Our Refillable Skincare System

Refilling your products reduces emissions and waste compared to single-use glass containers, even when the glass is recycled.

Refill pouches generate 99% less carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 75% less plastic waste than recycled glass containers due to efficiencies created by manufacturing and shipping less material.

Explore the questions below for more details on how and why.

Pouches greatly reduce carbon dioxide emissions compared to recycled glass containers.

Our average glass container weighs 100g and is manufactured overseas. It will travel ~17,000 miles per cycle of recycling and remanufacturing. That's a huge carbon footprint.

A pouch weighs an average of 8g and only travels 8,300 miles thanks to US-based manufacturing.

That means that glass containers generate 115 times the shipping emissions that a pouch does, which doesn't even take into account the huge amount of energy it takes to recycle and re-manufacture glass when it's treated as a single-use container.

If you refill your glass container 10 times, you'll produce >1,000% less greenhouse gas emissions!

Our pouches are made from super-thin layers of plastic and aluminum. The amount of plastic in each pouch is just a few grams.

Compare this to glass containers, which are usually treated as single-use and come with pumps, droppers, sprayers and other lids that are not recyclable.

Each time you allow one of those parts to be reused, you reduce plastic waste at least 75% — not to mention the manufacturing and shipping emissions, human labor and landfill space that are also saved.

Our refill pouches are made of mylar: a lightweight, durable material that combines super-thin sheets of plastic and aluminum to create a leakproof barrier.

We love them because they drastically reduce shipping emissions (see above). They also don't need the protection of boxes and padding during shipment. We ship them in lightweight, 100% post-consumer recycled unpadded envelopes to further reduce packaging waste and shipping emissions.

No, our refill pouches are not compostable...yet. The term compostable means that a material should disintegrate just like a natural material like paper does. As skincare makers, we must ensure that our products are leak-proof and protected from germs for many months. Using any of the compostable pouches currently available (such as those made from seaweed) would result in leaky products and possible bacteria, yeast or mold contamination.

Plus, compostables are only beneficial when they are properly composted at home or in an industrial facility. If they go to a landfill instead, they rot in anaerobic decomposition. This generates methane, a greenhouse gas 25x more potent than CO2, which exacerbates climate change. Most households do not have access to proper composting, which means the problems of compostable packaging outweigh the benefits.

We are exploring future options currently in the research and development phase for pouches that combine compostable material with thin sheets of aluminum, to eliminate the plastic component. Stay tuned!

The 3 Rs are reduce, reuse, and lastly, recycle.

Mylar pouches are not accepted in curbside recycling, but they can be recycled through TerraCycle via a TerraCycle dropoff point, or you can ship them back to us and we'll send them to TerraCycle. If you send us your pouches, please send several at a time for efficiency, clean them thoroughly so they don't leak, avoid plastic tape, and use an envelope instead of a box.

We believe it's important to consider that putting resources into recycling such a small amount of material may have a net-negative impact on our planet. The water for cleaning, fuel for shipping, energy for separating and melting down materials, and time and effort that could be spent on other environmental initiatives are all worth thinking about.

We believe that by reducing plastic by 75% and CO2 emissions by 99%, which does not include recycling any pouches, our refills are a big improvement over recycling glass containers, which are currently the status quo for sustainable skincare.