Ingredients

First up, we don’t use any petrochemicals or synthetic ingredients, even our preservative is plant-based. Such by-products from the fuel/petroleum (carbon) industries are not only harmful to the environment but are also harmful to living cells - the world's most famous professor wrote about them in a 100 page report when he was at Cambridge University. Whilst many companies are paying lip service to the cause by trying to cut down on packaging, they are missing the bigger picture. All the synthetic chemicals from shower gels/shampoos and beauty products (billions of tons daily) are polluting our water and seas. This pollution is poisoning and slowly destroying fish and vegetation. Did you know that the vegetation of the sea supplies up to 80% of the earth’s oxygen? That's nearly 3 times more than trees… it's why you feel so good when on a seaside trip.. you're getting a boost of ozone pureness. None of our products or ingredients causes any kind of chemical pollution.

Other things to know:

As many of you know, we only use the highest therapeutic grade of ingredients in our products, however, demand for natural products can cause catastrophic impacts on local environments and climates. You only have to look at almond milk as an example of this, it’s lauded as an environmentally friendly plant-based alternative to dairy however it takes 130 pints of water to produce one pint of almond milk - it is estimated the by 2050 up to 5 billion people worldwide will be facing water shortages. There has also been a recent study that suggested that coconut oil production threatens five times more species than palm oil. Sourcing ingredients is a minefield and so we have a sourcing charter that ensures that every ingredient we buy is organic, sustainably sourced, the workers are given a living wage and they is no negative impact on wildlife. Our supply chain is constantly analysed for improvements. Packaging The beauty industry creates over 120 billion units of packaging every year, many of which just aren’t recyclable. All of our packaging, from product packaging itself to shipping packaging is fully recycled and recyclable, even the label ink we used is vegetable-based. You can rest assured that our environmental impact is at the forefront of our minds and always will be and has been for 20 years…we are leaders not followers

Size matters: ...  we are a small company producing small batches of products our impact on the environment is next to nothing. We make in 50 years less than the production of the big boys in a day. We don't do refill packs because the cost is prohibiting, and our low impacting natural preservative system would not cope and after being on a conference of packing as the scientists say you are still producing more packaging. Many of our products are much larger sizes than others so you are using much less packaging with us anyway.

Karen Blackmore & John Hamilton - Founders Natural Elements Skincare