Credo Beauty Just Discontinued Samples–Why That’s a Really Good Thing
A bowl of beauty samples from our editor’s bathroom
Who doesn’t love receiving those free mini sample packets from your favorite makeup line or hair care brand? Getting to try out product samples is fun and all, but as it turns out, those tiny single-use plastic packets are impossible to recycle, meaning those 60 seconds of use that you get out of a sample is actually adding to the billions of single-use waste sitting in landfills resulting from the cosmetics industry alone.
Credo Beauty—one of the most innovative retailers of zero-waste, sustainable beauty— has continued to lead the way for many smaller clean cosmetics companies with their efforts in reducing waste in the beauty industry since their online debut in 2014. Mia Davis, Credo’s Director of Environmental and Social Responsibility, has contributed to the company’s initiatives towards sustainability by implementing The Credo Clean Standard in 2018, a movement which continues to uphold Credo’s brand as a trustworthy and fully transparent place to shop beauty products, especially when it comes to sustainability, safety, sourcing, and ethics. More recently, Credo announced the #StopSingleUse campaign: a new way to combat the billions of single-use waste in the cosmetics industry.
Credo Beauty’s REJAR
Credo has officially made the pledge to stop all of their production of plastic, non-recyclable sample packets, as well as all single-use products like sheet face masks, wipes, make-up removal pads, etc. In replacement, they’ll be offering a reusable sample jar coined by the name REJAR (a mini container made from upcycled green tea fibers) in stores, successfully creating a zero-waste way of sampling the products you’re interested in. And this is kind of a big deal because Credo predicts that this will prevent 660,000 seemingly-insignificant (but secretly evil) sample packets from ending up in landfills and other forms of toxic pollution.
Refillable jars are a brilliant way to combat single-use plastics in beauty products, and easy to use: once you’ve finished a product, simply clean out any excess product (this step is important! If any product is left in the container, it cannot be handled by workers) and return to the company for a product refill, sometimes even at a discount. Many clean beauty brands outside of Credo have refillable/reusable container systems in place online, which is a great way to be Earth-friendly while even saving some money, since product refills are typically less expensive than re-buying a full product, and you aren’t contributing to excess packaging production either—we’d call that a win-win!
Some more sustainably focused companies using refill jars onlinE
1. Dab Herb Makeup
is an Etsy vegan makeup brand based in Los Angeles, CA, with a neutral collection of organic, plant-based makeup products ranging from powder mascara sets to plant pigment color correctors. Most of their products are plant based, and all ingredients are ethically sourced and hand-crafted from scratch. Additionally, all of their products that come in glass containers and metal tins are refillable, and come at a 10% discount.
Plaine Products
2. Plaine Products
Plaine Products takes pride in their approach to reducing wasteful packaging when it comes to hair products and body care. Reducing single-use plastics within haircare has been a learning curve for even the most pioneering sustainable beauty brands, since shampoo and conditioner bottles are generally larger and more difficult to produce in recyclable containers, so Plaine Products has approached the challenge with refillable aluminum bottles. Once you purchase hair care, lotion, soap, or anything else from their collection, you receive a return label for when your product is empty. All you need to do is purchase a refill, rinse out the aluminum bottle, send it back with the return label, and your bottle gets refilled and sent back to you. Our editor, Katya is a major fan of their shampoo and conditioner.
3. Zao Organic Makeup
is a sustainable, all-natural makeup brand that makes use of bamboo in their packaging. All of their products offer a refillable option which allows you to purchase the compact or lipstick that you can pop into your empty product, and their collection includes a wide range of shades and colors too.
So we hope we’ve convinced you to NOT choose samples when you check out at your fave online beauty store –and even better shop at Credo Beauty along with other brands committed to reducing their footprint. You can also Sign the #StopSingleUse petition on Change.org by Credo Beauty here.
–Delilah Eby
