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One of the world's largest cosmetics companies, present in Romania with 22 brands, is opening a perfume refill station inside a cosmetics store in a Bucharest mall.
Refilling a perfume bottle costs 20-50% less than buying a new bottle of the same size and quality. At first glance, you might think this works against the company's interest. But it doesn't. The company doesn't lose money because it recoups costs in production. Each refilled perfume bottle actually saves 44% glass, 67% plastic, 100% metals, and 61% cardboard.
This is why not only perfumes have entered this program called Refill. All 37 global brands of the group now have at least one product that can be refilled with refills: shampoos, conditioners, shower gels, lipsticks, creams, for all product categories: luxury, mass-market, professional, or dermatological. This move is part of the company's broader strategy to reduce the amount of virgin plastic in packaging.
Why doesn't L'Oreal completely abandon plastic?
One of the main challenges in this change is, of course, consumer mentality. Especially among luxury product consumers, who have a certain affinity for how a cosmetic product is packaged, not just for the product itself. L'Oreal's efforts in this direction are essentially to redefine luxury and show people that nothing is lost in product quality or experience if they choose the refill option instead of always buying a new product.
However, there's another category of customers, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the so-called eco-conscious consumers. These are consumers who are already educated and informed about sustainability, whose goal is to completely eliminate single-use plastic, those who are moving towards Zero Waste. And so they might reject this Refill option because it's still plastic. Less plastic, lighter, with a smaller carbon footprint, but still plastic. Sometimes it might even be harder to recycle, at least here in Romania. I asked L'Oreal Romania's communication director how they attract these consumers as well, what they tell them when they might reject the refill option.
Here's Simona Fîrtat's answer:
"We also have packaging that contains no plastic at all. We have developed cardboard packaging in our laboratories. They only have plastic in the cap, for example, which can be recycled. We show them the alternatives. And with them, it's important to have a dialogue about the safety of cosmetic products and the extent to which we can go.
L'Oreal laboratories have researched and are researching many alternative solutions. Not all of them are viable. This is because cosmetic products degrade if they are not kept in optimal conditions. And since it's a product that comes into contact with the skin, its safety of use is a primary, extremely important element; it's the basis from which we start. We cannot offer consumers products that are unsafe for them. And packaging matters a lot because the packaging protects the formula from external agents."
What sustainable ingredients mean for cosmetics
However, the circular transformation in the beauty industry is not limited to rethinking packaging. Circularity begins with rethinking the ingredients from which cosmetic products are made.
Simona Fîrtat, Communications Director at L'Oreal Romania: "Regarding the ingredients in our products, we ensure they come from abundant or renewable sources. This means that when we extract an ingredient from nature, we make sure that the land or plantation is not depleted by our need for that ingredient and that we allow the plant or land to regenerate in a natural cycle. We do not force plants to yield a greater production than what they naturally produce in that environment, on a natural cycle."
Through all these circular economy measures implemented at the group level since 2020, the company has, in fact, changed its business model. And the transformation has not affected the business.
How the company managed to become more circular and at the same time more profitable can be found in episode 13 of the campaign "A second life. Circular economy models", produced by Asociația Soluții Sustenabile with the help of the environmental consulting company Stratos. A project initiated with the aim of accelerating Romania's green transition by providing examples of good practice from the business environment.
The other 12 episodes of the campaign can be viewed in the Good Practices section.
