1. Natural Beauty Hub
29th of March, 2022

INIKA Organic - The first makeup brand to go plastic neutral worldwide

INIKA Organic | The first makeup brand to go plastic neutral worldwide

Here at INIKA Organic, Australia's only 100% natural, Certified Organic beauty brand, we’re constantly trying to usher in more natural, flawless and pure beauty standards.

Since our humble beginnings in 2006, we’ve been formulating cleaner beauty products, which replace those toxic silicones, chemicals and other nasties with pure, organic ingredients that enhance your natural radiance.

INIKA Organic - First Makeup Brad to go Plastic Neutral Worldwide | INIKA Organic | 02
Photography - Esteban La Tessa

This quest for healthy, toxin-free beauty has helped us win over 40 awards for product excellence and innovation, including a Glamour Beauty Award in 2018, Best New Vegan Product at The ASOS Beauty Awards in 2019, and Organic Beauty Awards’ Best Skincare Brand in 2020.

We’re so humbled by these accolades, which act as proud reminders of our unwavering 100% natural (ACO COSMOS certification), Organic (ACO COSMOS ORGANIC & OFC Certified Organic), Cruelty-Free (Choose Cruelty Free AU & PETA), Halal (AFIC Halal Certified), and Vegan (Vegan Society) beliefs.

So, having finely tuned the formulas on the inside, our attention now turns to what’s on the outside, to the skin of our products, our packaging. Because the fact is, how pure and natural can we call our products if they’re encased in this problematic resource we call plastic?

Today, we take a stand. Today, we proudly become the world’s first plastic neutral makeup brand!

Why become plastic neutral?

The sad truth is that the beauty industry has a frighteningly significant impact on the environment. Without realising it, hundreds of thousands of people unknowingly damage our precious planet by using beauty products that are far less than eco-friendly.

Much of the damage is caused by companies that pump their beauty products full of harsh chemicals or rely on animal-based ingredients that lead to issues like land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, acid rain, deforestation and more on a global scale.

To counteract these trends, we already employ the strictest natural ingredient criteria and the highest level of certifications worldwide when it comes to picking our proven, 100% natural ingredients. These small logos mean a great deal to us, and we work hard to maintain them.

But here at INIKA Organic, we’ve also long been aware of the sobering facts around plastic too, such as that:
  • 350 million tonnes of plastic enter landfill yearly,
  • 1 truck load of plastic enters our oceans every minute,
  • And 120 billion units of beauty packaging is produced each year which makes its way into the environment and landfill.
This is unsustainable. To protect our precious planet, the very source of the finest botanicals and earth-derived minerals used to create our brand’s transparently pure products, action is required.

That’s why, in recent times, this has become our focus: to find ways to minimise our reliance on plastic, to more closely align with our sustainable philosophy, and to protect our INIKA (which means ‘little earth’ in Sanskrit) by positioning sustainable materials at the forefront.


How INIKA Organic became plastic neutral

So how did we become the world’s first plastic neutral makeup brand?

Simply put, we became leaders in sustainable beauty by embracing sustainable packaging and by tackling the plastic crisis head on.

With our end goal being to drastically reduce our plastic footprint, INIKA Organic looked at every facet of our operations and worked out how to reduce as much plastic as possible. After much analysis, we found that we could completely revamp our packaging with new earth-first packaging that looked and felt more luxurious than ever, while also being made from 90% sustainable & reused materials, such as aluminium, sugar cane, post-consumer recycled plastic, and glass.

To complement this change, INIKA Organic has been proudly certified Plastic Neutral by Waste Revolution – Australia’s leading Plastic Neutral Certification body, which is committed to helping organisations measure, reduce and offset their plastic use.

Becoming Plastic Neutral means that for every kilogram of plastic used, one kilogram is collected and recycled on their behalf that wouldn’t otherwise be. It’s a powerful way for companies to better their plastic collection and recycling, drive a circular economy, and address their plastic footprint.

To achieve this certification, we created a circular economy by funding the collection and repurposing of 4.7 tonnes of plastic into durable fence posts, which are then donated to struggling rural communities affected by natural disasters by BlazeAid and Plastic Forests, two Australian charities committed to regenerating agribusiness.

By being determined to inspire the solution in the beauty industry, our groundbreaking sustainability initiative has minimised our virgin plastic use by 84%, from 8.1 tonnes to 1.3 tonnes, and sees INIKA Organic at least five years ahead of other major beauty brands.

This substantial and sustainable shift away from plastics adds to INIKA Organic’s exemplary lineup of all-natural and organic accreditations, which together make us the highest certified natural makeup brand in the world.

144 new iterations of our INIKA Organic products will be released on 1 April 2022 in Australia and 1 May 2022 in all other regions. Our products will be available online and at the numerous spas, salons, health stores and e-tailers in the 31+ countries where INIKA products are stocked.