The beauty industry’s eye-watering waste problem is enough to make your mascara run – but a new online marketplace is tackling the issue head on by offering cosmetic seconds at bargain prices.
Boop is aiming to do what the ‘wonky’ fruit and veg ethos has done for food waste by repurposing some of the 90m beauty products thrown away each year in the UK alone.
That’s the weight of 650 doubledecker buses and equates to 4,500 tonnes of moisturiser, 1,000 tonnes of mascara, and four Olympic-sized swimming pools full of perfume. A tenth of that waste occurs in brands’ supply chains and 6.2% of discarded beauty goods are down to overproduction.
“A huge number of beauty products are destroyed each year by manufacturers and retailers without ever hitting the market,” confirmed Boop founder Yasmine Amr.
“Consumers and brands are becoming far more conscious of sustainability – and consumers don’t really care if their product doesn’t look perfect or has older packaging.”
Amr’s background in law led to her working as legal counsel for L’Oréal. Being on the inside of the beauty industry means she has witnessed first-hand how red tape and business processes contribute to wide-scale waste.
Consumers don’t really care if their product doesn’t look perfect or has older packaging
“Throughout my career, I would have people come to me asking what to do about products that had printing errors, slow-moving items which they didn’t want to store, or obsolete items. These were products that were perfectly fine to use,” said Amr.
France has already banned the destruction of unsold cosmetics, and similar legislation is under consultation for the EU and UK. Meanwhile Boop’s research indicates that 95% of people would happily buy stock deemed surplus or imperfect due to a labelling mishap, damage or changes to branding.
Its online range features mid to high-end brands with discounts of up to 70% on products that would otherwise be destined for landfill.
Images: Boop
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