Why magnificence packaging is at all times the final thought — and the largest drawback

What truly occurs to your magnificence packaging if you’re completed with it?

It’s a query most manufacturers nonetheless can’t reply, as a result of no person ever deliberate for it. On this week’s Inexperienced Magnificence Conversations episode, Lorraine Dallmeier argues that packaging is likely one of the most costly errors an indie model founder could make, and that the behavior of treating it as an afterthought is costing manufacturers way over cash.

This episode follows on from Lorraine’s interview with Jerome Fraillon of Alder Packaging in episode 323. That dialogue between Lorraine and Jerome shone a highlight on the truth that magnificence packaging is sort of at all times an afterthought.

On this opinion piece, Lorraine takes that additional by exploring what that truly means, why it issues a lot greater than most formulators realise, and what it appears to be like like when somebody will get their packaging decisions proper.

“Your formulation deserved months of your consideration. Your packaging deserves greater than a day.” — Lorraine Dallmeier

Key takeaways:

• Packaging is sort of at all times an afterthought — and that’s a values drawback. By the point most indie founders get to packaging, they’re drained, over price range, and beneath stress to launch. They decide one thing that appears proper and transfer on. However a founder who has spent six months obsessing over the provenance of their botanical extracts after which grabbed the primary glass bottle they discovered on-line has created a disconnect between their values and their product — one which magnificence customers will finally really feel.
• A number of the most well-intentioned packaging decisions have difficult outcomes. Darkish or violet glass is protecting of a components and beloved by apothecary-style indie manufacturers, however it will probably’t be sorted by the laser at most recycling services — it will get labeled as one thing aside from glass and goes to waste. Biopolymers constructed from sugarcane sound pure and round, however as soon as that sugarcane has been processed right into a resin, it received’t biodegrade any quicker than a traditional plastic bottle. Good intentions don’t robotically equal decrease influence.
• The packaging trade was not constructed with indie founders in thoughts. When Jerome Fraillon described 25,000 models at $10,000–$20,000 as “not an extreme sum of money,” he was talking from the provider’s perspective — and he was proper to. However for a founder formulating at house, that framing is a helpful reminder that should you stroll into this world unprepared, with out asking the fitting questions early sufficient, you’ll both get it unsuitable or get priced out. Preparation isn’t optionally available — it’s protecting.
• When Lorraine beforehand interviewe Kristina Dunn of Rua Magnificence, she demonstrated what starting with the tip in thoughts truly appears to be like like. Kristina spent two and a half years rejecting packaging choices earlier than launching, constructing a completely round system based mostly on infinitely recyclable glass and aluminium, with a refill mannequin designed to maintain packaging in use moderately than in landfill. She formulates in a CO₂-neutral lab operating on Norwegian hydropower and makes use of distilled seawater that might in any other case be discarded as a byproduct of sea salt manufacturing. Kristina runs the complete model alone — and this yr received Greatest Sustainable Packaging on the Magnificence Shortlist Awards 2026. Take heed to Kristina’s interview.
• Finish-of-life magnificence planning remains to be not normal follow — and it must be. Lorraine coined this time period in episode 178 again in 2023, difficult the trade to consider what occurs to merchandise and packaging on the finish of their lives from the very starting of the design course of. Three years on, she’s saying it once more. The problem this week is particular: earlier than your subsequent packaging resolution, ask what truly occurs to it if you’re completed with it — proper now, with the programs that truly exist at present.

Thanks for becoming a member of us for this episode of the Components Botanica Inexperienced Magnificence Conversations podcast. In case you loved listening, please share, subscribe and assessment this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Youtube in order that extra folks can benefit from the present. Don’t overlook to observe and join with us on Fb and Instagram.

Lorraine Dallmeier is a Biologist, Chartered Environmentalist and the CEO of Components Botanica, the award-winning on-line natural beauty science college. Learn extra about Lorraine and the Components Botanica Workforce.