There’s a lot of waste goes on in the beauty industry.

A LOT. Lines are discontinued, packaging gets a refresh, formulations change – and other problems arise in the supply chain – even something as simple as a production run where the labels aren’t stuck on straight can condemn those products to being discarded.

So, BOOP has been set up to address the problem: a beauty website that sells perfectly good stuff, at something of a discount (up to 50%), and basically stops product going to landfill or incineration.

As BOOP founder Yasmine Amr explains, ‘A huge number of beauty products are destroyed each year by manufacturers and retailers without ever hitting the market. Consumers and brands are becoming far more conscious of sustainability – and don’t really care if their product doesn’t look perfect or has older packaging if it works well. If you think about what Oddbox has done for food waste, that’s what we want to do for the beauty industry. An “Outnet for beauty”, selling those items which the beauty sector assumes are undesirable, but which people love.’

The site’s products might be less-than-perfect for any of the following reasons, explain BOOP – who pledge always to let the customer know the condition of each product, before selling it. So, think…

• Damaged external packaging

• Unopened customer returns

• Slow-moving and excess stock

• Out-of-season stock and limited editions

• Obsolete stock, old formulations and old branding

• Quality control discrepancies – think shape, colour, texture and size

• Printing errors

Some really good brands are on board, here, including several Beauty Bible Award-winners – Antipodes, Aromatherapy Associates, John Masters Organics, FILLS and Boucleme. We’d like to see every brand join up, frankly, to deal with their supply chain issues.

We’ve always encouraged thoughtful shopping – it’s what our Awards have been about, helping women take a short-cut through the beauty jungle to products that really work. But we’d still like to see less waste; according to BOOP, ‘an estimated 90 million beauty products are thrown away each year in the UK alone. That’s 1000 tonnes of mascaras, 4,500 tonnes of moisturiser and 9,000 tonnes of perfume – the equivalent in weight to almost 650 double decker buses.’ Gosh. What sobering figures.

So, this is a really, really positive step that any of those of us who love beauty can take on our sustainability journey. We encourage you to have a virtual ‘browse’ – and we’re going to keep checking in, to see who else jumps on board.

A perfect solution, in an imperfect world.

boopbeauty.co.uk

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