UpCircle Beauty has reached its 5th birthday! UpCircle have made a name for themselves as the indie brand pioneering the by-product beauty trend. After 5 whirlwind years the brand is growing faster than ever! UpCircle products are stocked in over 3,000 retailers and can be found in 30 countries worldwide. It’s worth reiterating at this point that they’re a team of 11, all under the age of 30. Let’s see what else they’ve achieved:
OUR LATEST REPURPOSING STATS:
- We’ve used the water of 8,000 mandarin oranges in our Toner so far. (Released in October 2020).
- We’ve collected and transformed more than 300 tonnes of used coffee from London cafes.
- Each batch of eye cream uses the extract of the leftover bark from approximately 1 red maple tree.
- Our body cream has rescued approximately 300,000 date seeds from being discarded.
- Each batch of soaps is infused with 2 tonnes of brewed chai spices.
RECENT NEWS:
In the last 12 months we’ve expanded our repurposed ingredient portfolio to 10 by-products from varied industries, including the argan, tea, juice, date, olive and wood industries. For example, in 2020 we began repurposing residual fruit waters leftover after the creation of juice concentrates. The minerals, vitamins and functional actives present in the water have more benefits for the skin than a mineral filtered water. Water is often the first ingredient in cosmetics formulations. It therefore plays an important role in the sustainability of the overall formulation and is a great target ingredient to replace with a more sustainable alternative.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Nothing is safe from being UpCircled – only our imagination can limit us! Next up, we’re saving flower petals from florists and wedding venues.
What drives us is that now that we’ve made a name for ourselves as the skincare brand bringing the circular economy to the beauty industry, we have businesses and individuals coming to us with their leftover natural ingredients asking if we can we cook up a circular skincare solution. “I make X product, which leaves behind Y as a by-product. Is there anything you can do with that?” We’re always ready to take on the challenge! Our product launches for this year include an ocean-friendly SPF, a Hand Wash, Hand Lotion and Hand Sanitiser Trio which we plan to launch widely into restaurants and hotels as they reopen. We’re also developing a Night Cream and Lip Balm – all set to launch in 2021.
GIVING BACK:
It’s important to us that we give back. We’ve donated to One Tree Planted, Amazon Frontlines, Rainforest Alliance, Refuge, Save Elephant Foundation, and The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. We donated
