Sustainability drives everything we do at Azurlis™. Even our motto - to use as little product as required and only what is necessary - underscores our commitment to sustainability in even the smallest detail. Using as little as is required and only what is needed is a living thread in our sustainable manufacturing, packaging, and marketing approaches, as well. Our marketing message encourages customers to buy only the skin care you require rather than splashing on a shopping spree of products that you will never use. Our goal is to contribute to global sustainability by responsibly using products and sourcing corresponding ingredients.
Sadly, sustainability has become a buzzword for most people. We use the word every day with little thought about what sustainability means. We mistakenly assume that we are already making a difference because we believe, support, and aspire to sustainable practices. But are we?
What does sustainability look like for natural skin care? What control do we have over manufacturing and using natural skin care to develop a more sustainable pipeline? Can we have a “zero-waste” manufacturing pipeline? How can we educate the market when our voice is drowned by the clamour of those who want the market to buy more, more, and more to grow profits? This growth pattern is not sustainable, and if we don’t act responsibly, we will likely continue to destroy our environment in irreparable ways.
In our efforts to contribute to global environmental sustainability, the team at Azurlis continuously reviews our practices, pipelines, and goals.
Below are some aspects of sustainability that we are vested in and have integrated into Azurlis.
Sustainable, Zero-waste Ingredients
At Azurlis™ we have given these questions much thought and endeavoured to integrate as much as possible into our approach to a natural skin care brand focusing on using botanical ingredients, that are sustainably managed without harming the environment, not testing on animals, PETA Approved and free of hazards to end-users. On the surface this seems easy to achieve, after all we only obtain ingredients from trusted suppliers that provide natural or organic certifications, as well as information on the sustainable and ethical management of the production pipeline, demonstrating the veracity and traced origin of the raw materials, which is great. So, we have ticked this box!... But, what about zero waste?
Well, we are definitely focused on sustainable and zero-waste as one of our main ingredients is apricot kernel oil, one of the 10 best zero-waste oils (cold-press processed), according to Thomas Kerfoot, the “oil-nerd”of O&3 – The Oil Family - zero-waste natural ingredients, featured on https://formulabotanica.com/zero-waste-oils/. Cold-pressed oils are extracted as the name indicates, with pressure without heating or solvents, and give rise to excellent unadulterated/unmodified oils where all components are used, i.e. even the pulped waste from the oils is used either for farm animal feeds or as fertilizers. Hence, there is no waste. Cold-press processed oils are classical examples of “naturally extracted” ingredients.
However, there are many other zero-waste oils, with superb anti-ageing and hydrating properties, that we would love to include in our skin care ranges (that we don’t), such as the seed oils from pomegranate seed and cucumber, as these are not only costly to produce regardless of the scale but especially pomegranate seed oil is markedly prone to rancidity, affecting the stability and shelf-life of the products containing these ingredients.
Other Skin Care Ingredients
In addition to the “naturally extracted” ingredients, which on their own are typically used in oil-based serum products, natural skin care products that are emulsion-based (creams and lotions) require other ingredients commonly grouped as “naturally derived”, “natural identical” and “natural mimics”. Examples of ingredients in these groups are shown below.
“Naturally derived”: Ingredients with natural and organic certification approved modifications. These include the emulsifying waxes such as candelilla (derived from the leaves of a northern American native bush), as well as some of the approved natural stabilizers, and special co-emulsifying waxes.
“Natural identical”: Ingredients that are synthesized in a laboratory made to be identical to the molecules from natural plant sources, such as citric acid.
“Natural mimics”: Ingredients that have a plant base, but are considerably modified from the original source. To mimic synthetic ingredients like the fruit glycols and humectants derived from corn.
However, the majority of these ingredients are not currently meeting zero-waste standards, albeit ongoing efforts to improve their production pipeline. Nevertheless, these ingredients are essential to and approved for most natural skin care. Thus, for time being achieving zero-waste natural skin care is largely confined to manufacturing of oil-based products.
At Azurlis we use only naturally extracted, naturally derived and natural identical ingredients, and although we are very particular with the source of these ingredients, we are aware that much has to change in manufacturing pipelines before a full zero-waste platform is arrived at. Yet, we believe that making small adjustments wherever we can in our own pipeline to reduce waste is critical to improve sustainability, and we want to be part of this global journey.
