Hello from Love The Planet founder Laura Nicholson!

Hello and welcome to Love The Planet - the home of plastic free makeup. Firstly, thank you for visiting our little corner of the internet and making the decision to eliminate unnecessary plastic from your beauty routine. As a small, independent makeup brand, we are very grateful to you for your support! 

As this is our first blog post, I thought that I would share some background information with you about our story so far. I started Love The Planet all the way back in 2001 (that makes me feel old!) after coming up with an idea that lots of planet friendly people are familiar with now, but not so much then…the washable make up remover pad. My business mentor from the Small Business Gateway in Aberdeen suggested that I enter my idea (that I named the ‘eco pad’) into the British Female Inventor of the Year Awards. I hand sewed hundreds of little heart shaped pads from terry towelling and took myself down to London for the event. I was thrilled to win a place in the finals even though, ultimately, I wasn’t an award winner. I like to think that’s because my idea was so pioneering, the general public weren’t quite ready for it. Haha! At that time disposable cleansing wipes were all the rage and I’m so glad that people’s way of thinking has changed in the last twenty years. Washable cleansing pads and wipes are now very much the norm.

Upon returning home to Scotland from the bright lights of London I decided that I wanted to make a business out of my little idea. That's when Love The Planet was born. I took some courses to learn how to make natural skin and hair care products. For the next 15 years, Love The Planet was all about cruelty free moisturisers, shampoos, conditioners and, of course, washable cleansing pads. 

Then I became a mother and my focus moved away from hand making batches of skincare products. My passion for cruelty free beauty products remained though and as I saw more coverage on the news, it emphasised how important it was to make every effort to eliminate the use of unnecessary plastic in our lives. The plastic free makeup seed was planted then! I’ve had problematic skin since my teens and had always used mineral makeup since its antibacterial ingredients help to keep spots under control. It was a natural progression to create a range of mineral makeup that was packaged responsibly and was of course vegan and cruelty free. 

In 2018 we launched our range of mineral foundations, concealers, blushers, eyeshadows and setting powders. Our plastic free makeup is packaged in refillable tins and compostable refill pouches. You can either purchase a tin and then refill it when empty or simply refill a container that you already have at home. Our brand has continued to grow in popularity and expand despite the challenges of COVID that 2020 threw at us. We’re so proud to be stocked by a network of zero waste shop owners throughout the UK who are working tirelessly to make our planet a better place. 

We’re excited to be making plans to add to the Love The Planet range in 2021 with new products and a greater selection of foundation shades. We hope that you’ll join us on this journey to see what 2021 has to offer. It must be better than 2020, eh? 

Laura x