We’re always hesitant to label any beauty brand sustainable. Why? Because true sustainability is such a minefield, and – if we’re honest – very few brands are actually getting it totally right. But that doesn’t mean we can’t applaud the ones making real strides towards cleaning up their act. While you can never be sure if a product is right for you without consulting your personal Skin Mentor (click here to book in to see them!), if you are trying to brush up your eco beauty credentials, these are the Lion/ne-approved brands doing great things.

Back in 1955, Dr Hauschka planted a medicinal plant garden in a boggy meadow with sub par soil, fast becoming the brand’s first step to respecting and improving the natural environment around it. Now, the brand uses biodynamic and organic cultivation processes and reserves resources wherever possible, for instance, by procuring 100% green electricity.

One of the early adopters of the byproduct beauty trend, BYBI uses waste ingredients from the food industry in many of its formulas. Plus, packaging-wise, products come in either glass containers or tubes made from sugarcane bioplastics.

Remember the big microbead ban that came into force in the UK back in 2018? Neal’s Yard was a big campaigner in this movement alongside Greenpeace, and it’s also the first UK brand to be certified by Look For The Zero, a badge of honour denoting that none of the formulas contain any plastics. Better still, most of its packaging is made from glass and it offers plenty of refillable products.

REN recently headed up the #WeAreAllies campaign which saw big beauty brands join forces in their pledge to reduce the reams of packaging waste created by the industry. It also made a commitment to zero waste by 2021, and so far, 68% of the brand’s products reach their promise of using packaging that contains recycled materials, is fully reusable or can be recycled.

Few cosmeceutical brands take sustainability as seriously as Medik8. It uses natural exfoliators in its products and uses 40% recycled glass throughout its serum bottles and pipettes. Furthermore, it's a huge advocate for cold processing, in which it blends formulas at room temperature, rather than using energy-guzzling high temperatures.

Weleda’s approach to sustainability is two-fold, not only striving to respect the biodiversity of the natural environment but also creating an ethical economy around its brand that treats employees and communities fairly. It is also the proud owner of the UEBT mark, a signifier that this brand has committed to the ethical sourcing of natural ingredients.

Herbivore is one of the Instagram generation’s sustainable success stories, swapping the plastic-heavy packaging of yore for glass and paper and only using recycled and recyclable packaging where wholly necessary.

There’s something so special about Tata Harper’s green-bottled beauty products. She grows many of the ingredients on her own farm in Vermont and most formulas are created in small batches on site. She’s even thought about the eco implications of the ink printed on her glass, paper and corn-derived plastic packaging: it’s made of soy.

Want to fill your bathroom cabinet with sustainable skin heroes?

Book a Holistic Skin Sessionto find out which ones will work for you.