Looking for a mascara that actively reduces climate change?
For fans of Lauren Bowker’s The Unseen Beauty, it won’t come as a surprise that the founder and her team have innovated a world-first beauty ingredient that ‘eats’ CO2.
For those of you who aren’t acquainted – meet the beauty scientists who are shaking up the colour world for the sake of the planet, one pigment at a time.
‘The innovation reduces carbon emissions by 200% compared to a classic carbon black production,’ starts Lauren Bowker, British Beauty Council Advisory Board member and Founder of The Unseen.
Last month, The Unseen Beauty launched its ‘Absorption’ range – a mascara and eyeliner formulated with the world’s first non-toxic pigment in beauty – all thanks to its trademarked Algae Black.
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For years, Bowker has been aware of the damaging effects of black pigments cross-industry, particularly in textiles. However, she had never zoned in on the reliance of the beauty industry on carbon black or iron oxide for its black colourants.
‘Everyone always focuses on the packaging or the formula but we noticed that no one was innovating in the ingredients colourants area,’ Bowker explains. ‘It’s mad, to be honest, the more you look under the colourants part, the more you realise that most colours are damaging to the environment.’
So, she set out on a self-confessed ‘mission’ to replace the earth-mining black pigments as we know them with something that removes carbon from the atmosphere. And, after a five-year quest – where most of the challenges were regulatory – The Unseen Beauty has created Algae Black.
Working with Living Ink, a bioscience research and product company specialising in algae-based products, Bowker has created cosmetics from a material which removes four litres of carbon from the atmosphere.
Formulating with the ingredient wasn’t the tricky part though, the paperwork needed to give the carbon-positive products an INCI was the biggest hoop to jump through. ‘There are lots of amazing materials out there but you often can’t get them approved for cosmetics on the colourants, this is what took five years,’ she says.
‘No one quite believed we could do it. But, through a lot of negotiation, paperwork, collaboration, having the right people in the room, and filing certificates from the food industry, we received an INCI.’
Unsurprisingly, the ingredient has already won an IFSCC award for sustainability. Sponsored by L’Oréal, the accolade recognises the hard work that goes on behind the scenes in beauty to make the industry innovative, sustainable and future-proofed.
‘It’s a super material in all honesty – it is the future,’ says Bowker. ‘It’s a really big movement for the industry. Now that we’ve done it there’s not any excuse for other people not to look at their ingredients and formulate more sustainably. Algae Black has the potential to create significant change on a global scale.’
You can join the waitlist for the Absorption collection here.
