Learn and experience how to implement food-waste into your beauty routine.
Through an integrated approach, including hands-on experiments, interviews, and secondary research, a pop-up cosmetic lab along with an online directory have been prototyped and built to promote the use of food-waste. By sourcing food by-products and waste from local grocery shops, companies and consumers will learn the environmental and personal benefits by shifting their mindset when it comes to sourcing ingredients in the beauty industry. This will help reduce the 30% of food waste generated solely from grocery stores. Based on primary and secondary research, the following diagrams breaks down and organizes repeated observations to understand the beauty industry from three perspectives. As a result, using a collaborative and informative eco-oriented solution will help carry out the best of sciences from both industries to formulate products consumers will love, understand, and use.
Challenge
Prior to building an online directory, the project was only focused on bringing the pop-up to life. Due to COVID-19, storefronts closed and only essential businesses like grocery shops remained open. This meant shopping habits changed, as more people started relying on online grocery shopping, stocking up on non-perishables, and even feeling a bit more creative at home with cooking. Keeping that shift in behavior in mind, the focus pivoted to bringing a similar experience and educational components to the comfort of everyone’s homes.
Outcome
Tackling food-waste is such a wicked problem but focusing on one sector of the waste chain makes a world of a difference. The solution to source from grocery store waste to formulate a personalized beauty product is fully sustainable and will only benefit both industries. By offering the consumers to be a part of the production process, they will feel connected and trust from the ingredients they’re using on their skin. The website will perform as an online community and directory for both industries to find models and resources, such as labs that already up-cycle ingredients, to string food-waste into their business model. Conversations about frequently debated topics in the industry will be discussed and further explored; it’s the perfect balance between ethics and science.