The Beauty Industry, Sustainability & Recycling

Hi again, I am back from the windy City of Chicago where I attended America's Beauty Show.

The first day I sat in on a Salon Sustainability Summit. There was an incredible panel of speakers, the most impressive , and perhaps well known, was Horst Reckelbacher, the founder of Aveda, and now CEO of Intelligent Nutrients. As the closing speaker one of his final thoughts was: "Don't put on your skin what you wouldn't put in your mouth" These are words to live by!

In general the panel shared how they were contributing to sustainability: with green build outs, cleaning supplies, low energy lighting, recycling, using recycled paper goods, less printing from the computer, etc. All good information, but I felt that everyone in the room was already on that page.

For something new that the panel hadn't heard about, I raised my hand to share how I recycle the cut hair from my salon. I heard about this from IdealBite.com some time ago. The hair can be recycled and made into a hair mat that will be used to soak up oil spills. Wherever you go to get your hair cut, be sure to tell your stylist about this program. All the details he or she will need can be found at: http://www.matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html

Of course, I had to add my two cents about how the beauty industry needs to step up to the plate and start to make cleaner products. I was assured that they were on it. That remains to be seen. I did see more companies claiming to be paraben free, but at closer look, their claims were just more "greenwashing." I do hope that changes soon.

Ok bye for now, I'll have more later this week, Christine