Our story
by Scrubbee
The current situation of the skincare and cosmetics industry is completely unsustainable. It lives and thrives on cheap, environmentally damaging products that are made from and by plastics.
With over 95% of packaging going to landfill, last year that amounted to 115 billion units. Not only this, inside the products themselves rely on microplastics for easier application and increased thickness. It was found that in an average high street anti-ageing serum, there were over 1.48 million polyethylene particles, one of the most damaging microplastics out there.
Our current model of global consumerism is a linear model of take-make-waste. To ensure we and our planet can continue to survive and thrive in the long term, this linear consumption methodology and our over reliance on virgin resources must change.
Every single part of our current life needs to move towards circular model. And this includes our beauty industry. The cosmetics market in the UK is enormous. In a 2020 report, it was named the third-largest market operating in the UK.
We focus on upcycling: taking byproducts from the food and drink industry and giving them a new lease of life. What this means in practice, we launched in January 2020 with our first product line coffee face scrubs taking leftover coffee from cafes and repurposing it. Amazing news is that this ‘waste’ coffee has huge skin benefits – anti bacterial and anti micro – perfect for skincare products.
The current situation of the skincare and cosmetics industry is completely unsustainable. It lives and thrives on cheap, environmentally damaging products that are made from and by plastics.
With over 95% of packaging going to landfill, last year that amounted to 115 billion units. Not only this, inside the products themselves rely on microplastics for easier application and increased thickness. It was found that in an average high street anti-ageing serum, there were over 1.48 million polyethylene particles, one of the most damaging microplastics out there.
Our current model of global consumerism is a linear model of take-make-waste. To ensure we and our planet can continue to survive and thrive in the long term, this linear consumption methodology and our over reliance on virgin resources must change.
Every single part of our current life needs to move towards circular model. And this includes our beauty industry. The cosmetics market in the UK is enormous. In a 2020 report, it was named the third-largest market operating in the UK.
We focus on upcycling: taking byproducts from the food and drink industry and giving them a new lease of life. What this means in practice, we launched in January 2020 with our first product line coffee face scrubs taking leftover coffee from cafes and repurposing it. Amazing news is that this ‘waste’ coffee has huge skin benefits – anti bacterial and anti micro – perfect for skincare products.
Our advice
We reached out to as many business support groups out there: BEC, Chamber of Commerce, FSB etc. We also joined several sustainability focused groups to spread our message.
We have faced a huge amount of challenges along the way, we've changed suppliers, packaging, ingredients to make sure that we are as a sustainable as possible.
However - if you aren't embarrassed with the first version of your product or business, you've launched too late.
Our metrics
- Number of products made.
- Amount of waste diverted from landfill.
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