Sustainable Shoutout: four green beauty brands we love

In recent months eco-friendly, sustainable fashion labels have been a hot topic. Everyone seems to want to know where they can nab stylish attire that isn’t going to have an adverse effect on our planet. But what about sustainable beauty?

We go through our beauty products like there’s no tomorrow, with little thought of where they came from or where they’ll end up once we chuck the bottle. But with no planet B to retire to, sustainability is no longer an option but a necessity.

What is sustainable beauty?

Sustainability is about ensuring everything from ingredient sourcing, to manufacturing, and packaging has as little a negative impact on the planet as possible. The long-term environmental impact the product has on the environment is taken into account from creation. There’s a whole range of sustainable beauty brands on the shelves that help keep earth beautiful too, here are four of our favourites.

READ MORE: A time-release cream, a classic red and an instant sell out: this month’s best in beauty

Lush

Lush is a top player on the eco- friendly beauty scene. Ethical sourcing is at the company’s core which means when considering suppliers, they aim to find the most sustainable raw ingredients, consider the production of emissions, the use of resources, and the habitat the ingredient is sourced from. This means that everything that goes into your lush product whether it be the Intergalactic Bath Bomb or Dream Cream Body Lotion is as eco-friendly as possible. If this isn’t green enough for you, they also use as little packaging as possible, which for many products means absolutely none at all, just bring along your reusable container and they’ll fill it on up with natural cosmetic goodness. When packaging is absolutely necessary it’s reusable, recyclable or compostable.

Aveda Texture Tonic, €24.50 at Brown Thomas 

Aveda

Aveda is a brand that uses mother nature to its advantage. Leading the way for holistic and environmentally responsible beauty Aveda, the brand’s list of selling points for us tree huggers is as long as my arm. Notably, 85% of their skincare and hair styling bottles are made using post-consumer recycled materials a.k.a. recycled milk bottles. They also use bioplastic which is derived from cane sugar, a renewable sustainable resource. Aveda is also the only beauty brand whose products are manufactured using 100% wind power.

               Human + Kind deep cleansing cloths, €7.45 at HumanandKind.com

Human + Kind

One way to reduce our carbon footprint is to buy locally. Human + Kind is an Irish and sustainably produced beauty brand. The Cork-based company’s ethos is not just to create quality products but to also give back to humanity and the planet. They pride themselves in only using raw materials that are sourced sustainably. Their range of 30 products is all vegan, cruelty-free, natural, paraben free and ethically sourced.

Burt’s Bees Radiance night cream, €26.25 at Holland and Barrett. 

Burts Bee’s

The company’s motto is to do as bee’s do, taking only what they need and leaving the environment a better place than when they found it. Burts Bee’s work to create natural products that are loved by many whilst only leaving good things in their wake. One way they leave no trace is by sending zero waste to landfill. They have 350 employees in three facilities and not one piece of rubbish goes to the dump. How? their employees volunteer to check over 200 recycling, composting and waste to energy bins to make sure everything is sorted properly. Well on their way to their 2020 goal of being ‘’the greenest personal care company on earth’’, their products have 99% natural formulas (half have 100% ) and 89% of their primary packaging is made from recyclable materials. We see what all the buzz is about!

For more beauty features, check out the April issue of IMAGE, on shelves nationwide.