When Your Skin Comes First…

Loli Beauty is cleaning up the beauty industry with an innovative zero-waste, organic, food-grade approach

If we’re being honest, 2020 hasn’t exactly been our cup of tea. Today, we’re faced with adversity and change at every corner, and while it seems impossible to stay afloat while combatting the stressors of life, there is one thing that can remain constant— your skincare routine. With a rise in the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve all had to make mask wearing a part of our daily routine. And yes, we will always advocate for you to wear the god damn mask, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about how much we hate the stress it brings to your skin. That’s right ladies, maskne is real and she isn’t very nice.That said, it has never been more imperative for us us to prioritize our skin. And what better way to give your skin the pick me up it needs than with products that are conscious of the planet and your self-esteem?

Meet LOLI Beauty. LOLI is a skincare brand dedicated to creating zero waste, vegan products that contain food-grade ingredients. Oh, and did we mention they’re beautiful, too? HOKU got the inside scoop from Tina Hedges, the founder of LOLI who shared her mission to take the beauty and skincare industry to the next level.

Tell us more about what inspired LOLI Beauty and how your skincare line came to be?

My early childhood years, growing up in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, definitely influenced my interest in holistic, natural beauty and fueled my passion for the environment, most especially the sea. Some of my earliest memories are of herbs and flowers being plucked from the garden and made into topical and ingestible remedies or soaking in salty sea water for its healing properties. Years later, I ended up in the beauty industry, working for large multinational beauty companies leading their product innovation and learned the science of formulating skin, hair, body products as well as color  cosmetics. A few years ago, I had a crisis of health coupled with a crisis of consciousness which spurred me to not only “Maria Kondo” all the products in my beauty cabinet filled with toxic chemicals, but also made me really look closely at the impact of diluted, polluted personal care products on the earth and its people. When I started to think about all the waste in the beauty industry – from using water as 80-95% of a product (despite the fact that The World Economic Forum lists water scarcity as the No. 3 factor contributing to global risk) to the over-packaging of beauty products in single use plastic, plus all the harmful chemicals these products are exposing consumers to – it became obvious that I had to find a better way. 

LOLI stands for “Living Organic Loving Ingredients” and as the world’s first zero waste beauty brand, we feel our impact on the planet and people has to be a priority so changing up how we deal with packaging waste wasn’t enough; we also wanted to upcycle from organic food supply and use no water in our MADE SAFE certified, vegan and cruelty free products for skin, body and hair. We just use food-grade, organic ingredients. By eliminating water, using pure and potent upcycled ingredients and certified home compostable, recycled, recyclable and reusable packaging materials, we’re positively impacting the waste associated with the beauty industry while delivering both an effective and sustainable product to the consumer. 

At LOLI Beauty, we’re on a mission to stir up beauty and make a clean + conscious change that impacts sourcing, formulating, packaging and consumer experience.

Tell us more about how you keep LOLI Beauty products sustainable.

As a public benefits corporation, sustainability is intrinsically embedded into the sourcing, production, products, packaging and user experience of LOLI Beauty. With our commitment to being the first zero waste organic beauty brand, we source upcycled organic and food grade ingredients. We also source from Fair Trade, biodynamic and non-GMO farms and co-ops around the world. Our ingredients are cruelty-free, microbead free, synthetic + chemical free, 100% waterless and independently, scientifically certified MADE SAFE. We also make sure our ingredients are minimally processed to preserve purity, made from renewable raw materials, and we use no petrochemical ingredients derived from petrol, palm oil or any synthetically derived preservatives, emulsifiers, or ingredients.

Then there’s our sustainable approach to packaging. We use recycled, recyclable, reusable, certified 100% compostable bags and labels primary and secondary packaging are 95%+ plastic free. Where we use plastic, it is recycled, recyclable and reusable. A huge opportunity lies in addressing these negative upstream effects. We developed 100% home compostable labels and bags to eliminate secondary cartons and to act as a protective air bag for shipping which reduces the need for non eco-friendly shipping materials. Our shipping box is made of recycled materials, plant based inks, is compostable and FSC certified to ensure that the materials come from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social and economic benefits. 

The consumer-packaged-goods industry is a top consumer of paper, plastics and glass. LOLI's recycled, reusable and zero waste approach to beauty minimizes the amount of packaging used and therefore the pounds of materials. Less is being thrown out. Our reduced regimen, multi-purpose approach to the beauty regimen also reduces the carbon footprint.

We also offer our customers an easy way to offset any carbon footprint in shipping with a donation that available at check-out. We partnered with a new tech company that helps us figure out what the negative impact of every order would be with shipping and with this quick calculation, and a donation, we offset the carbon footprint.

Lastly, there’s our commitment to the stopping of people trafficking. We make sure there’s no people trafficking in anything we do and that’s one of our givebacks.

Can you tell us more about how your brand fosters inclusivity and diversity? 

As a minority female founder from a diverse background (Cuban + Jamaican), I’ve always been committed to making sure we are purposeful and considerate in everything we do. We give back 10% of every order to our consumers to donate to charities supporting the environment as well as organizations like Black Lives Matter, and we also support the Stopping of People Trafficking with our memberships and donations to MADE IN A FREE WORLD and FRDM.

What’s the most challenging aspect of running a sustainable skincare line?

There’s still so much experimenting, learning, pivoting and adapting that has to happen if you’re truly committed to being a leader in sustainability. Technologies and solutions are still being developed, so you need to be comfortable with imperfection. There’s also a lot of greenwashing that’s occurring in the sustainable packaging space. Let’s use “biodegradable” sugar cane or corn derived plastic as an example. It sounds great and lots of clean beauty brands have jumped on this as a solution to still offering cute, neon pink tubes, bottles or jars, but this isn’t the best option. Biodegradable means the plastic resin used in combo with the sugar cane or corn will break down into micro-plastics that will eventually seep into our food and water supplies. We chose instead to stick to what we know is pure, like our food grade glass bottles and jars. As the founder of a zero waste beauty brand, I spend quite a lot of time sifting through research and talking to experts to weigh the pros and the cons. Ultimately, if it has a  LOLI logo on it, it means that it’s truly made only with living organic loving ingredients!

Words: Kiana Kanoa

Photos: Kiana Kanoa