Emily talks about UpCircle- a cruelty-free beauty comapny.

There’s No Planet B – Reused Beauty

By Mel Saunders On May 10, 2021

We have another monthly update from Emily Clarke at the Little Ginger Bee Shop:

The trend in the beauty industry to be as green as possible has been slowly gathering pace over the past couple of years, with many brands such as Neals Yard, Weleda and even global mega brands like Simple and Clarins making efforts to reduce their environmental impact.

Cruelty free and all-natural products are now commonplace, as are companies working with charitable organisation who support environmental goals, packaging made of recycled material and products made of 100% natural ingredients. However, there is a new kid on the block who are taking things a step further in their efforts to be an environmentally friendly by pioneering a circular approach to the beauty industry.

UpCircle can claim all the green credentials above and more. They are a UK based beauty brand who specialise in taking waste by-products mainly from the catering industry and turning them into high quality beauty products. This brother and sister duo had a thought: if they were throwing away a cafetière full of coffee grounds every morning, how much was going to waste from coffee shops all over London? They realised that the food industry is hugely wasteful, with 1/3 of all food produced being thrown away and they wanted to do something about this. And UpCircle was born.

They began their journey collecting coffee grounds from one coffee shop, and now collect from hundreds of coffee houses across London. During the first 4 years of the business UpCircle saved 200 tonnes of coffee grounds from being disposed of. Giving this would be waste product a new lease of life as part of face and body scrubs. By keeping resources in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value from them, minimizing waste and promoting resource efficiency UpCircle are driving the change towards a circular approach to the beauty industry. This is true innovation.

A range of UpCircle products are available from The Little Ginger Bee shop at Kersey Mill or online.