As a reader of Good, chances are you’ve heard of some of the biggest green beauty superstar brands: think Emma Lewisham, Aleph Beauty, Ethique. Not only are these companies leading the sustainable skincare and make-up space, they’re Kiwi-run (and female-led!) and we here at Good are massive fans.
Green beauty is on the rise, with brands offering not just products with transparent and sustainable supply chains, but circular packaging and carbon offsetting too.
In the next few pages, we profile some of our favourite green beauty champions to find out what they stand for, where the industry is going in the future and which of their products is their favourite, if you’re looking to make the switch!
Anna Ross – Kester Black
Anna Ross is the founder and managing director of Kester Black, a sustainable nail polish and make-up brand that is also a certified B Corp.
Why did you start Kester Black?
After my fashion degree at Otago, I moved to Melbourne and started making jewellery to keep my skills and portfolio ticking over. At some point, I thought it would be really cool to launch some nail polish with my rings as a kind of upsell product – so I started looking into nail polish and found it was a pretty crappy product. I wondered if you could make it in a way that was good for the environment while still appealing to people. I launched six nail polish colours in August 2012 and tripled the revenue of my little business in three months – and since then it’s just kept growing.
We launched the lipsticks next, which made sense because it’s another “highlight” product that makes people feel good. I wanted to make sustainable beauty products that people also loved to use – and one of the most important things for me was the design. I don’t think sustainable brands have to come in brown boxes, which is what the existing sustainable and ethical brands were doing when I launched. After all, we know, 45 per cent of our customers are beauty enthusiasts who don’t necessarily care about sustainability. But of course, our products
