Melodie Reynolds on Sustainable Beauty, Rituals and Empowerment

When I started looking into sustainable makeup, one person immediately came to mind - Melodie Reynolds, founder of Elate, a sustainable beauty company. I had met her last year at an event, and we had talked about her sustainable beauty brand and my work in cleantech over a delicious breakfast buffet. I'm a firm believer that every connection happens for a reason - and 1.5 years later, I reconnected with Melodie because I wanted to learn more. More about sustainable make up, the beauty industry's impact and her own passion for a greener future. Because we all have our own drive and mission behind what we do, and I wanted to learn more about Melodies's.

Join me in a conversation I had with her last month.

"Our Story" on the Elate Website

Melodie, tell us your story; how did you get into the sustainable beauty industry?

I've been in the beauty industry for a long time, and I think the overlap for me between the beauty industry and sustainability started when I was working for a large international cosmetic company, and we were getting ready to launch some new products. They introduced a new "green" product line targeting the LOHAS demographic—people seeking health and sustainability. Unlike traditional demographics that group people by age, income, or gender, LOHAS is defined by shared values. They explained this all to us, and we were all really excited about these new products. And the answer to targeting this new demographic with our new product was that we made the packaging green. It was still plastic; there wasn't anything different about it except that it was green. And I remember sitting in that meeting and thinking, am I the only one who realizes that this is not okay? It's just green. We haven't actually done anything different. And so it was in that moment that I realized that there was a problem in my industry.

I ended up leaving that company, and that was really what started me on my journey to figure out my place in this industry that I've been working in for all of my adult life.

Moving forward, in 2010, I was living in the UK, and I had just bought a new lipstick. After unwrapping it, I looked at the pile of garbage from its packaging and I got really upset because I realized that I had just created that garbage by purchasing those things. Then, secondly, I got really angry because, as the customer, this little pile of garbage, that the company made, is now my responsibility. Those two emotions combined were really the catalyst for me to say: There's a serious problem in this industry, and someone needs to do something about it. My experience up to that point was that it would probably have to be me because maintaining the status quo is what allows the big beauty conglomerates to continue to make billions of dollars a year.

"And so, that was really what started me on the path: a little pile of plastic."

The beauty industry is saturated. How did you find your place?

We're a small, family-owned company, and we've been in business for 10 years, which in itself is a testament. From the beginning, we focused on three pillars: educate, empower, and inspire. I think awareness is the first step in anything. Just like me, when I wasn't aware that every single time I purchased a beauty product, I created a pile of garbage. And so it was about that education piece of saying: "Hey, if you want to do better, here are some alternative things." Empowering people to make that choice, not from a place of fear. If you are on the path to create more health in your life, you tend to make those choices a little bit differently, right? And so for us, it was all about educating and empowering people to know that now that you know there's a bunch of waste created from these products, you can choose to make a different choice. It's up to you. You don't have to, but you can choose to.

Carving a niche for ourselves in the beginning wasn't just about creating an opportunity for my business. It was about changing the way the beauty industry operates. We were able to set ourselves apart in the beginning because no one else was really talking about sustainable beauty. Around 2018 was when we really took off, and by 2020, we realized that everyone else was doing this too. It's a really good thing, I think, when you can shift the needle in the industry you're in, in terms of how things are made. It's one of the things that I'm really proud of.

On my blog, I often talk about the small steps we can take to address some of today's sustainability challenges. From what I hear and see on your online platforms, this is something you're advocating for as well.

I was speaking at an event a little while ago, and I gave the example of electric cars. Electric cars are fantastic. But what if you can't afford a new car? What if you can't upgrade to an electric car? So you think, oh, I want to be more environmentally friendly, now I have to spend $50,000 on a brand new electric car. Well, actually, no, you don't. If transportation is the thing that you want to change, stop using your gasoline-powered car one day, ride a bicycle, or get a membership for a car co-op. When we think about the huge changes, especially financial changes, a lot of us can't manage that. And I think that is what makes us feel daunted or gloomy about it.

One example from my own life is that we've lived in our home for 10 years, and we are slowly trying to make improvements to make it more energy efficient. Ten years have gone by, and we now have solar panels on our roof. Cool, but it took ten years. In those years, we also changed the toothpaste we use. I use deodorant out of a glass jar now instead of a plastic container. It's all of these little things that add up.

And this is one of the most important things that we say at Elate: it is a perfectly imperfect journey.

Let's talk about plastic and how this material impacts your work and decisions.

The thing that always holds me up is the packaging. Glass versus plastic, paper versus plastic. This is such a huge debate, but it's not only a debate; there is no clear answer because glass is more easily recycled, but it's heavier, and it has a higher carbon footprint. It's easier to reuse, but it's also breakable. But then plastic is plastic. One of the things that I've talked about before on various podcasts is every single piece of plastic that we've ever made still exists today. It will still exist for the next 800 years. So rather than burying it all or throwing it in the ocean, let's stop making new plastic and only use recycled plastic, so then we can actually create a circular closed-loop system. If I could put it in a fully recycled plastic package that I knew would be recycled afterward, it would achieve a higher sustainability score. But the problem is we don't have the infrastructure yet.

We have to think about microplastics in our waterways. There are lots of things to think about, but we have an abundance of this material (plastic) already. So, I think that's really going to be the next big thing in sustainability. I talk about this with everyone and everywhere that I can, because plastic has a really bad name. There's a big hate on for plastic right now. Whereas I'm saying that this is an abundant material that will not go away. So let's figure out how to use it instead, as all of the energy that was spent to dig it out of the ground, refine it, and turn it into plastic is all going to go to waste if it just sits in a landfill, right?

Elate is a B-Corp company. I saw that you recently spoke about the challenges that come with the growth of the B-Corp organization. I've read a lot about the criticism of B-Corp, especially when Nespresso became a B-Corp company. But you took a slightly different perspective and talked about the challenges for small businesses. Could you elaborate on that a little more?

We actually started our B-Corp certification in 2018, and it took us two years to fully certify. I've been following the B-Corp standard since 2014 when I launched. However, you can't be a B Corp until you're incorporated, and I ran as a sole proprietor for the first few years. So I'm a strong supporter of B-Corp. I think using business as a force for good is the responsibility of every founder. We have been under extractive capitalism for 100 years, and that needs to change. The B-Corp movement is about circular capitalism or conscious capitalism, extracting resources more ethically and redistributing profits back into communities. It's a powerful movement.

The standards of B Lab (the organization that gives the certification) are strict and industry-agnostic, but some industries have challenges others don’t. The old system let companies score 80 points in any area, which is how companies like Nespresso kind of snuck in—scoring high in one area and low in all the others. The new standards really try to even the playing field. But the challenge for smaller businesses is tracking; everything costs time and money, right? The B-Corp fees are pretty high. As a small business owner, it's a huge part of my day to actually manage our B-Corp, all of the tracking and the proof for this third-party certification.

While I support B-Corp, my caution is that the new standards make it harder for small businesses. My company scored very high in all areas because that was our goal. But there are collective action standards now, and it's harder to actually achieve the things that they want us to achieve. That's where my comments about small businesses came from, because larger companies have a full B-Corp team. Many of my friends are not certified because of the time and costs. So I hope the movement continues to grow and include companies of all sizes, not just big companies that can afford it.

We don't want people to read this interview and then go into their washroom and throw away all their products. But if they slowly want to incorporate Elate products into their makeup routine, which product should they go for first?

Thank you very much; that's my number one thing. Whenever I meet a new person, they're like, "I'm gonna go home and throw all my makeup away." I'm like, "Don't, please don't do that. Use what you have. Use it up."

Our mascara is our number one seller for a reason. It's a really high-quality product, and it does come in a refillable glass tube, which is very unique. So I always say start with mascara because that's also the thing that we tend to use up the most because even if you don't wear makeup, you probably wear mascara. And then my secondary recommendation is our refillable palette. So if you have concealer or foundation or blush or any of those things, and you use them up, you can get ours in a refillable palette.

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Thank you so much for this interview, Melodie, and for dedicating your time and efforts toward a more sustainable future.

*This post is not sponsored by Elate and was developed out of the sole interest of the author.