Flavedo & Albedo

Recyclable aluminium pots / Source: Flavedo & Albedo

AluminiumBambooBeautyCorkCottonEuropeGlassNorth AmericaOceaniaPackagingPaper

5 MINUTE READ

Nate Tyler

WHAT WE SAY:

Flavedo & Albedo's makeup line champions plastic-free, recyclable, and compostable packaging materials, reducing "plastic landfill anxiety" and putting aluminium in the spotlight. For the ultimate seal of approval, the Australian brand will need to remove plastic from its formulas - but its packaging innovation is still worth celebrating.

KEY FACTS:

Flavedo & Albedo (F&A) offers a range of makeup - from liners to blushes - in 100% plastic-free packaging.
The brand's primary packaging consists of 100% Aluminium tins and Glass jars. Both materials are infinitely recyclable with no loss of quality, and can be deposited in kerbside recycling bins.
The glass jars come with an aluminium lid featuring a compostable Cork liner for an airtight seal. When the product is finished, users simply pop out the cork liner and dispose of it in a compost heap or garden waste bin.
F&A’s eyeliner pencils are made from sustainable timber, and also have an aluminium lid. The brand says the pencil's shavings and stump are compostable, but with polyethylene listed as an ingredient, this may not be entirely accurate.
The brand also sells washable and reusable makeup remover pads made from Bamboo Cotton, with an accompanying mesh laundry bag made from 100% cotton.
The company uses acid-free and FSC-certified tissue Paper; its secondary and tertiary packaging boxes are made from recycled pulp; and it uses paper tape. All of its packaging can be discarded in kerbside recycling bins.
The packaging is printed using soy-based inks, but it's important to remember that soy-based ink is not always 100% fossil fuel-free. It can contain as little as 6% soybean oil and still be considered "soy based".
F&A was founded in 2020 in Sydney by Emily Perrett, Aleks Allen, and Toby Norris. While everything is designed in Australia, the products are manufactured in Italy.
The company currently offers shipping to Australia, New Zealand, and the US. In July 2023, F&A announced that its products are available for purchase in Selfridges, UK. The range is also stocked in select Urban Outfitters and Sephora stores.

All of the brand's packaging is made from aluminium, glass, sustainable timber, and recycled paper / Source: Flavedo & Albedo

Washable and reusable makeup rounds / Source: Flavedo & Albedo

DIVE DEEPER:

The beauty industry produces 120 billion pieces of packaging every year. And in the US alone, about 7.9 billion pieces of rigid plastic - not including plastic films - were made for beauty and personal care products in 2018.
Unlike plastic packaging, there is infrastructure in place to recycle the materials F&A uses. About 75% of all aluminium made in the last 100 years is still in use, and the worldwide recycling rate of aluminium cans is 67%.
Some countries are better than others: Brazil recently became the first country to achieve a 100% recycling rate for aluminium cans, while Germany and Finland sit at 99% and 98% respectively. On the other hand, the US recycles about half of all aluminium cans.
As for Australia, where F&A is headquartered, one million tonnes of the country’s annual plastic use is single-use, while 72% of aluminium is recycled. Switching to this valuable material has the potential to drastically reduce waste.
Glass is also infinitely recyclable. In 2018, the worldwide recycling rate for glass was 21%, but again, this varies by country. The US clocked in at 31.3%, while Australia sat at 46% in 2019, and Sweden at 94% in 2020. With higher recovery and recycling rates, not to mention the elimination of hazardous chemical leaching, glass is a great replacement for plastic in beauty.
To encourage its audience to recycle its packaging correctly, F&A has a complete recycling guide on its website. It details the components of each packaging container, and how to disassemble and dispose of them to ensure that composting and recycling streams are not contaminated.
Besides using plastic-free packaging, the brand’s formulas are cruelty free and most are vegan. However, polyethylene is used in some products, as are other synthetic ingredients such as octyldodecyl and stearyl dimethicone.

"We’re here because we wanted to reconcile our love of makeup and our plastic landfill anxiety."

Flavedo & Albedo

Key Design Considerations:

Drop the qualifiers

Plastic-free packaging is worth spotlighting, especially within the beauty industry. But you know what’s even better? Plastic free. Drop the qualifier of 'packaging' and go fully fossil fuel free. A number of brands across the beauty landscape are proving that it's possible to go the whole nine yards by using only natural ingredients. Organic and refillable makeup pioneer Kjaer Weis comes to mind.

From linear to circular

Although entirely plastic-free and recyclable, F&A's packaging is still designed for disposal. How can you shift the needle from a single-use model to a reusable packaging system? Aluminium and glass containers can be used over and over again, making them ideal for refills. Keeping containers in use means less material needs to be recycled, reducing the emissions associated with that process. Designing for permanence is the standard every company should be pivoting towards.