Green Up Your Beauty Routine & Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

If you—like all of us at Pharmacopia—want to do good for Mother Earth, there are some easy steps you can take to green up your beauty routine and reduce your personal impact on the environment, also known as your carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gasses that are generated by our actions.

When considering your carbon footprint, it’s important to look at the entire life cycle of a product—from the ingredients (and how they’re made or grown) to the processing of those ingredients to the packaging of the products.

Here are some planet-friendly strategies we’re using in our company—and in our own homes—to reduce our carbon footprint.

1. Look for beauty products made with recycled packaging. This one means a lot to us at Pharmacopia. That’s why we use 100% PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic in both our hotel-sized amenities like our Argan Oil Body Wash 2-ounce size and in our retail-sized bottles sitewide. 

As a result, we’re able to upcycle and divert over 150 tons of plastic (that’s about the size and weight of a giant blue whale!) from landfills every year instead of using new plastic. 

What’s more: all of our plastic bottles are BPA free and can be recycled again. These are all important factors to keep in mind when reducing your carbon footprint. When you buy and use products made from post-consumer recycled packaging—and then recycle the containers again—you are reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills. 

Sustainability is a commitment to the Earth that we take very seriously at Pharmacopia. Read more about our commitment to sustainability.

2. Use beauty products made from plant-based ingredients. All our Pharmacopia products, including our better-for-you Shampoos and Conditioners, are plant-based and have been since we started in 1999. Not only are plant-based ingredients better for your skin and hair, they’re also better for your health—and the health of the planet.

None of the ingredients in our products utilize ingredients that could contaminate the water, soil, and air. And by not using synthetic ingredients, like those derived from petroleum (like petrolatum, mineral oil, and toluene), we’re reducing the usage of fossil fuels.

When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. These greenhouse gasses trap heat in our atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Plant-based ingredients don’t do this, so by using plant-based beauty, you’re helping to support products that support a healthier Earth.

3. Opt for vegan beauty products. All Pharmacopia products are cruelty free and vegan—for good reason. Not only do we care about animals and don’t believe in testing on animals, our products are also free from any animal-derived ingredients.

How this helps the Earth: animal testing labs and factories producing animal-derived ingredients produce large amounts of waste, which is often contaminated with toxic or hazardous chemicals, viruses, and infectious diseases. These labs often incinerate these ingredients to dispose of them. This process emits gasses and fine particulate matter into the air, which isn’t good for the atmosphere or our health.

4. Re-use cosmetic jars and containers. Rather than tossing a container, recycle it. And if you can re-use it, that’s even better.

Empty containers can hold hair ties or even loose change. Or use them to hold a small plant.

Bottles can be transformed into a vase for flowers. You can even use an old makeup compact—after thoroughly cleaned—as a pill container or a travel-sized container to hold a face cream.

Better yet, reuse containers to hold a homemade scrub. Simply add two pumps of our Verbena, Citrus, or Argan Oil Body Wash to half a cup of organic granulated sugar and a cup of extra virgin olive or coconut oil. Then put it in an old, but clean, facial cream or body scrub container and gently massage into skin for softer, smoother skin.

5. Buy products with minimal packaging. It’s estimated that approximately 120 billion units of cosmetics packaging are produced worldwide—with most of this being used just one time. Now imagine that so much of this packaging is packed into a container and then into a box. The more packaging there is, the worse the carbon footprint.

By eliminating unnecessary packaging like boxes (as well as using 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Packaging), at Pharmacopia we’re doing our part to help reduce packaging waste.

You may also want to consider buying bar soap instead of body wash. Our Body Bar—which comes in all of our loved scents: Citrus, Verbena, and Mint Argan—is packaged simply in a paper wrapper, which also saves on plastic packaging.

6. Try refillable products. We created our gallon-size Argan Oil Better-for-You Bodycare Products to allow for easy refilling of our retail-sized containers once they’re empty. 

They also help reduce waste in the hotel industry; the containers used in Hyatt Hotels and Best Western Plus hotels nationwide can simply be refilled to save packaging waste.

In fact, reusable packaging eliminates the need to recycle or remanufacture single-use packaging, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 60 percent.

7. Re-think your cotton pad usage. Many bathrooms are stocked with cotton balls and cotton pads for every use imaginable. But when you stop and consider all the energy and chemicals that went into creating those cotton pads for a single use, it just doesn’t make sense for the Earth.

Cotton not only takes a lot of water to grow and produce, cotton production also degrades the soil in many areas. Runoff from pesticides and fertilizers used to grow cotton contaminates our waterways, which can affect biodiversity. Not to mention that pesticide use contaminates our soil too.

Instead, you can use reusable cotton pads. This may sound like a great deal of effort but companies like Wegreenco make reusable cotton pads made from sustainable materials like bamboo. (Bamboo is a sustainable material because it requires little water to grow and doesn’t need to be sprayed with pesticides or fertilizers. Plus, bamboo releases 35 percent more oxygen into the air compared to trees of the same size.) Many of these reusable pads, like the ones from Wegreenco, come with an easy-to-use laundry bag to wash your pads in.

8. Opt for a low-flow showerhead. Showers are responsible for approximately 17% of household water use and 50% of hot water use. In fact, shower use consumes up to 1.2 trillion gallons of water every year in the U.S.

By cutting down your daily water usage, you’re reducing your carbon footprint significantly. How to do it: take shorter showers and install a low-flow showerhead. It’s estimated that an average family can save over 2,000 gallons of water per year by switching to a low-flow showerhead.

There are plenty of ways you can reduce your beauty carbon footprint. You can start with one of these tips and gradually add more as you feel comfortable. But one thing that can also help reduce your beauty impact on the Earth: paring down your beauty routine. We all have too many things and cutting out the unnecessary things can be one big way to do your part for Mother Earth.