What is ‘Up-Cycled Beauty’? All You Need to Know & How to Jump Onboard This Briliant Sustainability Train
Self-care products made from all-natural ingredients coming in luxurious eco-conscious packaging (or no packaging at all) are great but…Can we do even better? Turns out we can.
Instead of just being ‘no waste’, a few revolutionary brands take this a step further and contribute to a more circular economy. They literally turn ~trash into treasure~ and repurpose food industry by-products into active nutrient-packed ingredients for self-care.
Read on to learn all you need to know about this epic movement!
What is up-cycling in beauty?
You’ve heard about upcycled furniture or clothes… But what about upcycled beauty? Well, it’s a thing too.
According to the project Drawdown, “Estimates suggest that 30–40 percent of all food produced worldwide is wasted across the supply chain.”
And this is where eco-conscious beauty brands come in to make a difference.
While every brand has its own way of upcycling, they all repurpose discarded raw materials from the food and beverage industry for the production of clean cosmetics. This way they not only craft products rich in real organic ingredients but also help eliminate a good chunk of our global food ＆ agricultural waste (the second largest planet polluter).
Upcycling allows them to create products that nourish the skin, cost less money and energy to produce, and help the earth. A win-win-win situation!
Here’s how it all started: From frustration to inspiration
So, how did the upcycled beauty movement come to life? According to Cosmetics Business, the main inspiration for this innovation was the Covid 19 pandemic. Businesses were shutting down, resources weren’t as readily available as before anymore, and the company owners had to come up with creative ideas to still source ingredients for their products.
And, voila, upcycling food industry waste into cosmetics ingredients was born!
Eco-aware businesses started to upcycle everything from coffee grounds, citrus peels, fruit seeds, and other food by-products (more on that below) and use their healing properties in their creations.
Since this worked out to be an amazing solution, they continued doing it to fight food waste and reduce their environmental impact.
How it all works
Let’s get down to the process. Where do companies source ingredients to upcycle?
Some of them closely collaborate with small local artisanal cafes to pick up coffee grounds (like UpCircle), others work with small local farms and give life to ugly produce that never made it to the store (Beauty Cleanse Skincare), or some just buy the ready-made processed upcycled ingredients from companies like Upcycle Beauty.
As you can tell, this differs from business to business. But, if you have any specific brand and you’d like to learn more about their process, you should find all the details on their website (usually the ABOUT section)...If you can’t find any info, save your time, and support brands that are 100% transparent (the real rebels for nature like the ones below).
The most popular ingredients to upcycle into beauty products
Most of these eco-forward brands love upcycling ingredients like leftover pulp or citrus peels from making juice, coffee grounds from artisan coffee shops, ugly-shaped produce that doesn’t make it to the stores, to even flowers as a waste product of the wedding industry.
Here are some more examples of upcycled ingredients from Upcircle's ingredient page:
Antioxidant-rich extract of repurposed blueberries - a by-product of the blueberry juicing industry
Anti-inflammatory extract of leftover date seeds - a by-product of date farming
Skin-soothing chamomile stem extract - a by-product of the tea industry
As you can see, the upcycled ingredients come with nourishing healing properties and the same amount of benefits (if not more) as if they were coming from the main source.
4 revolutionary brands you’ll be obsessed with
Just like the name suggests, these guys don’t follow the commercial beauty industry standards at all. All of their products are zero-waste with many ingredients upcycled from food waste and wood fencing. According to their about page, they wholeheartedly refuse to use any raw material that is derived from fossil fuels. Learn more about them here.
Upcircle is the ultimate eco-conscious beauty leader. Their mission is to leave the world a better place than they found it and it truly shows. All of their products are re-fillable, vegan, and B-corp certified. Also, as I mentioned above, they upcycle most of their ingredients from various food and beverage industries and turn them into all-natural beauty products. Read more about them here.
Did you know fragrance ingredients can be upcycled too? St Rose, a female-owned Australian brand proves to us they can. As they say on their About page, they “create in harmony with the Earth”. They intend to “craft the highest-quality and responsibly sourced natural ingredients to deliver luxurious, long-wearing and the most cleanly formulated perfumed products possible.”
Wildefruit is sustainable skincare for sensitive skin. Just like with other brands here, they only use upcycled and zero-waste ingredients. The best thing about Wildefruit? They tell you all the details about every single one of their products.
No matter what you choose, you’ll know the exact ingredients, all the materials used in packaging, the percentage of the amount of upcycled ingredients used, and where these ingredients come from. That’s what I call true transparency!
What if you’re on a low budget?
Since all of these brands provide quality ingredients and they do their part for the planet, they also come with a higher price tag. If you can’t afford these yet you’d still like to use upcycled beauty products, try DIY. Just go to Pinterest, type DIY + the product you’d like the make + upcycled and you’ll find tons of DIY recipes. My faves are homemade coffee scrub and a green tea facial toner made from used green tea bags.
Now you should have all the resources you need to jump on board with this awesome sustainability train. Just remember to research your desired brand and the product ingredients, and make sure they’re the right ones for you.
Then, just enjoy doing good for your health and the planet!
WHATS UP NEXT…
