Biotherm pilots refillable glass skin care bottle for Life Plankton Elixir Blue Fountain in Spain

23 Feb 2021 --- L’Oréal brand Biotherm is reducing packaging waste by piloting its first refillable skin care bottle for the Life Plankton Elixir Blue Fountain serum.

“The Life Plankton Elixir Blue Fountain represents Biotherm’s obsession to constantly better our processes and improve our packaging and formula to minimize our environmental footprint, and more specifically our impact on water and aquatic life,” says Giulio Bergamaschi, Biotherm global president.

The Life Plankton Elixir Blue Fountain will be available in February 2021 in the department store El Corte Inglés in Madrid, Spain.

Collaborating for circularity
To turn eco-friendly packaging into a unique experience, Biotherm and L’Oréal teamed up with Possible Future, the positive impact innovation studio.

Biotherm’s goal was to push the circular economy further. Life Plankton Elixir’s bottle is already made of 25 percent recycled glass and the launch represents another step towards Biotherm’s pledge to reduce its environmental impact by rethinking its packaging’s life cycle.

For Biotherm, this approach is part of a sustainable philosophy about beauty known as Blue beauty: “Beauty that comes from water and gives back to it.”

Since 2012, Biotherm has been actively participating in protecting the oceans through the program Water Lovers.

This sustainability program aims to create a better future for our oceans by collaborating with outside experts & NGO partners. Today, Water Lovers encompasses all aspects of Biotherm’s value chain, from formulas to packaging.

Developing a more circular economy is one of the brand’s chief commitments, and can be resumed in three words: Reduce, Reuse, Regenerate, the company says.

“This refill innovation is a pilot. We have the ambition to make this model scalable – to make a lasting, tangible impact. That’s why we intend to test and learn at the pilot level, and then improve our process and scale up availability and access,” explains Bergamaschi.

Refill technology for skin care?
Until now, refillable bottles were reserved for only some products, such as perfumes, whose formulas are not altered during the refill process due to the presence of alcohol.

The company says it took a three steps approach for a new generation of eco-friendly packaging.

Once the Life Plankton Elixir bottle is empty, consumers can easily refill it using the Life Plankton Elixir Blue Fountain with the help of a specially trained Beauty Advisor.

The process, which takes place in front of consumers’ eyes, happens in three steps: Clean, Refill, Customize.

Clean: Life Plankton Elixir’s glass bottle is cleaned with water and completely emptied of any residue. The bottle is then dried with filtered air before being sterilized with UV light.

Refill: The bottle is placed on the refill set and filled anew with Life Plankton Elixir serum from a rechargeable tank.

Customize: The bottle is custom-engraved with a delicate wave motif, symbolizing its regeneration and indicating how many times the bottle has undergone the refill process.

Ensuring ingredient integrity
Skincare products contain fragile active ingredients sensitive to air, the company flags.

The brand prevents the Life Plankton Elixir formula from interacting with outside elements by refilling directly into the sanitized bottle.

Life Plankton Elixir has a high concentration of Life Plankton probiotic (5%), combined with the strong natural active ingredients, hyaluronic acid, and vitamin C, which fight the accelerated aging processes inflicted on skin caused by life in “hectic urban environments.”

Biotherm developed the refill solution to preserve the efficiency of its anti-age serum while also giving its bottle an extended lifespan.

Previously, Armani Beauty unveiled a refillable perfume bottle for the latest addition to its olfactory family. The high-end brand’s latest fragrance launch, dubbed My Way, is the first in seven years and commercially available from mid-August.

Henkel’s salon hair care brand Authentic Beauty Concept is also setting up product refill stations in selected hair salons throughout Europe. The move is dubbed a “first” for the segment and marks an important step toward increasing the brand’s environmental sustainability.

By Kristiana Lalou

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