Summers in Europe, spent in Sephora. Affordable beauty and skincare products tower from floor to ceiling, up the stairs, round the block and on. Core memories were formed while scrambling around in my pockets for the last of my Euros to invest in an own-brand face cream before hopping on the coach back to the UK, where, up until recently, we didn’t have Sephora.
I love Sephora as much as the next person but I have to say, I was a little disappointed to read that it was sued for misleading customers over its clean beauty range earlier this year. While its ‘Clean at Sephora’ seal, pimped out with its green leaf and affiliated slogan, reading: “the beauty you want, minus the ingredients you might not,” alluded to clean and green ingredients, as it transpires – this wasn’t the case.
I’m not quite ready to break up with Sephora – there’s nostalgia involved, but it did get me thinking about clean beauty in the wider industry. The global beauty industry has an estimated market value of $528 billion and counting. The Carbon Trust’s Net Zero Reality Check reports that this growth is not just financial as emissions from some sectors of the industry are rising too. The same report also mentions a massive lack of independently validated net zero targets amongst some of the largest beauty brands on the scene.
I couldn’t help but wonder: what, if anything, is being done to curb the impact of the cosmetics industry? Why, with its excessive packaging, water, chemical, land and petrochemical-based resource usage, is the narrative surrounding sustainability in the cosmetics industry so meagre? And, what might the future of the beauty landscape look like?
Naturally, it’s complicated. ‘Clean beauty’ is a subjective term, loosely used to describe products made from safe, natural, organic or environmentally-beneficial credentials. Similar to the term ‘Biomaterial’, which refers to something that, in some way, is biologically derived. Both terms leave much room for misconception (and greenwashing). Subsequently, we need to be careful with terminology.
I spoke to Jessica Gregory, who trained as a biodesigner before joining Haeckels where she is now Head of Design, about the innovative skincare brand and its use of biodesign in fathoming sustainable alternatives to beauty products and packaging.
“Clean beauty for us is an amalgamation of the product itself to how its packaging is made,” Jessica tells me. “It’s something of a circular process. From the way it’s made to how it’s empathetically and sustainably brought to market, and works with the skin to how the product is composted or reused at the end of its life.”
Haeckels was founded in the English coastal town of Margate in 2012. The brand is known for revolutionising clean beauty using natural ingredients like seaweed collected considerately from Margate’s shores and lab-grown algae.
“At Haeckels, we’re using synthetic biology to grow ingredients in the lab that are identical to their natural counterparts, like algae for instance.” It’s bio-beauty. And in doing so, they’re bypassing the need for excessive land use and farming which accounts for 30-50% of the beauty sector’s emissions.
Lab grown ingredients and synthetic biology come with their connotations, many of which are negative but Jessica urges people to look at the bigger picture. “People instantly think the use of natural ingredients makes a product more sustainable but little is known about the use of pesticides, the quantity of land used, deforestation or other ethical factors like farming. Take Rose essence, you’d need thousands of rose petals and therefore land to create this scent.”
These stigmas surrounding the use of lab grown ingredients need breaking down which is exactly what Haeckels are striving to do; making products that are designed with biology approachable and aesthetic whilst introducing science fiction to the real world. “We want to say: ‘See, it’s not that scary!’”
She continues: “There are so many chemicals in skincare products which companies have built brands from and people trust. Now, we’re bringing lab-grown ingredients to the mix and we’re curious: how do we present these alternatives to the average consumer?”
Haeckels is more than just a skincare brand. Its biodesign research and playful innovation reach further a field than the confines of cosmetics. “As a team, we’re committed to the community and the planet. We want to put our minds together to curate sustainable possibilities from skincare to materials with a variety of applications from packaging to edible cups.”
And they really did create an edible cup. Made from seaweed, it’s a great example of how even the most unexpected of materials can live many lives. “ The edible cup demonstrates how we can use seaweed in different ways as an ingredient in our creams and a nutritious edible cup that’s actually beneficial for gut health and the microbiome. It’s the first product we’ve done that uses biodesign and science to produce something that’s good for your gut health which is something we’re really interested in. Down the line, it might take different forms or applications. For now, it’s just quite fun.”
Its extensive journey researching material alternatives all started from a shared goal to find a better solution for packaging. “This led us on to these bigger projects and different avenues. A recent one was the seaweed pouch. It’s almost like a mermaid’s purse that you have to rip open. Then we have a microbe-derived product called Vivomer for our skincare. It’s almost plastic-like, many of our customers think it is plastic but it’s totally home compostable in under 52 weeks.”
“It’s a work in progress so we’ll send out our products in these packaging innovations which is a bit crazy but also super exciting, you know?” Jessica tells me.
Spiraglow, which comes in the form of a serum, a toner and a cleanser, is part of Haeckel’s new range of products containing lab-grown algae. I wonder, what came first – growing algae as a sustainable material that turns out to be good for your skin or growing algae knowing that algae is good for your skin and doubles as a sustainable material?
“We’ve always grown algae. When we did our first London store, we had a bioreactor in there and we were growing it as a food supplement and being quite experimental with it. We then brought that to our Margate store and we did something similar when we did our perfume pop up at Dover Street Market Paris,” says Jessica. “But, we’ve also always known that it’s good for your skin as it’s super hydrating, anti-inflammatory and it has anti-aging qualities so we started experimenting to produce the specific ingredient that we use in the Spiraglow line. So I’d say it kind of came in tandem.”
Is bio-beauty scalable? I ask. “Being able to grow ingredients in the controlled environment of a lab makes it more scalable than natural beauty if land usage were to be considered. With the implementation of hydroponic systems we can make growing algae scalable but with natural ingredients like seaweed, we have to be conscious of scaling anymore. We take this very seriously, especially with our natural ingredients. We collect seaweed from outside our making space but we have to do it in stages along the beach as we can’t take too much from one area. There’s a limit depending on tides, weather too. Sometimes we run out of seaweed and we can’t take anymore as we’re trying to be mindful.” As with anything, there has to be a limit.
Biodesign is certainly a new feat for the skincare sector and there are few beauty companies – if any – aside from Haeckels that are using biodesign from product right through to packaging, totally committed to finding cleaner, greener pastures for the beauty industry. “I think we differ from a lot of brands out there because we’re willing to take the risk in all aspects of sustainability.”