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Hello and welcome to ASCP's SD Talk. I'm your co-host Maggie Stasek and ASCP's education program manager.
And I'm Ella Crestman, licensed institution certified organic skin care formulator, international educator, and content contributor for associated skin care professionals.
We are very excited to be joined by Julie Longyear, herbal chemist and founder of Blissoma Botanical Beauty.
We've talked a lot on the show about going green, clean, or all natural, and it really seems to be a driving trend these days.
It's a trend for sure, and we can see, I mean, we've talked about it before how it kind of follows sometimes food trends, and we saw the rumblings happening with that.
But it's just such a really cool time for scientific advancements in those categories, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, definitely. It's a great time to be a green skin care formulator, certainly much easier than when I started like 15 years ago.
There's lots more ingredients available to work with that meet those criteria, and it's just great to see the ingredients side moving towards it as well as customers being more aware of what they're buying and how it impacts things.
Because otherwise, the cosmetic industry is a potentially large source of waste, and we want to keep an eyeball on that and make the best impact that we can.
It should be healing for everyone is my personal opinion.
Yeah, and we're saying trend, but I think this is really like a niche. It's here to stay, and a lot of statisticians are choosing this as their philosophy for practicing aesthetics.
I had actually a client come in this week, and it was funny because we were, I don't remember we're talking about something, and she has a son who's 13.
So that's a pretty formative age, and she was talking about the body wash that he gets, and she avoid these things.
And this client in particular wouldn't fit that standard perception of someone 15 years ago to your point, Julie, that would look for those things.
They hate the word holistic because the way it's been inferred to mean like hippies, and I say that, you know, having been a homestead kid.
But holistic really means the whole thing, right?
So typically before it was the hippies that were interested in holistic or the natural people or whatever, but this person definitely doesn't fit that perception.
And she's coming in and she's talking about, oh, I don't like these, you know, ingredients, and she listed some, and I also look out for that.
And she even pointed out limony has limony, and that's bad, right? And it had point out like, it's not always bad.
Look at where it's at in the list, but just that she was aware of those words is definitely an indication of where the clients are now.
I think there's a lot of information and then misinformation too.
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just hard to know who to trust, which I think is really important for there to be good solid trust where these sources of information.
I'm sure you guys are doing your part here.
You know, I tried to do my part to share research and fact-based information because there is a lot of, like people can take one bit of information and then extrapolate things from that that aren't necessarily true and not everybody's a chemist.
And so it's important for them to have people like yourself, Ella, to come to and ask those questions because they're, you know, everybody's busy and there's a lot to take on in life.
And this is a really complex thing for people to make smart decisions for themselves.
And if they want to, those resources need to be available. So it's really good that you're helping people, you know, that's our job as a statisticians.
I think is to weed through that to explain the ingredient that to people to show them what to look for.
And also at the same time sometimes we're still learning.
Oh, yeah. There's new words that come out, you know, and I think a lot of as far as these natural ingredients, these clean and green overlooking at green, which we know are marketing terms, right?
But if we look at the word green and plant-based and having a plant being born of plants, I guess.
There's some things that are good and there's still some things that are bad, like the example of limonene, for example.
That one I know overseas, particularly, is garnering a lot of attention because people are aware that there is a potential or you probably work with a lot of essential oils and stuff too.
But there's concentration levels to consider not just putting it directly on your skin could result in irritation, but at the right concentration, this little bit can really open the door for other ingredients to work.
Yeah, definitely. So there's a lot that people can encounter through their own bodies, teaching them about what they may react to.
And I think that there's a lot of intuitive knowledge that people can bring to it, but then having an expert to guide you is super important.
So I think the statisticians that I work with all do an excellent job of helping demystify things for people and making it accessible and simple for them to make healthier decisions.
And I will personally cop to being one of the hippies, quote unquote, I am now a professional hippie. I do this full time.
But I also agree with you. It's incredibly important that it has made inroads into population groups that didn't normally think of themselves as like environmentalists or natural crunchy people or crunchy people.
Yeah.
The technical.
I think this updated time crunchies.
Yeah.
Like, you know, they're not the granola, Birkenstack wearing people that like I might be, but they also are now taking this seriously.
And I think it was in kind of ways a problem for it to be considered just a hippie thing in the past, because like, you know, sure, you can make a progress with people that identify that way, but the people outside of it are going to think, oh, that's not for me.
And really from a planetary perspective and climate perspective, we all need to be considering our choices and how they add up.
Because we are facing unprecedented climate change crisis and need to do things about it as quickly as possible.
And we all want to feel and look our best. And also in terms of like greenness, the other important thing to consider is that like once you do step into using more natural ingredients, yes, that you have the immediate benefit that it is probably biodegradable.
It's not going to persist in the environment. So that's wonderful.
It also can have benefits for the body in terms of like lack of toxicity for most healthy ingredients that we use in skincare.
Of course, there are things that you shouldn't use or things that can be problematic in certain quantities, but the idea is we're choosing things that are healthy to use.
But then beyond that, we have the issue of plants, we can over harvest.
And so there are steps in terms of being conscious of impact that when you move into the natural sphere, we have to be careful that we aren't overtaking from nature.
Because the first step is to like celebrate it and embrace it. And then the next step is to be like, oh, I need to be thoughtful about how many of these botanicals and you know, should I have counter top full of 30 products or should I have maybe 10 that work really well.
And for me personally, that's why I love making really effective products so that people don't necessarily need a bajillion of them to get the job done.
But like over harvesting and ethical harvesting are part of the discussion that for me, like that I'm like, that's the next frontier.
So what do you say to the esthetician or how would you advise the esthetician that is wanting to direct their business more towards clean beauty or get on the bandwagon with this trend?
Yeah, so I do think it's a really smart decision from a business perspective.
I mean, my business is in this field, I'm growing in this field, but I've seen the data for a long time now.
And there's a lot of consumer awareness that's growing. The projections are really good from like a business revenue perspective.
So this is something that is here to stay in terms of the consciousness. And I think that like younger consumers especially are more environmentally aware than previous generations have been.
And so as they mature and go through the cycle of getting older and you know, they're not just a bunch of teenagers that want to buy earth friendly stuff, they're going to be 30 year olds and 40 year olds that want to buy earth.
And I think that that's just going to continue as like, you know, their options because their their lives are very impacted by things like wildfires and, you know, heat and drought and all that stuff that that continues to hit flooding and hurricanes that are worse than before.
So I think that they are more aware and they're going to be buying products because we're still going to want to feel good and look good and be able to enjoy our bodies as we're here on this planet.
So I think that it's a great business decision, but I would advise people to avoid getting into it from the perspective of it just being a trend in the sense that like you don't want to get it into a superficial way like it needs to be it is a smart business decision.
But it needs to be something where you really believe and take a personal interest in the material that you're sharing with people.
I think it's really important for you to do good research. And then like if if you have a hybrid business say and you're going to continue to do a more like conventional style of aesthetics as well as incorporating holistic or green products, you need to be able to dialogue in both like it's kind of code switching between the two areas because there is kind of different different approaches, different language because the customers in the green beauty area are just different than your typical.
Person that doesn't have an awareness or that's not a driving factor for them to be making a purchase decision and are engaging with something.
There is a certain amount of literacy that you need to have or else it will sound a little hollow potentially and people really want to be able to trust.
Trust is super super super important because greenwashing has now become an issue in terms of people want to participate in the trend.
And so they'll find some small quality and then like kind of blow it up in their marketing and like talk about it from a perspective of being this amazing thing when actually it's not making that much of an impact.
So people are really looking for substance and to have that substance you have to really invest, you have to really be aware, you have to really understand the issues that drive the products, the purchase decisions and like the supply chain, everything associated with that.
So I think you have to really take it seriously as you would take any other part of your business because this is not just like oh it's a fun smell or it's a fun color or you know like a new texture of product or something like that.
It's not a flash in the pan. It is something that people are really devoting their lives to and for some people it's more crucial than others like for some people if you have skin allergies or whatever to synthetics.
You're going to want to know that the person that's treating you takes that really seriously and has really done the research on the product points that they're using because there can be a lot of hidden ingredients and cosmetics and an ingredient list.
Now we're facing a time now with like mocha and new cosmetics legislation where for the first time there is going to be some oversight of cosmetics in the US.
But historically there has not been and so companies you basically are reliant on them to just declare whatever is in the product on the ingredients list.
And there are definitely situations where people are not declaring things correctly or from a like perspective of there can be hidden ingredients legally there can be hidden ingredients.
Yeah well an herb extracts are actually one of the most common ways that hidden ingredients find their way into products because lots of times.
So it's legally permissible for companies to put an herb extract say it's yerba mate extract and they're going to put it in their product that yerba mate extract if it's a liquid most likely has some sort of preservative added to it to keep it fresh from the time that it's made to when it goes into the final product.
And legally based on current FDA rules you do not actually have to declare the preservative that's in that extract if it's not determined to be functionally contributing to the preservation of the final product.
You don't have to put it on your ingredients label so it could have something in there that you don't even know and I will say there's a big gap to in the processing side of things because like a lot of brands don't make their own products.
So they're relying on co packers to select their ingredients so may they may not even know and now having like interacted with that world more because like we make most of our own stuff.
So we all we make all of our own stuff right now so we do not deal with co packers much but as I've kind of started to dip a toe into that world to explore like if we ever needed to expand something what are our possibilities.
Finding out more about how they operate there's a lot of opacity where they don't want to tell you where they're sourcing things in a lot of cases unless you're working with a very transparent supplier but you know they consider that part of their trade position where they then get to monopolize you as a client if you don't know where the ingredients are coming from your reliance on them to do that and some people are perfectly happy to just let somebody else do that for them.
But that also means that they don't know what's in there that could be making into the final product.
So these kinds of things.
This is LCGMP co packing.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah. So that's actually very normal and they know like the co packers know that they don't have to declare all those preservatives on the you know they're going to release you here's the ingredients list you approve this.
The client is going to see the ingredients list and they're going to go that looks great but it might be missing three or four things that if you're if you're registering in Europe.
All those things get uncovered but if you're just doing business in the United States as well west out here I mean we're in the west.
Your offices in Colorado so we're in the west but I mean it is very much a like you just have to trust you have to find people that you trust to do business with.
Hold that thought we'll be right back.
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Okay here we go let's give back to the podcast.
I do want to ask a question about clean and green right.
Yeah so this is a lifestyle implementation should we call it more than a lifestyle shift more than just a trend.
Yeah and this is happening in I mean we talked about reactions and I'm very sensitive to selenium.
So I can't do Brazil nuts for example.
Oh yeah.
We did a pimple.
Okay.
So some minor internal and I'll notice if I didn't drink enough water there's definitely is pretty obvious issue of my skin.
But at home we're trying to do the same thing.
We've got these green movement I do bar shampoo and conditioner.
My husband has been forbidden to do anything heavy-centred you know so we do all you know we're making those moves.
With that like we're doing our part we're easing into it we're starting to compost now we're at that spot you know but we couldn't have done all of it at the same time.
So if we take that and we translate it to professional statisticians you mentioned that there should be a path this is what I take away.
There should be a passion for it and you should get prepared and and be able to to target your conversation and your materials and you have brands that you trust that's what I took away from what you were talking about.
But for some statisticians that maybe want to toe in or graduate into it do you have any advice for them.
That's an interesting question in terms of like where to start.
And I think that's often where people struggle when it comes to a change like going green is like it feels get can feel overwhelming.
So I mean your choice of product line is probably a good place to start because you're going to need product anyway.
And then like dialoging with different brands you'll discover more and I think that'll kind of like lead you some new places probably.
As you ask them questions because I think it's really important to ask a lot of questions like you can't just necessarily go off like everything what's posted on the website like you kind of want to figure out some things that you can ask about you know what are they doing or if they don't have it posted then you need to inquire and that could lead you to new places.
Because there's other sustainability kind of initiatives like if you're looking to take your whole business more green then you've got considerations like how much water we're using to wash towels and things like that I'm not so much an expert in that sort of area.
But like that is definitely one way to help convey to your clients that like you're really dedicated to that concept.
And you can be dedicated to doing business in a greener way even if it's like even if you don't want to go all green and crunchy with your products too.
So it doesn't have to be one or the other it's fantastic when you can do both.
But I would say like the most important thing is for people to pick what's most approachable for them.
So like say maybe your washing machine breaks and you need to buy a new one maybe that's the time to look into like something higher efficiency or that uses less water or you know think about an impact that you can make there.
And then then when you do that then you communicate it you know to your clients on a postcard or flyer.
And I think that that's sometimes one of the things that we forget to do too is like it's good to be doing all these things but you also have to tell people that you're doing them.
So it needs to be in your marketing materials and it needs to be like send an email out or like you know tell people how you're you're incorporating your thoughtfulness about how you do business.
And what green impacts you're making try and measure it if you can you know like how many towels do you wash per year.
These are sorts of things that like maybe some people have not even like thought of.
And I'm just bringing that up as like an example of a non skin care way to be greener you know maybe you can maximize your electricity usage things like that.
And that will help convince people that like you also know what you're doing with your products because clearly it's not just like oh hey I want to sell you something trendy and you know make money off of you.
It's like if you're going to have to buy a new washer anyway as well by one that's really really well made and is going to do a great job and that's in the long run going to save you money.
So I think that like being green it's kind of like the solar panels we put on our building.
I mean it was one of the smartest business decisions I've ever made from like a money saving perspective there was a big upfront cost and it had to be built into the mortgage that we got for a building.
But when I looked at the numbers I was like I can't believe more business owners aren't doing this this is crazy like how much money hundreds of thousands of dollars it's going to save my business that we have solar panels.
And it's also good for the environment so I think that sometimes people get scared by the initial upfront cost.
But being green is not just something you're going to do for the next year it's going to be something that you're doing for the next 10 20 30 years like it's really.
It's a change of thought process about how we operate and I think that American business has tended to focus on short term benefit profit gains things like that as being a measure of success.
And personally I look at a bigger picture you know like where is this taking me in the long run.
But then you better believe we are making sure to tell people how much power we're saving like how many what make a watts of electricity you know we might send out a little annual email and be like this is how much electricity we've you know made ourselves from a clean source versus having to use it off the grid.
I think you're making some really interesting points because when we say going green we aren't always thinking about all the things like saving water or solar panels or da da da da.
We're thinking about it in terms of well we're estheticians and we're going to use organic natural product.
We do have like high waste opportunity though.
We think about our disposal and stuff.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Yeah it's not easy to call in green is that.
It's like a lot to think about.
Yeah I'm thinking about my electric bill.
I think it will get easier over time and it will get easier as more people make that choice because really the thing that's been the hardest about it is that
our systems as a society were not built that way.
And so when you're making a choice that goes outside the system it's inherently going to feel really hard because you're out there on your own humans are collaborative creatures.
We do best when we work together to do things.
And so the fact that now more people are starting to think about it.
Now we're starting to build that collaborative energy that's going to help carry it forward and make it easier.
And I think that in the long term a lot of the choices that we will be able to make will be inherently green because we will have like moved so much more that way and it won't feel so hard.
So it has been a little challenging for people that are kind of on the front here pushing it that way and who are making those decisions outside of supportive networks.
Or who are doing so at the cost of their personal budget where they're like making a choice to spend more on something that's maybe more ecologically sound.
But I think that overall as a culture can head that direction and that it will make it easier for all of us because things will just be built that way like it's kind of nuts to me that like we're even allowing new construction that isn't like super insulated and incorporating green power.
But like there are forces working against that and I won't get into all of those because that would take a lot of coverage.
That's a whole separate podcast.
But yeah, I mean for sure you are not alone anymore and it can feel like it takes some initial initial energy.
But once you do start thinking about it, just know there are lots more sources of information and support out there than there used to be.
And the more of us do this, the easier it gets.
That concludes our show for today and we thank you for listening.
For more information on this episode or for ways to connect with the team at Blasoma Botanical Beauty or to learn more about ASCP, check out the show notes.