Green Beauty Conversations by Formula Botanica

Latest Episodes:

EP142. Why 2023 is your year to formulate change Jan 05, 2023

Show notes

In this first Green Beauty Conversations of 2023, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier and all the school team wish you a healthy, happy, prosperous year. The start of the year is always an exciting time as we anticipate, envisage and make plans for the next 12 months.

Lorraine dives right in to this topic throwing down some challenges. She asks what plans you have to change your life for the better this year, and to make a positive impact on those around you? What formulation goals are you setting? Are you dreaming big and thinking of taking steps to start your own beauty brand this year?

Whatever your plans, don't let things beyond your control limit your horizons. Lorraine starts the year with an upbeat message for all of us in the indie beauty community.

EP141. Celebrity beauty brands Dec 29, 2022

Show notes

What a year it's been for celebrity beauty brand launches. Not content with being on our screens, celebrities have been in overdrive in the beauty industry not as the "face" of this or that brand, but as cosmetic business founders themselves.

In 2022 alone, we've seen Bradd Pitt's "Le Domaine", Jared Leto's "Twentynine Palms", and Kim Kardashian's "Skkn by Kim" launch along with a flurry of other celebrity beauty brands. As beauty consumers and indie brand founders, do we care?

Some in the beauty industry, especially self-made beauty entrepreneurs who have grafted hard to bring brands to market without celebrity privilege, status and wealth, and social influencers presenting themselves as the moral compass of the industry, do care.

Love or hate the celebrity phenomenon, it's time to stand back from emotions as we dissect their beauty businesses. In this episode, podcast host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier and School Education Manager Ana Green take a balanced view of the reasons for the rise in and resentment of celebrity skincare brands.

EP140. Changing how we talk about hair Dec 22, 2022

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Haircare seems on the surface such an everyday topic. Who doesn't regularly see mainstream shampoo brand adverts touting the ease, speed and convenience of using their haircare products for instant well-groomed and manageable hair? But, there is so much more to unpack in talk of hair and haircare.

As we discovered in our previous episode in conversation with Formula Botanica haircare diploma course lead and student mentor Suzanne Soto Davis, haircare can be minimalist and we should try to take a less-is-best approach to it.

But, that does not mean that haircare is one size fits all, nor less complex or controversial a topic than skincare. In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier takes the issues involved in hair and haircare further.

Before we can talk of swapping products for sustainability's sake, we must tackle deeper issues about hair that overshadow our choice of product; hair prejudice and discrimination and hair as a tool of social norms and mores and at times also of stereotyping and repression.

Listen in to hear just how much is at stake when we talk about hair and how we should be mindful about how we choose to discuss hair and its care.

EP139. Sustainable haircare - why less is best Dec 15, 2022

Show notes

Are you a person who shampoos daily? Do you also use a shelf of other haircare products like conditioners, detanglers, moisturisers, serums, leave-in shampoos and conditioners, sun protection products, styling gels, foams, hair fragrances, sprays, waxes and more?

If this sounds like your haircare routine, then it is high time to start using fewer haircare products and less of them too. Not only will your hair – and more importantly, your scalp – thank you for it, but you will also be adopting a more sustainable haircare routine.

We have talked on the podcast about skinimalism, and now we are seeing the same concept applied to haircare. Joining Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier on the podcast to talk about minimalism in haircare is Suzanne Soto-Davies, founder of eco-friendly haircare brand Truu by Nature Obloom.

Suzanne is also a Formula Botanica student mentor and course lead for our Diploma in Organic Haircare Formulation. If you currently use only shampoo and conditioner and think you are already on track as a haircare minimalist, listen in as you will be surprised to hear what Suzanne has to say about that daily shampoo too.

EP138. Does the world need more beauty brands? Dec 08, 2022

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Does we really need more beauty brands? No, of course we don't, we hear you reply. With thousands of beauty products on the market, and with the hundreds more that arrive – often born of celebrity brands and containing trending, so-called high-performance ingredients – it is reasonable to assume the cosmetics' market is saturated.

However, as with all opinions there are counter arguments to explore. In this Green Beauty Opinion episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier delves into the question and flips it to ask: "Does the world need more unsustainable beauty brands?".

Listen in for a soapbox opinion podcast that calls out the real problem underlying the majority of mainstream beauty brands – their inability to adopt sustainable practices. We may not need more, but we certainly need different kinds of brands to replace them; the kind of indie beauty brands many of our Formula Botanica graduates launch.

EP137. The beauty brand that wants its customers to buy less Dec 01, 2022

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When we came across a cosmetics' company publicly declaring that it would love to see its customers buy fewer of its products, we knew we just had to interview its founder on Green Beauty Conversations.

This podcast, as one focused heavily on the ethics and practice of green beauty, has heard industry journalists ask time and again how a cosmetics company would survive if it encouraged its customers to buy less. What kind of beauty business dare call out the elephant in the room - overconsumption as the root cause of an unsustainable economy, and planet?

We have tackled the consumption issue in numerous episodes; Podcast 124: the four pillars of sustainable beauty spells out a blueprint of how the beauty industry can approach sustainability. But, until now, we had not talked directly to beauty brand that was so aligned with our own messaging.

In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier talks to founder and CEO of Elate Cosmetics Melodie Reynolds to discover how her brand has built a sustainable business for a more sustainable planet by believing in less is more.

Listen in to hear from Melodie, a driven and inspirational founder, about how Elate is putting those pillars of sustainable beauty into action.

EP136. Why buy natural beauty products? Nov 24, 2022

Show notes

This Green Beauty Opinion airs just before Black Friday; the day on which the world experiences a retail rush. With Black Friday now extending to a week – even a month – of heavy discounted prices on everything from big-ticket tech items to small business beauty products, we asked in our previous episode whether we – as beauty consumers and indie beauty businesses – should participate in Black Friday, and if so, in what way.

The fact remains that Black Friday is a day indie beauty businesses too can make significant sales and reach out to customers with interesting offers. But, are they being heard in the noise of Black Friday mega deals from mainstream brands?

In this opinion short, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier explains why natural indie brands have a lot to offer beauty shoppers and dispels the myth that only the cosmetics' conglomerates can create high-performance skincare.

Listen in to discover why small, natural indie beauty businesses and their products deserve our support all year round and not just on Black Friday.

EP135. Sustainable beauty alternatives to Black Friday Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

Black Friday, love it or hate it, is that annual event that sees consumers snap up bargains and big businesses add billions to their profits. Lasting a day, weekend, week and even a month for some businesses, Black Friday is embraced also by small indie beauty brands. It can be a tipping point in the year moving any size of business closer to its profit goals for the year.

The sheer rampant consumerism of this particular Friday that falls just before the US Thanksgiving holiday - but which is now promoted as a shopping event the world over - has seen alternatives advocated. Some options include asking us on one extreme to boycott Black Friday altogether, to reminding us to shop more mindfully and support small businesses all year round.

In this episode, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier and School Education Manager Ana Green discuss the background to Black Friday and how it arrived on almost the whole world's calendar.

They explore four main alternatives that both beauty shoppers and indie brands can adopt to make beauty consumerism that bit more sustainable on Black Friday and, in fact, all year round as well.

EP134. Is beauty ready for the metaverse? Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

Is the metaverse a liberating space in which we can shake off our physical selves and explore multiple new identities freely and for fun? Or is it a means to escape very real-world, pressing and critical problems such as sustainability, climate change, and, where beauty is concerned, issues like body shaming? In other words, is the metaverse a place to bury our heads in the sand?

In this Green Beauty Opinion, Formula Botabnica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier shares her thoughts on the potential of metaverse, having had many of her preconceptions challenged by the previous episode's guest, Dr Alex Box, an internationally-renowned artist, identity designer and beauty futurist.

Listen in to expand your knowledge and viewpoints on this next-gen version of the Web which we will all come across and have to negotiate sooner or later.

EP133. Beauty in the metaverse Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

If you are a gamer, then the metaverse will be a familiar space. But, if you are a natural cosmetics' formulator helping friends, family and customers with real-world skincare and haircare issues, a hyper-virtual reality metaverse of avatars, immersive digital experiences and the concept of the post-human body is going to be light years away from how you live your life in the beauty sector.

As with all advances in digital technology, what is new, weird and totally incomprehensible today is likely to enter the mainstream later. In a few years, you too, whether beauty shopper or indie brand founder, may well engage with the metaverse in all its Web 3.0 glory.

You are probably asking what on earth the metaverse is anyway and wondering how you can embrace physical beauty products without using your physical body. Dazed and confused about what this means for beauty as we know it? So were we.

To help decode the metaverse, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier interviews Dr Alex Box, a beauty futurist and internationally-renowned artist who has redefined the role of creativity in makeup, beauty and identity.

Don't expect to hold on to reality in this episode as we immerse ourselves in a parallel universe.

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