumerism. I’m a big advocate of taking steps to reduce the effect we have on the environment. I think it’s important to buy from brands whose products are not only high-quality, but also eco-friendly.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when trying to find ways to save the planet and make sure that your skin looks great, but there are always small steps you can take towards becoming more environmentally conscious

As the above list shows us, skincare brands don’t necessarily need to compromise quality for the sake of sustainability, which is fantastic news for all of us because it makes it easier to look and feel our best while protecting our planet at the same time.

Author bio: Vourneen is the creator of The Plain Simple Life where she helps overwhelmed women to regain control of their homes by switching their mindset, decluttering and organizing and introducing simple and sustainable living practices into their daily routines.

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