Rihanna’s new skincare line cuts waste, but not enough

For about a year, I have been traveling to make my beauty routine plastic-free. I have tried a number of alternatives – from my shampoo at my makeup– to get as much plastic out of my life as possible. However, a new skincare line makes me reconsider all my efforts: Fenty Skin.

Musician Robyn Fenty’s skincare line, better known as, uh, Rihanna, was discontinued on July 31. As tempted as I was to try it, I stayed away because each of the three products comes in individual plastic containers.

“You’re better than that,” I tell myself.

Then I received a Fenty Skin sample with a purchase of lip gloss. I fell in love. At once. Not only did these products leave my skin feeling fresh and clean; they also left me with a delicious smell thanks to scents like barbados cherry and kalahari melon.

After telling my coworkers that I fell in love with the delicacies wrapped in plastic, I was ready to be ashamed! But instead, Gizmodo Consumer Tech Reporter Victoria song, who already owned the products, enlightened me. Unlike many other beauty products, two out of three products come without external packaging. As for the plastic used, at least a part is recycled, and it is also largely recyclable. The face lotion includes the coolest feature that comes with a refillable cartridge. The cartridge itself is not recyclable, but refillable items are only taking off in the beauty industry. There’s still room for improvement, clearly, but if this first round of products is any indication, Fenty Skin could popularize eco-friendly skin products in ways many companies haven’t yet. adopted.

I finally took the leap to get my own products. They’re all sold out online, although Fenty Skin sent me a kit for this item.

Everything was simple to use and did not require cotton or paper towels. It was a victory for me. I am a simple girl. I don’t need to add more work through a beauty routine or waste it in the trash. What really attracted me were these fruity scents. People sensitive to smells might not like it, but these products smell so good.

The three products launched by Fenty include Total Cleans’r Remove-It-All Cleanser, Fat Water Pore Refining Tonic Serum, and Hydra Vizor Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Invisible Hydrating Sunscreen Sunscreen. What’s cool about each of these products is that they all are two in one. So what would usually come in two separate plastic bottles from other beauty companies comes in one here. The cleanser is both a facial cleanser and a makeup remover. Fat Water is a toner and a serum. The moisturizer both hydrates your face and provides sun protection. At around $ 30 each, they’re also all relatively affordable, compared to similar products.

“I wanted the packaging to be beautiful, but also functional with an earth-minded approach,” the queen herself on the Fenty site. “We have eliminated boxes where we could, we have filling systems and we use recycled materials where possible. No one is perfect, but I really believe we can do our best to do well, and we’ll continue to evolve as we go.

Waste is a major problem in the beauty world as a whole. In 2017, facial moisturizers alone accounted for more than 4 billion packaging units worldwide, according to figures that market analysis group Euromonitor International shared with Earther. They aren’t always recyclable, but the hard truth is that people often don’t recycle these items, even though that is an option. Only about 13% of plastic containers and packaging produced in the United States in 2017 were recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Much of the rest ended up in landfills.

Much of this is a systemic problem, including the fact that municipal recycling programs are messy and the plastic industry refuses to pay for the mess he created while pushing us to consume more single-use crap. With this in mind, it is impossible for end users or even Fenty Skin itself to fully solve this problem although the latter certainly has more power to do so than individuals alone. The company still has a long way to go before it is sustainable. Offering products completely without packaging, like its competitor Lush, would be a major step. Creating refillable packaging for all its products would also be. Adding drop-off containers to stores for reuse is a better alternative than expecting consumers to recycle them at home.

Plastic is bad, but I can appreciate a new company stepping in to reduce that damage a bit. Fenty Skin isn’t adorned with green leaves or promises to save the planet. Still, for a $ 3 billion company, Fenty can do better. And I fully expect it Rihanna said our colleagues at The Root how real the climate and ecological crises are. As the Island Girl, she understands what’s at stake if we keep making them worse.