The latest innovations in sustainable beauty

Being eco friendly just got a whole lot easier

BEAUTYcrew Beauty Editor / April 21 2022

When your birthday rolls around, it’s the ideal chance to force everyone you know to celebrate the mere existence of you

So it’s only natural that when Earth Day crops up every year on April 22nd that we do our utmost to celebrate the massive rock we reside on. 

The prospect of eco-friendly beauty seemed like a far off pipe dream for many years, but it’s 2022 now, baby, and there are endless innovations in sustainability to explore. What a time to be alive!

Mother Earth gives us life – literally. So let’s show her some respect by making more conscious decisions. Plastic-free beauty products anyone? 

The world’s first dissolvable face wipes

As face wipes go, we’ve always been told that they are conclusively bad for the environment. Not to mention most of them are drying on the skin thanks to fragrance-saturated formulas (ick). 

But innovators in sustainability Conserving Beauty have sussed a solution that’s so ingenious it almost sounds too good to be true. 

Introducing: Conserving Beauty InstaMelt™ Deep Exfoliating Day Remover Wipes ($39 at Conserving Beauty), the world’s first-ever dissolvable face wipes.

Conserving Beauty InstaMelt™ Deep Exfoliating Day Remover Wipes

Yep, that’s right, someone has managed to create a face wipe that dissolves in water. Alternatively, you can throw it in the bin instead of washing it down the sink because these makeup remover wipes completely biodegrade after just 21 days. 

The world-first technology was created in an effort to minimise single-use waste, but the formula doesn’t disappoint either. Each wipe is infused with hemp seed, jojoba oil, jojoba esters, squalene, dermofeel® and gentle surfactants to help exfoliate, remove makeup and cleanse impurities. 

Sustainable and biodegradable false eyelashes

Burdened with nicknames like fake, false and faux since their conception, it’s no wonder that it’s taken such a long time for brands to figure out that eyelashes can have roots in sustainability. 

The Ardell ECOLashes Collection ($5.99 at Ardell) is all about embracing a conscious approach to faux eyelashes. Created from sustainably sourced natural fibres that are then hand-sewn onto a comfortable organic cotton band, these lightweight lashes are the perfect companion to your busy day.

The real kicker though is the packaging, which is made from 100 per cent biodegradable paper carton, printed with soy ink, and made using all recyclable materials.

Ardell ECOLashes 454

A sustainable shaving subscription service

Shaving may seem like a modern convenience (even if it is annoying), but it turns out we’ve been working harder, not smarter. 

Make My Shave has established a shaving subscription service that routinely sends you all the razor heads you need, utilising free and carbon offset delivery. 

Once you’ve got yourself a Make My Shave Starter Kit ($21.99 at Make My Shave), the brand will send you four heads (every month, two months, or three months) and you can pause, change or cancel anytime.

Make My Shave Starter Kit

You’ll also receive a compostable mailer and paid postage label so that you can return your used blades to the brand.

Once Make My Shave gets their hands on your used razor heads they’re sent to TerraCycle® Australia in a Zero Waste Box™. TerraCycle® sorts the materials and then turns them into plastic granules, and subsequently new products.

After a more thoughtful beauty routine? Check out these eco-friendly beauty tips.

Main image credit: @conservingbeauty / @​​makemyshave / @nikolevega_pro / Getty

Briar Clark got her start in the media industry in 2017, as an intern for Marie Claire and InStyle. Since then, her keen interest in fashion and beauty has landed her gigs as a Digital Content Producer and Beauty Editor with titles like Girlfriend, Refinery29, BEAUTYcrew and beautyheaven. She loves the way seemingly innocuous topics like skin care and style have the ability to put a smile on people’s faces or make them think about themselves a little differently. A big believer in self love and experimentation, Briar has made a point of becoming the Australian beauty industry’s unofficial guinea pig for unusual treatments and daring hair trends. When she’s not testing out the latest beauty launches, Briar is big on broadening her horizons, mostly in the form of food but she’s also partial to travelling to new destinations both near and far (and of course, allocating an extra bag to bring their best beauty offerings home with her).