Squalane, Sustainably Speaking
We’re big on celebrating Earth Day (April 22nd!). Because you know, the earth is kind of important and it deserves its own day. And because we love the planet so much, we do our best to help take care of it. These efforts span our personal lives, how we work as a company, and of course, our skincare.
It all starts with squalane, the hero ingredient in every one of our products. Our squalane is derived from sugarcane, a rapidly renewable resource. Did you know that irrigating the sugarcane crops isn’t necessary because of the abundant rain in Brazil? The crops are watered from natural rainfall. The crops are also grown on established farmland far away from the Amazon Rainforest, so there are no issues with deforestation or adverse environmental changes. The sugarcane is then bio-fermented, creating a safe, stable, effective and highly sustainable ingredient—it’s good for your skin and the environment. And the facility that converts the sugarcane to squalane is certified through the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, which guarantees fair labor and sustainability practices.
When it comes to ingredients, Biossance has a blacklist of over 2,000 that we won’t allow in any of our products. An ingredient makes the list if it has the potential to harm people or the environment. To put it in perspective, the EU (whose guidelines are some of the strictest in the world) bans over 1,300 ingredients. On the other hand, the US only bans 11, with an additional 19 currently under review. That’s a whopping 30 ingredients. Thankfully, our standards are much higher, because we really like you, the planet and all of the creatures who live here (which is also why all of our products are vegan and cruelty-free).
To complete our product sustainability, we make our outer cartons from tree-free sugarcane paper, and our inner cartons are from paperboard certified through the Forest Stewardship Council to assure ethical harvesting. And of course, our bottles and jars are made of recyclable glass or plastic.
As you can see, sustainability is something we take very seriously at Biossance. We continually look for ways to lower our carbon footprint—from the beginning of a product concept on through to the final product launch. You can say it’s in our DNA.
