Green Beauty Conversations by Formula Botanica

Latest Episodes:

EP162. The gentle skincare revolution May 25, 2023

Show notes

The word gentle is touted around in the beauty industry and familiar to consumers. However the ingredients inside certain cosmetics may be anything but gentle to our skin.

The beauty industry creates products to help reduce the visible signs of ageing, like fine lines and wrinkles, by over cleansing, exfoliating and peeling our skin.

But this removes the microbiome we so badly need for good skin health and for the maintenance of our skin barrier. We heard about the human microbiome and its vital role in maintaining skin health in our previous guest episode with Leo Salvi of Kind to Biome, a firm developing rigorous, verifiable tests to assess the microbiome gentleness of cosmetics.

In this opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks: "Isn't it time we see the industry formulating with a different and gentler agenda than antiageing and turning back the clock on our skin?" To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP161. Microbiome skincare - is this really a thing? May 18, 2023

Show notes

Imagine the human microbiome as a planet with millions, and possibly billions, of microorganisms living in harmony to protect their host - our skin and scalp. Incredibly, one square centimetre of our skin, depending on the part of the body, could have that number of microbes living on it.

We are in early days of scientific research on the skin's microbiome and its function in maintaining the health of our skin and body. How then is it possible to have cosmetics sporting labels that say their formulations are microbiome friendly?

Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier dives into the mysterious and magical world of our skin's microbiome. Her guest is Leo Salvi, a chemist, qualified safety assessor for cosmetics and the Co-Founder and Head of Science at Kind to Biome® which provides a scientifically-validated methodology to back up microbiome-gentle claims for beauty products.

Will microbiome-friendly cosmetics be the next big industry trend? Listen in to discover and make your mind up.

To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP160. Top 10 most ridiculous beauty industry claims May 11, 2023

Show notes

In this opinion podcast, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks us to look back and laugh – or else we'll cry with despair – at her chart-topping ten most ridiculous claims that the beauty industry has made. In the previous episode, Lorraine and colleague Ana Green unpacked the facts behind one of the latest claims in cosmetics' marketing – fossil fuel-free beauty. It proved to be yet another misleading term.

As a follow up, Lorraine takes us through her choice of most ridiculous claims starting over a hundred years ago at the beginning of the modern cosmetics industry. While today, most of those historic claims could not be made, Lorraine notes that we still find similar, if subtler messaging circulating in the beauty industry.

Look back and laugh or look back and be angry about what many global beauty firms are communicating today. We leave it up to you to decide. Listen in to an astounding round-up of ridiculous claims. You won't believe what makes Lorraine's top three.

EP159. Fossil fuel-free beauty May 04, 2023

Show notes

Fossil fuel-free beauty - haven't we covered this one before on Green Beauty Conversations? Not in its new form. Fossil fuel-free is yet another distinct claim we've seen popping up on cosmetics' labels. You'd be right to think it's familiar as on this podcast we have delved into related claims of carbon-neutral, zero-waste and climate-neutral, along with a host of topics open to greenwashing such as waterless, green, clean and blue beauty.

However, while it may overlap with those other terms, we realised that fossil fuel-free beauty needs its own episode in order for us to unpack its meaning.

Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier is joined by School Education Manager Ana Green to shed light on exactly what fossil fuel-free beauty is and why it may be among the most confusing and misleading terms yet applied to beauty products. Listen in to decide for yourself if fossil fuel-free is a claim too far.

To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP158. Why the beauty industry needs more indie formulators Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

Big beauty has spent well over a century using fear-mongering to marketing its products to us. Even if today it is more sophisticated in its methods and use of media, the mainstream industry is still telling us we are not good enough or beautiful enough. In effect, it is telling us it's not alright to embrace and celebrate our unique, inherent beauty and the normal part and parcel of being human – ageing.

But, there are some in the beauty industry daring to ditch this messaging and give voice to a different way of looking at beauty; one that celebrates us as we are and makes us feel good in our own skin without using negative messaging to make us buy their products.

In this green beauty opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier explains how indie beauty formulators and entrepreneurs are helping dismantle decades of big beauty's domination of the beauty narrative. Lorraine concludes with a clarion call for more of us to learn to formulate and change the industry for the better.

To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP157. From bootstrapping to award-winning beauty brand Apr 20, 2023

Show notes

If you are thinking of indie beauty entrepreneurship, this episode is a must-listen.

It has been a while since the podcast has featured a Formula Botanica graduate brand, and with well over 300 incredible founders and successful beauty brands featured in our online gallery, the decision about whom to approach wasn't easy. But, one name popped up time and again – Roshanne Dorsett, graduate of the International Organic Skincare Entrepreneur Program, and founder of The Glowcery.

Roshanne has achieved incredible heights for her brand in just three years, having launched The Glowcery, a superfood, natural and sustainable skincare brand, in spring 2020 just before the Covid-19 lockdowns. In this interview, you will hear of the amazing, inspiring personal transformation that Roshanne went through in starting her gorgeous and multi-award-winning beauty brand.

But, what are really fascinating are her insights as a new, beauty entrepreneur; how she overcame challenges, bootstrapped her business, grew in confidence and now has plans to take The Glowcery international and develop it as a lifestyle brand.

Roshanne drops some mindset bombs on indie beauty entrepreneurship that you need to hear. So settle in for a fantastic episode that could change your life.

EP156. Formulating for the climate crisis Apr 13, 2023

Show notes

There are few corners of formulating beauty that are left untouched. We've seen just about every possible formulation category covered on this podcast alone. We've heard about carbon neutral, waterless beauty, and clean, green and blue beauty, along with net zero and zero waste and more.

But, until our previous episode, with haircare brand entrepreneur founders of Climaplex, we had not come across a cosmetics business actively formulating to protect us from the myriad effects of climate change. Not only is Climaplex doing right by the planet by formulating to ethical, sustainable principles, their haircare products are designed to tackle multiple effects of the fluctuating, and ever more extreme environmental conditions on our hair and scalp.

In this Green Beauty opinion short, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier asks if formulating to protect our skin, body and hair from the ravages of climate change could become the norm – in fact, a new gold standard in cosmetic formulation.

To learn more about this episode, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP155. Cosmetics for climate change Apr 06, 2023

Show notes

Retail shelves are full of haircare products aimed at repairing our hair. Too dry, too greasy, dandruff, split ends, issues with frizz, more curl or less curl required, or shine and gloss needed? Every product promises hair nirvana to encourage us to buy. But, if we're honest, many products may not work, or work as described.

So, when podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier received a press release from a new haircare brand saying its products were formulated to combat the effects of climate change on our hair, she was sceptical, but also curious to find out more.

The brand, Climaplex, has serious credentials. Its co-founders are industry veterans with several decades' experience in the consumer and professional haircare and cosmetics manufacturing industries. They had invested in clinical development and trials run by a leading EU university to prove the climate change-haircare link and the efficacy of their products.

In this episode, Lorraine talks to guests Simon Ostler, a renowned hairdresser, haircare brand pioneer and former industry executive and Giannantonio Negretti, head of a leading, international cosmetics manufacturing group to hear first hand how this new category of climate change cosmetics came into being. And, importantly, how Climaplex is committed to resolving our climate-change-created hair and scalp issues honestly, holistically and sustainably.

To learn more about this episode, Lorraine's guests, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

EP154. Why is the beauty industry so arrogant? Mar 30, 2023

Show notes

In the last episode, podcast guest Ekwy Chukwuji-Nnene, founder of indie, vegan haircare brand Equi Botanics, said that one cosmetics conglomerate had told her, in effect, that the beauty needs of people of colour didn't count.

Ekwy explained that when she approached the firm with her tried-and-tested natural haircare formulations for coily and textured hair, the executives replied: "Black women will buy whatever we sell them".

Ekwy shed light on what goes on behind the scenes of one giant in the cosmetics industry, but which is likely to be the prevaling attitude found across the sector.

So incensed was podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier about the arrogant attitudes – and racism – in the mainstream commercial beauty industry that she just had to get on her soapbox in this green beauty opinion.

Can indie beauty founders like Ekwy and consumers counter this arrogance and call the mainstream beauty out for its domineering attitudes once and for all?

EP153. From mainstream neglect to indie beauty success Mar 23, 2023

Show notes

When entrepreneur Ekwy Chukwuji-Nnene was told by a major cosmetics conglomerate that "Black women buy anything we sell them", she was at first stunned and then angry. Founder of indie, vegan haircare brand Equi Botanics, Ekwy was met with scepticism when she pitched her products to a global beauty firm.

Ekwy knew that they worked. Her formulations had helped resolve her own devastating hair issues and those of her daughters and had gained her a loyal community of early adopters. She knew also that there was a vast, untapped market of women of colour who were being ignored by the dominant, established beauty brands.

Why is it that well into the 21st century, the beauty industry still believes it need cater only to the Eurocentric beauty ideal of a white woman with straight hair? Podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier invited Ekwy onto the show to talk not only about the challenges inherent in caring for coily, textured hair, but also about the struggles facing beauty entrepreneurs of colour.

To learn more about this episode, Lorraine's guest, all of the links that were mentioned and anything else, please visit the show notes on the Formula Botanica website.

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