Marie Redding, Senior Editor10.13.22
KraveBeauty's founder and CEO, Liah Yoo, talks about "beauty's dirty secret" in a YouTube video posted on October 12th, 2022, and aims to spread awareness among consumers with its #WasteMeNot campaign.
The video is titled, "we made $1.5 million worth of waste at kravebeauty, and here's what we did."
Scroll down to view the video below.
Yoo is encouraging beauty consumers to share the video using the hashtag #WasteMeNot to draw attention to the issue.
KraveBeauty Sells Production Samples
KraveBeauty is leading by example—and Yoo discusses what she does about the production waste the brand generates. The brand often sells its less-than-perfect production samples, such as its Makeup-Rewined Pilot, explained in more detail here.Yoo notes that its redesign last year generated a lot of waste. "It was hard for us to have a clean transition from our old inventory, in our old packaging, to our new packaging. So we sold off our old inventory at a discounted price, and donated some. This prevented having to send a lot of product to the landfill," she explains.
And what happens to beauty product returns?
Yoo mentions a story in Vogue Business, "Beauty Has a Waste Problem and It's Not Packaging," which reiterates the same message, stating, "Waste is generated by formula testers, unsold or returned products, and items that expire in warehouses or on store shelves...With retailers sending unsold inventory back to brands; expired or discontinued products being sent to the landfill; and unused products sitting in customers' homes, it's impossible to pinpoint the true numbers of the beauty industry's waste."Talking about what retailers do with all those beauty returns, Yoo says, "It's becoming a really big problem." Workers at drug stores, Sephora, and Ulta Beauty often post videos destroying unopened and unused products that shoppers returned, because stores aren't allowed to resell them due to tampering and hygienic concerns.
Yoo mentions a recent CNBC report, "What Retailers Like Amazon do with Unsold Inventory," which featured Tobin Moore, CEO and co-founder of Optoro, in a video clip. He said, "We have spoken to over 120 retailers and over half of them have said they are disposing of over 25% of their customer returns."