Circular Beauty

At MIRON Violetglass we embrace all initiatives around improving the use of natural products, reducing waste or transforming the way we use the world’s resources. For the beauty industry it’s inevitable to move towards more sustainable choices throughout the value chain. The concept of Green Chemistry is circular by design and might become the conceptual foundation for the future of pure beauty products, as it focuses on ways to improve the long-term impact on our environment. (See below for original article)

Although the Green Chemistry concept (developed by Paul Anastas and John Warner back in 1998) is not new, but it has received increased attention over the last years within the beauty industry. Estée Lauder Companies, for example, has embedded the green chemistry thinking throughout the product development process about a decade ago. Educating their chemists about green principles and practices, starting up internal processes to use green chemistry and by developing internal goals and objectives to constantly improve on its green sciences. Also, L’Oréal has a keen focus on the implementation of the Green Chemistry. In 2019, their portfolio included nearly 30% of raw materials that were according to the Green Sciences approach and strive to reach 95% by 2030.

This new mindset has to be adopted more broadly though, to create a 100% worldwide circular beauty, shifting away from the traditional processes towards an industry that fixates on a more sustainable approach. An approach that explicitly focuses on minimizing the environmental impacts coming from the production of cosmetics through the reduction of carbon emissions to the prevention of deforestation and water pollution. An important step to realize this is a movement towards green chemistry, an approach that revolves around efficient processes. Initial efforts to achieve long-term environmental goals have already been taken, such as microplastic restrictions, but more of actions are needed to achieve these goals.

Recent innovations are shaping a promising outlook. For example, by avoiding plastics, using glass soap dispensers combined with refill packs and solid shampoo formats are significantly reducing the number of plastic packaging in the industry. But also in other areas, e.g. bio-fermentation enables the creation of new and alternative ingredients, and renewable carbon strategies has led to the creation of highly efficient and effective molecules for beauty formulations.

So, in short, the green chemistry concept applies innovative scientific solutions to solve environmental problems and outlines the early conception of what would make a greener chemical, process, or product. How does MIRON fits in all of this? Well, violet glass outperforms other types of glass because it preserves and revitalizes the quality of products for a longer time it even extends the shelf life without the use of any preservatives in your formulas. By using violet glass, you contribute to eliminating plastics, glass is circular and therefore creates less waste, and you’d need fewer or even the elimination of additives in the product formulation - making it an excellent sustainable choice.