“I think if we were to run a lifecycle assessment on [the plastic refill versus the original glass jar], you would see that there’s a carbon savings,” Kachook posits. It’s not perfect, of course: “The end of life story hasn’t particularly changed or hasn’t gotten better, unfortunately”—both pieces will eventually end up in the trash.
Still, there are a few companies for whom refills seem to be a successful strategy, both from a business and environmental impact standpoint. Kachook, Sass, and Garibay all namechecked Maran when asked for examples of beauty brands doing refills well. Her namesake brand has been around for 19 years, but rebranded in 2024 with refillable products as the priority.
Maran originally shot to popularity on QVC, and the line expanded to, by her estimation, “five million products.” “I was on QVC and putting out a bajillion plastic packages a day and it broke my soul,” Maran says.
The rebrand was a chance to refocus on the best sellers, like body lotions, washes, and scrubs—all of which happen to lend themselves quite well to being refilled. “We totally shrunk the line, repackaged, refocused, and remixed the whole thing and just tightened it up,” she says. Now, 30% of Maran’s current sales are refills, most of which are contained in photogenic, sensorially satisfying pouches. Reupping your Whipped Argan Oil Body Butter is more of a delight than a slog, and the refills are pretty enough to sit on the shelf at Sephora or be featured in an influencer’s product flatlay. (In fact, we know a few people in that 30% who only buy the Josie Maran refills—which offer anywhere from a 15 to 35% savings—and never the “real packaging” because they’re so good-looking and functional.)
Those bajillion products sold on QVC meant Maran knew she had a loyal customer base, which made the pivot to refills less of a risk. It also meant she had the financial flexibility to experiment, something a smaller brand might not:“I can sacrifice some profit for [the customer] to start being sustainable.”
“I’m in it for the planet, mostly,” Maran says. “But I’m also in it for the people and I’m also in it for the business because money is what actually changes the world.” She might technically be losing money on the individual refills, but business overall is doing quite well. “I hope this becomes table stakes,” Dr. Nakhla says. Now that he understands the backend of the beauty industry and “how much obscene waste is involved,” he believes “sustainability and refills should become a given.”
When I spoke with Krupa Koestline, a cosmetic chemist, in 2023, she predicted that brands like Josie Maran and Eighth Day that had embraced the “clean” positioning would start to focus on the environmental impacts of the industry as well. Irene Forte is another example: The founder of the eponymous brand says refills make up 40% of direct-to-consumer sales of the hero products. Forte mostly uses the hard plastic refills that can cause some consumers to cringe, but the material is bio based and relatively light. Plus, since the original packaging is a heavy, glass container, Forte says the brand’s margins are actually better on the refill SKUs.
