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Busting Sustainable Packaging Myths in the Beauty Industry

Derek Chase, founder and president of sustainable wellness brand FLORA + BAST, dispels some of the myths around sustainable packaging in the beauty industry.

Derek Chase, sustainable packaging
Derek Chase, founder and President, FLORA + BAST

Derek Chase, the founder and president of sustainable beauty and wellness brand FLORA + BAST, recently spoke with Packaging World about his thoughts on the misconceptions related to packaging in the sustainable beauty industry and explains how consumers can become better educated to identify greenwashing.

Packaging World:

Can you tell us a bit about FLORA + BAST? What inspired you to create the company? What is your mission?

Derek Chase:

FLORA + BAST is a culmination of and interplay between my personal struggles with staying optimally healthy and my interests in helping enhance health and reduce suffering in the world. We thought, why is no one creating health-promoting cannabis products? Why is cannabis marketed like alcohol, when there are so many health-restoring benefits when used intentionally to solve a health problem? So, we set out to create a portfolio of products that hit on segments I personally have struggled with my whole life—namely sleep, skin, sex, and stress.

Why is the environmental impact of your company and its products important to you?

When I was 10, my family moved to Massachusetts, and we would travel into Boston to hang in the Commons and walk along the Charles River. At that time, I was blown away that our rivers and streams and many other natural resources are so toxic you can’t swim in them, and then to find out it was the direct result of known activities going on in the manufacturing world? Since this awakening, environmental degradation has always been a neurosis of mine, especially as I started my career in the CPG industry and noticed how much waste there is behind the scenes when it comes to producing packaged goods.


   Read about Ulta’s first-of-its-kind circular beauty packaging platform.


When it came time to design FLORA + BAST, I wanted to make sure we were being good stewards of the environment and ensuring all our packaging and processes limited waste. We started with a universal box and bottle created from agricultural waste. Knowing how much waste there is in discontinued products from my experiences after having worked at Johnson & Johnson and L’Oréal, I figured this would ensure that no box or bottle would ever get trashed due to slow market movement. From there, we upgraded our approach to source a 100% post-consumer recycled bottle and have stopped using ink or metals on our boxes, making them more friendly to factory workers who are slightly poisoned every time the printers are running. Instead, we emboss and deboss only. For our pouched products, we use a compostable material and make the pack size just big enough to fit the contents. For our glass jars, we source a non-plastic compostable top made from PHA [the bioplastic polyhydroxyalkanoate].

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New e-book on Multipacking and Case Packing