Everything you need to know about sustainable beauty

We care about sustainability - a lot. From start to finish, we ensure that every step of our production process is as sustainable as possible, whether that be through only using certified organic ingredients, or achieving the gold standard of being a sustainable beauty business by becoming a certified B Corporation. That’s right, we don’t mess around when it comes to our pledge to support people and the planet.

"This plant-powered skincare brand is reducing its environmental impact at every stage, from organic farming to recyclable shipping materials." - Vogue

Only natural, organic and upcycled

Let's start with the fundamentals. The purpose of skincare is to feed your skin with the vital nutrients it needs to stay healthy, promoting a radiant complexion with maintained hydration levels and pH balancing properties. It's just like food: enjoying a varied, healthy diet rich in beautiful, nutrient rich foods to keep you feeling and performing at your best.

For skincare, this means choosing ingredients with the highest nutrient content. That's why we love formulating with certified-organic and upcycled ingredients across our sustainable beauty collection.

It's why you'll spot certified-organic ingredients in our natural skincare, from organic sweet almond in our Hero Facial Oil to support the formation of new skin cells and the production of collagen, to organic sea buckthorn in our Hair Oil which contains the rare omega-7 fatty acid, a key building block for healthy, shiny hair.

You'll also find upcycled plant oils, like upcycled hemp seed oil, in our Ally Blemish Recovery Oil. Our 100% upcycled hemp seed oil is an innovative and sustainably sourced ingredient. The hemp seeds are grown and harvested in the UK by hand. A large proportion of these seeds are rejected as they don't meet the specification for food use. We rescue the nutrient-rich seeds from going to waste and landfill. And then cold-press them into the oil we use. And the best part? It contains 52% more antioxidants than its standard counterpart, building your skin's resilience and natural defences to blemishes and hormonal acne.

From organic to cruelty-free, we’re certifiably sustainable

At By Sarah London, we don’t just talk the talk. We ensure that not only can we say we’re vegan and cruelty free, but we can shout out loud about how proud we are to be independently certified by both The Vegan Society and Cruelty-Free International.

All of the vegan products in our sustainable collection are registered with The Vegan Society; you'll spot the recognisable logo on the product pages of our website and their labels too. This is an independent assessment of our vegan products by The Vegan Society and gives you complete confidence that each one conforms to the strict requirements maintained by The Vegan Society of being free from animal-derived ingredients and animal testing.

Our entire collection is also certified cruelty free with Cruelty Free International. This is the only internationally recognized symbol guaranteeing that no animal testing has been used in the development of any of our products - this includes both the ingredient level (where the majority of animal testing typically occurs) and the finished skincare products. We are proudly transparent about the ingredients we use and this extends to our ban on animal testing - you'll spot the leaping bunny logo across our collection.

Sustainable packaging: glass bottles and jars

With our natural, organic and upcycled ingredients and Sarah's bespoke blends ready for production at our dedicated production space in England, we source glass bottles and jars as the best vessels to house the collection, made from 30% PCR glass. Specifically, we choose amber glass bottles for the organic, plant based oil blends as the amber glass helps to protect the integrity of the oils inside by protecting against UV light radiation.

Did you know? Glass is infinitely recyclable, meaning no matter how many times you reuse it, its integrity will never be lost. The same can’t be said, however, for plastic as this can only withstand being recycled 3-4 times at best.

Plastic-free shipping to you: cardboard boxes

We worked for many months with our fulfilment team to find the most eco-friendly delivery box available for our sustainable beauty collection - and one, importantly, that was free from single use plastic and bubble wrap. It's why we choose cardboard boxes with recyclable packing paper inside to protect the products. There is no single use plastic, bubble wrap or packing tape. And we use minimal amounts of packing paper with appropriately matched box sizes to your order.

Our proudest achievement? Becoming a B Corp

After many months of rigorous assessment, we were so proud to share the news earlier this year of becoming the first UK independently-owned and female-founded skincare brand to have achieved B Corp status, joining a community of companies reinventing business as a force for good, like Patagonia, Abel & Cole, Graze, The Body Shop, Ocean Bottle. Teapigs and Divine Chocolate.

B Corp is the gold standard in sustainability. It's independent validation that a business meets high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving, to supply chain practices and input materials.

In order to reach this high bar and achieve certification, a company must:

Demonstrate high social and environmental performance
Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders
Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance to be publicly available

As we hope you can see, sustainability really is at the heart of everything we do at By Sarah London. Looking forward, we want our positive impact to grow even further and we have got some incredibly exciting plans in the works to achieve this. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled over on our Instagram page and in your emails for regular updates from us on our sustainability journey.

Feeling inspired to start your own sustainability journey? Check out our 3 part series on sustainability in the home to give yourself some tips and tricks on where to start. And remember, it’s all about small but consistent actions. Whether it’s adding in one plant-based meal a week, or swapping out your old skincare for some By Sarah London products, every positive change is a victory.

By Sarah