SKINCARE | HAIR | MAKEUP | BODY | PEOPLE, PLACES, & PURPOSE
In April, the ELLE editors virtually met to review hundreds of product submissions for this year’s Green Beauty Stars. When ELLE first launched the Green Beauty Stars Awards in 2006, we defined green beauty as products powered by naturally-derived actives. Today, knowledge, as well as the category and the term itself, has broadened. “Clean” products are now a baseline for many consumers. Green products are the next level. For us today, green products have formulas with derived natural and botanical ingredients, as well as efforts to find sustainable solutions in production. We narrowed down all of the entries to create a list of our favorite green products – those which check the boxes of having sustainability efforts, recyclable packaging, and meeting the EWG definition of “clean.” This year’s winners reflect this expansion: Some are innovative products, and others are initiatives aimed at protecting our planet, but all are doing their very best to ensure that their products are friendly to our bodies and the planet.
The B Corp Beauty Coalition combines the brainpower of 33 brands, including Beautycounter and The Body Shop, with the goal of sharing planet-friendly best practices. The #WeAreAllies initiative, meanwhile, brings together five brands—Herbivore, Biossance, Ren, Caudalíe, and Youth To The People—with a pledge to use packaging that contains recyclable or reusable material by the end of 2025. For the past 40 years, P&G has spent more than $460 million on research to end animal testing, sharing its findings with the beauty industry. Of the 50-plus animal-testing alternatives used today, more than half were developed or co-invented by P&G scientists. Now, as part of P&G’s new Responsible Beauty initiative, the company will release its sustainability breakthroughs publicly (its 2020 white paper, Safe Use of Botanicals in Beauty Products, was 10 years in the making). Other brands are following this example, teaming up to share information and assets. Since the invention of entirely synthetic plastic in 1907, the world has produced an estimated 8.3 billion metric tons of it—and recycled around 9 percent. The rest is largely in landfills, lakes, forests, and seas. Dealing with that pileup is essential, but so is reducing future accumulation. UK-based packaging company Shellworks launched a bioengineered, biodegradable plastic alternative called Vivomer, now found in the cap of products like the BYBI Glowcurrant Booster. Made from fermenting microbes and vegetable pigment, the resin-like material is sturdy until you toss it in your compost bin or trash, and other microbes break it down.
B Corp B Beauty
#WeAreAllies
P&G Responsible Beauty
Shellworks Vivomer
