The Live Lightly Podcast

jessica (00:04)
Welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. Today I'm joined by Melodie Reynolds, founder of Elate Beauty. Welcome, Melodie.

Melodie Reynolds (00:11)
Thank you so much for having me, Jessica.

jessica (00:13)
Thank you for joining me. I appreciate you coming to talk about the beauty world and how it relates to sustainability and ethical business practices. And before we jump into all of that I really just want to know about you. what brought you to wanting to start a sustainable and ethical beauty brand.

Melodie Reynolds (00:34)
Yeah, so I actually fell into the beauty industry by accident. I wanted to be an accountant, but that is clearly very different from what I'm doing now. at the time, I ended up leaving school because I just wasn't prepared for what it would mean to be a first year university student at only 17. And I was working at a bar. I still make the world's best cocktails, by the way.

jessica (00:56)
Hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (01:02)
I was also working at McDonald's, you know, in the daytime. So I had two jobs and was kind of trying to figure things out. And, you know, it was actually my mom who said, why don't you go to hair school? And I was like, hair school? No, like that's not even, I mean, I was a teenager in the nineties. So my beauty routines were not necessarily that great. If you can look back at, you know, some of the, the, the beauty routines we had back in like 1994. but.

jessica (01:31)
tracking with you. Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (01:33)
Yeah. And so I don't even think I wore makeup until my prom, you know, like it just wasn't something that I really had in my every day. And but she was right, you know, and her and my grandmother, you know, my grandmother, especially were really big influences in my life. And one of the things my grandma always used to say was, you know, just do something, you know, it doesn't matter where you expect to go, but you have to take a first step. So you have to do something.

jessica (01:38)
Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (02:02)
even if that's not necessarily what you wanted to do. And so I was like, okay, I guess I'll do something. I'll enroll in this vocational trade program and see where it takes me. Now I am the world's worst hairstylist. So I found that out very quickly. I'm not good at cutting or styling or doing hair. But what I am good at is talking to people. I love people. I love hearing your stories. I love, you know, seeing the way that someone's...

jessica (02:16)
I'm sorry.

Melodie Reynolds (02:31)
you know, hair or makeup could actually transform them and transform their mood. That was really what got me sucked into the beauty industry. And so I started managing salons and spas when I was about 18. And really what I focused on was just creating that amazing customer experience. And I actually started my career off at a salon that was very eco -conscious.

jessica (02:35)
Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (02:55)
you know, we were doing refills of shampoo and conditioner bottles before it was even a thing. Again, this was like 1998. And so that was really what set me on the path to recognizing that there's a way to do beauty better and that, you know, we each have the power to create that. But, you know, but of course, fast forward, I, you know, had many different hats and worked for a large corporate beauty brand as their director of education for North America.

jessica (03:01)
Wow. Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (03:25)
And that was really when I started to become a bit disillusioned with the industry. You know, so I went from working at a small, you know, family owned salon to working for a large global beauty brand. And, you know, the disconnect between those two things, I started to feel like maybe I'd made a mistake and that I'd lost my way in this industry because every time I would talk to, you know, the executives or the chemists or whoever, you know, would listen to me for more than five minutes about things like sustainability and.

jessica (03:36)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (03:53)
marketing and greenwashing and these things that were important to me, I kind of got brushed off. You know, like, it's, you know, we always have done things this way, so we're not going to change, or you don't know what you're talking about. You know, being the only woman in a room full of men trying to decide how to sell me a lipstick, and yet my ideas weren't valid. And so, yeah, so then I actually left that job.

jessica (04:00)
Thank you.

Yeah.

wow.

Melodie Reynolds (04:18)
not with the intention of starting my own company at that point. I just knew that I needed to do something different and maybe move on a different trajectory. Because my why has always been helping people, helping the planet. And so it was that time when I wasn't working. And when I say wasn't working, I wasn't a ukulele band. So I was working, but just in a different aspect. Right?

jessica (04:26)
Mm -hmm.

Mm.

Capacity. Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (04:44)
That was when I had the experience that would really change my life. And it was, I was still doing some makeup. I became a certified makeup artist along that journey and did a lot of editorial and runway work. And so I was still working as a makeup artist casually. And I went out to buy a new lipstick to restock my kit. And of course, I ended up coming home with more than one lipstick because that's just what you always do.

jessica (05:03)
Mm -hmm.

huh.

Melodie Reynolds (05:08)
I always say that I had a lipstick -shaped hole in my heart that could just never be filled, no matter how many lipsticks I bought, you know, it was still there. And that was when I bought this lipstick and, you know, got it home and I took it out of the plastic bag and I unwrapped the plastic around the box and then I took it out of the box and the little tube itself had more plastic around it and then I had this pile of garbage that I had created. And...

jessica (05:12)
I'm sorry.

Hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (05:34)
It really affected me in that moment that I realized even though I had always considered myself to be a really good environmental citizen and that I was making conscious choices, I wasn't making conscious choices. You know, I went out and bought that lipstick, not thinking about the packaging that it came in. And so then I got mad because, you know, first I was sad and then I was mad. And what I got mad about was why is it now my responsibility to dispose of all this garbage?

jessica (05:46)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (06:02)
I don't have the ability to do that. There isn't anywhere around me that will recycle soft plastics. And furthermore, I probably won't use this whole lipstick, which means I'm going to have to throw the whole thing away at the end of it anyway. And that was really the seed that allowed me to start thinking about the bigger problem in the beauty industry of waste, where it starts, how it comes to me as a customer, and then where it finishes. And what it starts with is fear and shame based marketing that's designed.

jessica (06:21)
Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (06:31)
to make us feel less than, so we buy more. It's the, you are not good enough, so buy my product, in fact, buy more than one, so then you can be good enough. But we all know that that's not how it works. You can't buy a product to suddenly feel self -worth, right? But then you buy said product and maybe two or three, and you bring them home, and now you are the proud owner of piles of garbage. And then at the end of its life, whether you used it up or not,

jessica (06:40)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Right.

Melodie Reynolds (06:59)
none of that packaging can be recycled. Most of it is multi -material. And so it just ends up in the landfill or becomes what I like to call your dirty little secret, which is a product that you've had for 10 years that you just can't throw away because you feel bad about throwing it away. And so it just kind of rots at the bottom of your beauty bag. And so because of all those problems, I was like, that's a big thing to tackle. But looking around, nobody else seems to want to do anything about it. So I guess I have to. And that was...

jessica (06:59)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (07:26)
why I started my company. I clearly, I dropped out of university. I do not know anything about business. I managed hair salons and worked for a global beauty brand. So I had ideas of how things worked in terms of supply chain. I think what I came armed with when I started my company was just that I knew what I didn't want to do. I knew, right? I knew all the things that, here's the list of things that are done. I don't want to do any of that. I want to do something completely different.

jessica (07:40)
Okay.

Melodie Reynolds (07:56)
you know, because again, to quote my grandmother, if you want to get what you've always got, then do what you've always done, right? So if we want to continue to fill our landfills full of garbage, then we can just maintain the status quo. But if we want to do something different and we want to envision a brighter future, then we need to do something completely different. And so that is how ELATE was born.

jessica (07:58)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I love that and I love your grandmother. She's a wise soul Yeah. Yeah. She gave you some really sound advice and again, just leading back to the first thing that she told you is just start something, just take that first step. And so you did it and here you are today. 10 years later, is that right?

Melodie Reynolds (08:20)
Yeah, she's great. Rest your sweet soul.

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 10 years later, yeah. 2014 was when we launched. Now, I did start building my business plan, you know, about 2012. So it did take me two full years to sort of figure things out before we launched, but we launched in 2014.

jessica (08:45)
Right?

OK. Tell me a little bit about that process, because it can't be easy to be doing something that's completely off track of what everybody else is doing in this industry. And I'm sure that there were some things that you came up against, some walls that you hit when you were thinking about packaging and sourcing materials. So if you could maybe talk a little bit about that experience prior to launch.

Melodie Reynolds (09:19)
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to start from two places here. So first is a quote from one of my old business mentors, which is start as you want to continue. And what that means is that if you're going to do something, you should start it the way that you actually envision yourself being able to continue it forever. But then on the other hand, perfect is the enemy of done. So those are two opposing viewpoints because.

jessica (09:22)
Okay.

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Melodie Reynolds (09:47)
I knew that here is where I want the end goal to be. I want a zero waste beauty products, right? But I couldn't start like that because the technology didn't meet my dreams, unfortunately. And this is the thing about ingredients and packaging and supply chains and sustainability in all aspects is that there's always new things happening when we learn that, wow, this thing that we thought was good.

jessica (09:56)
Mmm.

Okay, yep.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (10:17)
isn't actually that good. So here's a new thing that's better because we just invented it. Right. And then, you know, going back over to the perfect is the enemy of done is that if I had waited until I had the perfect zero waste solution, I would not be in business today. Because even now, 10 years later, exactly, I never would have started. And 10 years later, there still is no perfect zero waste solution that does not exist. And so I think for me, it was really about what

jessica (10:19)
Yeah.

Right. Mm -hmm.

Right. You would have not even started. Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (10:47)
can I do my absolute best at? And so taking a look around, the first thing I noticed was all makeup comes in plastic pallets or plastic containers, but the actual product that's inside is just in a very tiny little pan. So there's a tiny little pan of product, and then there's a big plastic thing around it, and then it's probably put into a box, and it probably has plastic around it.

jessica (11:00)
huh.

Right.

Melodie Reynolds (11:13)
And I actually thought for a long time that all of that was like mandated by your governing bodies like packaging governing bodies because when you think about like a bottle of Tylenol or a bottle of acetaminophen You know, that's a drug and that actually has very specific packaging guidelines Whereas cosmetics don't necessarily have packaging guidelines We have we do have labeling guidelines in terms of making sure that we can keep our customers safe by letting them know what's in it

jessica (11:20)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (11:41)
But there's no guideline that says it has to have plastic around it. And so exactly, yeah, it doesn't need to have a plastic vacuum seal around it. And so for the most part, it's just superfluous plastic. It's just a shelf life thing, or it's often unnecessary. And so that was the first thing I dove into was what is

jessica (11:44)
Okay, so you don't have to keep it in a sterile environment. Okay.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (12:08)
necessary to keep my product safe, right? And once I discovered that what is absolutely necessary to keep my product safe is very minimal, then I right away was like, well, this is great. I can take that little bit of makeup that's in that big plastic package. First of all, I can get rid of the outer plastic lining. Don't need that. I can get rid of the box because I don't need that either. The box is just marketing.

jessica (12:11)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Melodie Reynolds (12:36)
And then I can just now have the product in the compact. Okay, except the compact is plastic. Well, I don't want that. And the compact also gets thrown away, cannot be recycled. I don't want that either. And so that was when I came up with the idea of refillable compacts that were made of an organic material. And so we use bamboo and we use water treated bamboo, not chemical treated bamboo, which is really, there's a big distinction there.

jessica (13:00)
Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (13:00)
and they are refillable. So it's an asset -based system is what we say. So the compact is something you keep forever and you refill it with your makeup. Not only is this better for the environment because you're not throwing away the outer shell of the makeup, but it also means that you get to customize what goes in your palette.

jessica (13:09)
Heheh

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (13:23)
So an individual makeup unit is just like an eyeshadow or a blush and it's your color. But sometimes you get those palettes that have more than one color in them, right? And this is another fun story, again, from my prom. I'm talking about my prom a lot today. But I remember going to a makeup counter, who shall remain nameless, and getting really pressured into buying this palette that had four shades in it.

jessica (13:31)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (13:47)
I only wanted one. I only wanted the silvery white so I could have silvery white eyelids because in 1997 that was really cool. And so I bought the whole palette because that was the only way I could get the one color that I wanted. And I carried that palette with only one shade gone out of it around for almost 20 years. I'm not joking. I just got rid of it a few years ago because I felt so much guilt about having this thing that I bought that I didn't use that was just plastic that would have to go in the garbage.

jessica (13:47)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (14:16)
And so, you know, it was really thinking about, you know, what can we do to minimize the amount of packaging, you know, make sure the products stay safe, but minimize the amount of packaging, and then also create opportunities for the customers to have more ability to customize what they're buying. Because that's the other thing about sustainability. And this is when, you know, when I really dive deep into our process, we actually have an equation, it's called the sustainability relationship or the sustainability journey.

jessica (14:16)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (14:46)
And basically it's from end to end, every single product has to go through this equation to make it as an elite product. And it starts with two things that you wouldn't necessarily think about in terms of sustainability, desirability and user experience. So I want to make product A, does anybody want this product? Because if nobody wants the product, it doesn't matter how sustainable it is. The sustainability is moot.

jessica (15:07)
I'm going to go to bed.

Right.

Melodie Reynolds (15:13)
Right? You've made a bunch of products that nobody wants that are ultimately, even if they're compostable, there was energy that went into making that product and there's going to be energy to dispose of it. So desirability is key. Is this a product that's necessary? Is somebody else making it and doing a really good job of keeping it sustainable? We're always looking at that. And then two is user experience. So if somebody wants it, but it sucks,

jessica (15:32)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Right.

Melodie Reynolds (15:38)
Also, the sustainability is moot. And this is one of the problems I find with sustainable products is they can't be just as good as the regular alternative. They have to be better because often it does come at a cost of convenience or a cost of price. And so we have to make sure that it is the user experience is, you know, chef's kiss. I just forgot this is audio. I just made a chef's kiss.

jessica (15:48)
Mm -hmm. Mm.

That's great. no, it's video too. So, yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (16:06)
yeah, great. But yeah, so we have to make sure that it is like a better user experience than what the alternative might be. And again, with the Elate and with brands like ours that are doing refillables, that is what makes it a better experience. You have to have a really high performing product and you have to have the ability to make it fun, exciting, and then the person gets to actually create their own power.

jessica (16:15)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

And that's super fun. I love that you give people the ability to not only have something that they can keep forever, but also, you know, over time, interests change and you know, you might want to try something new, but it's new on your terms, not whatever, like you said, four or five colors is just being given to me because I like the one. So really love that about Elate.

being able to customize it is amazing. I think that we wanna know a little bit more about the ingredients because I think that ingredients are an important piece of the puzzle for a lot of people. They don't really understand what's going on their skin every day.

Melodie Reynolds (16:58)
Aw, pretty.

jessica (17:16)
and they're starting to become aware that what's going on in their skin every day might not be beneficial to them and they're starting to look for alternatives but not really maybe knowing where to begin with that

So can you give people a starting point Melodie for where to begin?

Melodie Reynolds (17:36)
I think the thing about ingredients is that you know what we put on and in our bodies is a personal journey right and everyone has a threshold for what level of good or bad they will allow right so when I was formulating our products I really I recognize this that every person is different that you know some people may be totally fine with artificial fragrance.

jessica (17:50)
Mm -hmm, totally.

Melodie Reynolds (18:01)
Some people may be totally fine with preservatives, specifically paraben -style preservatives, because maybe they have a thing about making sure that the product is preserved properly. And so they're like, I don't want this, but I'm OK with parabens. And so the thing that I'm always letting people know is,

jessica (18:10)
Mm -hmm.

Sure, okay.

Melodie Reynolds (18:26)
figuring out what your threshold is, is hard. It takes a lot of research too, because there's a lot of stuff that we do that, you know, it's like the whole, you give your kids a red freezey. Well, that's got red dye number seven in it, and that is not good, right? But maybe it doesn't bother your kid at all. Like this is the thing. So you might not know, you might not ever find out. And so the thing about being aware of ingredients for me is that as a brand,

jessica (18:30)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (18:55)
as a brand and as a company, it's my responsibility to use the best ingredients possible. And so that way, when you, as a customer come to me,

jessica (19:03)
Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (19:09)
it's our responsibility as a brand to make sure that we are using the best possible ingredients. And so the way that I've done this, recognizing that again, everybody is different, is we've followed the... So davidsuzuki .org has a really fantastic list of the top 12 cosmetic ingredients to avoid. And this is all heavily backed by research, because here's the thing. I also...

don't like Google research because Google will, you know, if I have a sore throat and I ask Google, I suddenly have cancer. So I always ask people to be really careful about like, I researched this. I'm like, okay, was it Google or was it like a peer reviewed white paper from a reputable laboratory? So, you know, these are the things. But again, everyone has a threshold. And if you are like, I've never read anything that tells me this is bad, but my gut tells me it's bad, then great.

jessica (19:56)
Exactly.

Melodie Reynolds (20:06)
then you listen to your gut. I think that's important. But for me as a brand, we have voted the top 12 according to David Suzuki because I know for sure I don't want those in my products. And they're things like parabens, triclosan, sodium lauryl sulfates, fragrance, perfume, which is also known as a phthalate.

jessica (20:09)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (20:28)
You know, anything that messes with your brain, I don't like, you know, and artificial fragrances trick our brains into thinking we're smelling something we're not. That's weird. I don't like that. And also a lot of those things are actually made with animal ingredients that you didn't even realize. Like you remember that Bonnie Bell strawberry lip gloss that we all love? The reason it smells like strawberry is because of like ground up animal things. Like it's not, not great. And then of course we followed the EU standards. So the standard for

jessica (20:31)
Yeah.

you

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (20:56)
creation of cosmetics in the European Union is the highest globally. And so we followed those standards. But I think the key thing for me is that, you know, the best ingredients possible may not always be the ingredient, you know, grown in the ground and harvested by a person. It might be an ingredient that was actually synthesized in a lab. And the example that I use is we use marshmallow or sorry, not marshmallow. It comes from marshmallow. We use hyaluronic acid in some of our products.

jessica (21:00)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (21:26)
HLA is not an acid, but HLA is a hydration tool and it's fantastic for the skin. We use it in a lot of our foundational products so they act more like a skincare. And one of the things about HLA is that it actually comes from an animal. It comes from a rooster comb. You know that funky little red bit on the top of a rooster's head? That's where it comes from. And so we, of course, as a vegan company, do not use anything sourced from an animal. And so the alternative is marshmallow root. And marshmallow root...

jessica (21:36)
Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

Right.

Melodie Reynolds (21:55)
First of all, it's a plant alternative. It's not as potent. And it also has a lot of issues in terms of pesticides and harvesting. It takes up a lot of land to create. And so the alternative for us was a lab. It's like a bio, it's called biomimicry. It's when we use synthetic ingredients to mimic something from nature. And the hyaluronic acid is more potent. It's completely cruelty -free. It is completely human -free because any time there is,

jessica (21:57)
Yeah. Okay.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (22:25)
farming or agriculture involved, there's often the potential for human trafficking. So it's end to end supply chain sustainability is really about weighing off the alternatives. It's the same way what people are like, are your products organic? I say, well, depending on the availability of the ingredients, we will choose organic when it makes sense. But again, just because a product is organic doesn't mean that the

jessica (22:31)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (22:54)
people who harvested it were paid a fair wage. So we really have to make good decisions based on that. And so super high quality ingredients coming from the best source possible. And because we are so transparent about that, you know, that's why I always say try to choose brands that are honest about what they're doing. And also honest about when they've made mistakes. You know, we had a really, a few years ago, we were really excited about this new technology. It was like,

jessica (22:56)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Mm -hmm.

Right.

Melodie Reynolds (23:23)
Pearl powder, which is really apparently really good for the skin. We did a whole bunch of testing with it. We were getting really excited to formulate some products with it until somebody on my team was like, wait a minute, pearls are animals. Pearls come from animals. I was like, no, they don't. And then, yeah, they do. That's an animal based ingredient. So, you know, we're always trying to choose the best that we possibly can. And again, just avoiding things that we definitely wouldn't want to put on ourselves.

jessica (23:25)
Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (23:52)
but also recognizing that everyone has differences in just trying to create the best products possible for people and the planet.

jessica (24:01)
Yeah, I think that is amazing that you took that. It's the hard path because I'm sure that all of these ingredients are not easy to find or to source. And you're doing it right on every level by the people who may be farming the land to create that naturally grown organic ingredient and how they're paid and how they're treated all the way to, like, hey, well,

you know, that's not great. So can we make it in a way that's not going to harm people or the land? I just think that that's amazing because, that's part of, making something is deciding, what is better for people and what is better for animals. And, there's so many different layers involved. When I was looking for a beauty brand, I have certain criteria that I look for before I,

choose anything and obviously first off I'm looking at packaging and ingredients. And so that eliminates like 99 % of what Google tells me I should be looking at, right? Because you can type in the word sustainable and green and all natural and non -toxic and you get different lists depending on what your keywords are. And, and,

Melodie Reynolds (25:07)
Hmm.

Yeah.

jessica (25:21)
what you're given on the first page or two doesn't necessarily always match up with what your intentions are as a customer. You're getting a lot of sponsored ads. First off, I never click on those. That's kind of my key tip. But also I do a lot of digging once I do look at something. I see the face value, which is the first page, and then I keep going and I start looking at.

deeper about us and sustainability and are they transparent? There's so many different things to look at when you're looking at finding something that's packaged mindfully and sustainably as well as having ingredients that are clean, but are those ingredients also sourced well? Is another layer that I think that kind of doesn't come onto the radar right away, but it's there.

You know, there are people involved, there are sometimes animals involved, there is land involved. And so in order to be truly sustainable, there's many different layers to look at. And so many brands that are out there that are very well advertised and touted to be green and all natural. After, clicking through several times, it seems very convincing and very like, yeah, this is it, I found one.

And then I'd return to it the next day, you know, just ok I'm going to look at it again and just make sure. And then I'd be like, oh, well, I don't know about that. And so I researched and looked deeper and deeper and it took a very long time to narrow down my list to like top five. And then I'd have to say from there, it was top three. And then it ended up being really like for makeup. That's not just like kind of a one and done crayon type situation.

Melodie Reynolds (27:01)
Mm -hmm.

situation.

jessica (27:13)
really just to give the same experience as what people I think are used to as makeup, You were it, this is it. I was left with one at the end of the day and so congratulations, all of your hard work has passed all of my check boxes.

Melodie Reynolds (27:20)
to...

jessica (27:32)
But can you talk a little bit about greenwashing? Because I think that that's what took me probably a good week or two of sifting through in order to get to my list of five and then narrowing it down after more and more looking and digging and research. And I think that that's something that a lot of consumers are not aware of. They're intending to buy products with less packaging or better packaging. And...

better ingredients and there's a lot out there telling them, this is me, you found me, I'm it. But it's not necessarily true. Like what kind of regulations are there on labeling when it comes to making claims in the beauty industry?

Melodie Reynolds (28:10)
Thank you.

Yeah, so that's a really good question and none. So, you know, as I mentioned before, there are labeling laws. You know, you can't not put things on your label. Everything that is in the product, it is required to be registered with. We're in Canada, so registered with Health Canada. In the US, it's with the FDA.

jessica (28:37)
huh.

Okay.

huh.

Melodie Reynolds (28:49)
And you have to register your products, say what's in them, and then that label needs to match what is in that product. But other than that, you know, claims of things like natural, clean, non -toxic, none of these words are regulated. And that is really where greenwashing comes in hard and strong, is because we use fear and shame -based marketing.

jessica (28:56)
Okay.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (29:18)
to manipulate people into thinking that something is better for them or better for the planet. So think your favorite shampoo gets a makeover and now it's in a green bottle. Even if they don't use the words natural, clean, green, eco -friendly, you still think that it is more eco -friendly than it was before. And so this is a serious problem because that is how...

jessica (29:23)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Absolutely.

Melodie Reynolds (29:43)
the onus of the waste gets transferred from the brand that created the product to the person who bought the product. Is you think that this is better for you and the planet, so you purchase it and then at the end you're still just left with garbage. And so that is actually something that we're working on, however. So Elate is a B Corp. And if you're not sure what that is, it's a benefit corporation and we balance people, planet and profit.

jessica (29:51)
Hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (30:09)
and we're all about creating a future where business is a force for good. And so one of the things that we do is in the B Corp world, there's a beauty coalition and I sit on that board. And some of the work that we're doing is globally actually trying to regulate these terms. Because that's part of the issue is that every country has a regulatory body when it comes to its products and they all need to agree on what's safe, what's not safe and what we're allowed to say and what we shouldn't be saying.

jessica (30:09)
Yeah.

huh.

Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Melodie Reynolds (30:39)
And so we as you know as a global coalition are working to try to make this better because it's not Okay, that company a says this is 100 % natural What does that even mean? Right, like it means so many different things to so many different people But if you are trying to be a more intentional purchaser you look at that and you think you're making a better choice right and so

jessica (30:52)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Melodie Reynolds (31:05)
You know, sorry, this sounds really doom and gloomy. I'm like, sorry, there's no hope. There's no way to know. I think the biggest thing about greenwashing is, you know, first of all, you said something earlier that I have to touch on. You use the word consumer. So we're all used to this word, right? And we know what it means. It means to consume, right? To take something and use it. And ultimately there is waste left behind, right?

jessica (31:21)
Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (31:35)
And that is a product of extractive capitalism. So extractive capitalism is businesses take resources, make money, and then put that money somewhere else, maybe in their super yacht, I'm not sure. And so it really removes things from the ecosystem and doesn't put anything back in. And so what we're looking to create is conscious or more circular capitalism where we can extract resources in a positive way. We can utilize those to make products that also give back.

jessica (31:42)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (32:04)
in all ways, social, environmental, and then that leave as little waste as possible behind and then reinvest those profits into the communities that support us. And so when you think about it that way, as a customer of one of these brands, you know, and this is something that we talk about a lot is rather than considering yourself a consumer, you can now consider yourself a citizen because that's a big difference, right? If you're an environmental consumer, you are consuming resources. If you are an environmental citizen,

jessica (32:04)
-huh.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (32:33)
you are making informed choices. And so that's really one of our big mandates is to recognize that our customers are not consumers, they are citizens. Because even if, and when I say customer, I don't actually mean everyone who's purchased from me. I mean everyone who is in our community, who follows us on social media, who talks about us to our friends. You don't have to have ever bought one of my products. But it's just the idea that greenwashing is a huge topic, that even those of us that are professionals in the industry have a hard time.

jessica (32:35)
I love that.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

huh.

Melodie Reynolds (33:02)
figuring out how to avoid it. But if we can all just be a little more intentional and a little more conscious with the way that we purchase and partner with brands that are out there talking about our name used to be Elate Clean Cosmetics. That was the name I launched with. And then I was like, I don't feel I don't think I can use that word because I don't even know what that means. And so we stopped using that word. Right. So I think it's all about, you know, recognizing.

jessica (33:04)
Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Melodie Reynolds (33:29)
who you want to support and what brands are speaking up about the things that can be better and being honest and transparent about their own journeys. And so what I always say is, well, like what you did, go to the About Us page on any website. Do they have a third party certification that is recognizable, that isn't just pay to play? So anybody can pay for certification A, B, or C. But B Corp, for instance, that's...

jessica (33:46)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (33:57)
You know, there is a fee to pay after you've passed, but you have to pass first, right? Like you actually have to, you have to go through the whole process to prove because it's a third party audit. So are you putting yourself out there and saying, here's all this stuff I do. Can you tell me if it's good or not? And if it's not good, they say no. And so third party certifications that are not pay to play are really important to me as a customer when I'm looking to support a brand.

jessica (34:01)
Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Melodie Reynolds (34:27)
You know, are they transparent about their operations? How do they treat their their employees? Are they aware of the issues in their supply chain? Because every supply chain has issues, right? Do they talk about how they're trying to make those things better? And so I think that when it comes to avoiding greenwashing, you can't avoid it. But what you can do is is try to be as informed about, you know, what's important to you and who are the companies that you want to support because they're

jessica (34:30)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (34:56)
trying to do the best thing that we can all do with the information that we have right now.

jessica (35:01)
Yeah, it's all about awareness, right? Yeah, and I think too, just talking about it and having these kinds of conversations is bringing people to a point where they can start to feel a little bit more confident about what it is that they are putting their money out there and, you know, as a customer, deciding to purchase with their hard earned dollars. And, think that we're moving into a time where,

Melodie Reynolds (35:23)
Mm -hmm.

jessica (35:29)
speaking with our dollar is very important and it is going to shape how companies move forward. you've done an amazing job helping to define greenwashing

Melodie Reynolds (35:32)
Yes.

jessica (35:45)
And maybe just talking a little bit about what ELATE beauty is doing right now, moving forward, what is on your plate as far as the future.

Melodie Reynolds (35:58)
Yeah. So, you know, as a makeup company, we're always thinking about what are the best, you know, best products that we can offer our customers. So this is our 10th anniversary year and we don't launch traditional collections because again, we try to stay away from colors that are like a fad or a drop in the pan. We're really trying to focus on helping people simplify their beauty rituals by creating a capsule beauty system.

jessica (36:08)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (36:26)
So this is our, it's almost like a capsule wardrobe, you know, where you have limited pieces because they're the ones that you mix and match and wear every day. And so that's really what we try to help people do and really to educate and empower and inspire everyone to simplify, you know, all the rituals in their days to make better choices, to help reduce waste. And I think for me, it's because it's not those big grand gestures that actually make a difference.

jessica (36:33)
Yeah.

Melodie Reynolds (36:53)
You know, not all of us can own a Tesla. But all of us can maybe change the toothpaste that we use so we're not throwing away a plastic tube every month. You know, maybe you can stop using plastic floss.

these are the things that we use every single day. And if you can make more conscious choices about those products, the ingredients and how they're made and the packaging around them, then all of those little steps add up to a global impact, right? They can all add up to a positive impact. And so for us at Elate, that's always in our mind with the products that we launch.

jessica (37:20)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (37:27)
So we do have a couple of new product launches this year in recyclable and refillable glass containers. I'm very excited about those. We're always looking at improving our pallet system. So bamboo is a wonderful ingredient to create our pallets out of, but it does come from China because that's where bamboo grows. And so that means that it has a long, a big carbon footprint to get here. Now we do pay to offset that carbon footprint.

jessica (37:35)
Okay. Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Sure.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (37:56)
but I would rather not have that carbon footprint. So we're looking at partnering with a company in Spain to use a different material to create our products. This is a little bit closer, and creating some new opportunities for refillable pallets that are unique and different. So as we move forward, really it's just building upon what we've been doing for the last 10 years. And I start every day with the same question, how can I be?

jessica (37:59)
Come on.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (38:25)
a little bit better today than I was yesterday. And sometimes the answer is, well, there is actually nothing I can do today to be a little bit better than I was yesterday. So I'm just going to maintain the status quo. But often it is, well, I can do this. I can look at this or I can look at that. And so I think the thing for us is every time we do something and we celebrate a win, we reduced our landfill waste by 17 % last year. Just here at our office, we reduced our water usage by 10%.

jessica (38:27)
Yeah.

Sure.

Mm -hmm.

That's amazing. Wait.

Melodie Reynolds (38:54)
You know, so we're always setting targets, again, set by, we have a third party auditor other than B Corp that also audits all of our environmental practices. You know, so we're always setting targets to try to be better. And I think, you know, that's what's really important to me is that, you know, if we can keep moving together one foot in front of the other, try to be a little bit better today than we were yesterday, then that is really what will create the movement of all of us to leave less behind.

jessica (39:01)
Wow.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (39:23)
and still get to enjoy the joyful and delightful things in life. Makeup for me is a joyful and delightful thing. And I still want to be able to use it, but still feel like I'm being a good environmental citizen. And that's ultimately who it is for.

jessica (39:23)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I love what you say about ritual. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Because it plays into what you're talking about right now as well with habits.

Melodie Reynolds (39:53)
Yeah, I think for me it was the discovery of the idea that everyday routines become ritual when the action is more important than the result. And so this was something that came to me because, you know, I put on makeup, you know, not because I want to be beautiful. I already am. I'm great. I look great without makeup. I'm putting on makeup because it's part of my self -care ritual that allows me to spend moments in the mirror with myself.

jessica (40:03)
Yes.

Well...

Melodie Reynolds (40:21)
And I think that that's something that we don't think about. We treat all the other humans in our lives with such care and attention, and we don't often extend that to ourselves. And so whatever your beauty ritual is, whether it's a bit of skincare, whether it's water on a washcloth and you're out the door, whether it's deodorant or hopefully brushing your teeth, we should all be doing that. No matter what it is, when it moves from routine into ritual, that is where that intention comes in.

jessica (40:21)
huh.

Mm -hmm. Hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Melodie Reynolds (40:50)
And so it becomes less mindless and becomes more mindful. And once we can, you know, create those rituals over the routines, the purchasing of those products also becomes, you know, more mindful. And I think that that's really where the intention of the ritual comes in.

jessica (40:54)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. It makes it more of a purposeful act instead of just something that you do every day because you've always done it. Instead, I really love that perspective of looking at it like that because it is something that is special and it's a privilege, you know, to be able to wear makeup and have a beauty ritual and to have products that support you in that.

Melodie Reynolds (41:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

jessica (41:36)
if that's something that you do. Yeah, so this has been amazing. We've learned so many things and I love your story and I just love all the little nuggets that we learned from you and gained from just everything that you've shared with us today. You speak so beautifully about this topic and I know I learned so much.

And coming into this, I knew what I knew from the research that I did in this realm. But really, that was just a very little bit of the whole picture. And so thank you for elaborating and creating a bigger picture for us. Because I think that as consumers, we really want to know these things now. We're starting to become aware of what's in our products and how they're packaged. And thank you for doing what you do out in the world, because you're making a difference.

and you're helping each individual as a customer make a difference with what they choose to purchase as well. So I think it's just beautiful and thank you so much for being here and thank you for what you're doing.

Melodie Reynolds (42:47)
Thank you. I really appreciate you, you know, allowing me to tell my story. It's so great when, you know, people can hear about what we're doing. So I appreciate you as well.

jessica (42:56)
Thank you. And how can we connect with you? How can people find your products?

Melodie Reynolds (43:02)
You can find us online at elitebeauty .com. You can connect with us on Instagram. It's @elatecosmetics You can connect with me. I'm @MelodieElated on Instagram. And we do have about 200 partners around North America. And if you go on our website, you can also find the partner closest to you with our wholesale locator.

jessica (43:10)
Okay.

Okay.

Mm -hmm.

OK, so you are in some stores. OK, amazing. And also, I was going to mention that some of the products do leave behind some sort of a container, even though they may be more mindfully packaged. And can you just, there's, on your website, there's information about how to take care of those empty packages as well. So how can we learn a little bit more about how to.

to properly dispose of some of the other materials that are used in your packaging.

Melodie Reynolds (44:00)
So all of the glass can be recycled but if you don't have municipal recycling in your area you can choose to return it to PACT. PACT is a cosmetic recycling program and they will take back basically anything and help it get to the right place. So we've partnered with them for a few years now and it's a great partnership to have because yeah there are small components that sometimes can't be recycled in all areas and so it's nice to have some place that you can take them.

jessica (44:04)
-huh.

Mm -hmm.

Heheh.

Yes, and they have physical locations as well. So if you go onto your website, you link to them and then they tell you exactly where they're at or how to send it back if you don't have something local. Yeah, I love it.

Melodie Reynolds (44:32)
Thank you.

Yeah, you can get a mail label as well. Yeah.

jessica (44:44)
thank you again for joining me today, Melodie.

Melodie Reynolds (44:46)
Thank you so much.