Our Commitment to Sustainable Beauty

Be beautiful. Be you. And be kind to the Earth. That’s the philosophy of sustainability behind everything we do at Pharmacopia—and has been since we started in 1999. In our minds, you can pamper your skin, hair, and body with plant-based goodness while doing something good for the Earth too.

And it starts with your carbon footprint. In its simplest terms, this is reducing your impact on the Earth. You’ve no doubt heard this term and may even be taking steps to do what you can for the Earth every day (i.e., using your own tote bags when shopping, recycling what you can, and shutting off lights when you’re not using them). As a company, we take this one step further: we ensure that whatever we do to create our better-for-you products has the least amount of impact on the Earth.

But sustainable beauty to us at Pharmacopia means more, and goes further, than that. It also means ensuring that the products we create are not just better for the planet, they’re also non-toxic and better for you and your health.

6 Steps to Sustainable Beauty

Here are the 6 steps we’re taking every day to make sure our sustainable products are better for you and better for the planet. Consider this our promise to you.

1. We never use any toxic ingredients—and never will. Pharmacopia was built on the premise that what we use on our body should never cause problems with our health, whether it’s irritating your skin or contributing to potential disease down the road. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your health to care for yourself and be your best you. This is why we’re all about clean beauty in all our Pharmacopia products. What this means:

✔️We don’t use parabens or phthalates. These man-made chemicals in many personal care products (but not ours!) have been linked in studies to a disruption of the endocrine system. This system regulates the hormones in the body (definitely not something you want to mess with!).

✔️We don’t use synthetic colors or fragrances. There’s no reason to use potentially harmful dyes in any personal care products—which is why we don’t. And since synthetic fragrances contain phthalates, we avoid these too when formulating all our plant-based products. That’s why the scents in our Citrus, Verbena, and Hyatt Hotels Argan Collections and in our Lip Elixir are natural and derived from straight-from-the-Earth essential oils.

✔️We don’t use sodium lauryl sulfate. This harsh cleansing agent, found in many shampoos and conditioners, can not only strip hair of its natural oils, it can also leave the scalp dry and irritated. All Pharmacopia Shampoos and Conditioners (as well as all our products) are sodium lauryl sulfate free.

2. All our ingredients are biodegradable. Putting better-for-you ingredients on your body is important for you. But once they go down the shower or tub drain, they have to be non-toxic to the environment too. That’s why our products are plant-based and good for the Earth. We ensure that what goes down your shower (or bath) drain will naturally decompose and won’t hang around in the Earth or in our waterways for years to come.

3. We love animals and are cruelty free and vegan. When a company uses synthetic ingredients, many times they’re unsure of its effects on humans so they test them on animals. Not cool — and definitely something we have never done and never will. That’s why we’ve committed to being cruelty free since we started. And we’ve had the “Beauty without Bunnies” seal from PETA for 20+ years. 

While we don’t test on animals, we run plenty of safety and efficacy tests in our lab to ensure that our products are better for you. In fact, we’ve found that there are plenty of cruelty-free, plant-based ingredients that can get the job done as well as—and sometimes better than—any animal-based ones. These include:

• shea butter in our Body Lotions and Body Bars
• jojoba oil in our Shampoos, Conditioners, Body Lotions, and Lip Elixir 
• aloe vera in almost all of our products 
• coconut oil in our Shampoos and Body Washes

 4. We use 100% post-consumer recycled bottles. All of our packaging—in both our retail-sized bottles and hotel amenities—is made from recycled plastic. As a result, we’re able to upcycle and divert over 150 tons of plastic from landfills each year instead of using new plastic. What’s more, our bottles are all BPA free and can be recycled again.

5. We use sustainable sourcing. We want to make sure that even our ingredients are being grown and harvested with the most sustainable practices possible.

 6. We offer bath and body bulk gallon sizes. The less plastic you use, the lower your carbon footprint will be. That’s why we offer gallon sizes of our Hyatt Hotels Argan Oil Collection. This way, you can just refill your bottles when you run out.

One thing you can be sure of: when you use Pharmacopia products, you’re lowering your carbon footprint and doing something good for you—and good for the Earth.