Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Emma Lewisham, founder of a skincare line of the same name.
From the outside, the cosmetics industry can look like a ruse to part people with money. Small bottles of lotions and potions are sold for massive amounts of money on the basis of equally big claims: anti-ageing, collagen-boosting, pore-shrinking.
At the end of the day, a lot of the claims made don't hold up to much scrutiny.
Often the ingredients are not that helpful and maybe even quite harmful; an enormous amount of the industry's products are petrol- based. Harmless on the skin but unjust on the wallet is water, the main ingredient in most products and one usually listed as "aqua" to sound expensive. It probably isn't a surprise that the biggest cost for most products is the packaging.
Most often, that packaging goes on to landfill; the pumps and odd shapes and mixes of materials can mean recycling doesn't really work.
It can be an appealing industry for businesspeople. There are eye-watering margins if you get it right, but big costs of entry to the market. Ultimately, it's an area ripe for all kinds of disruption, and one local company is doing just that with a new scheme to help address the big waste problem in the industry.
Emma Lewisham's eponymous skincare brand sells products to address the effects of sun on skin pigment; she's also launching a new initiative to take back the brand's packaging, along with any other beauty packaging, in return for a voucher for their products.
It's a cool idea. This week on Business is Boring, Lewisham stopped by to talk product design, sustainable practices, and the effect of UV.
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