Cleaning up beauty We chat with Karen MacDonald from Blomma Beauty about her cherry-picked collection of sustainable beauty brands

CLEANING UP BEAUTY

We chat with Karen MacDonald from Blomma Beauty about her cherry-picked collection of sustainable beauty brands

TELL OUR READERS A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF ? Blomma Beauty is an experiential retail concept for natural, organic beauty and wellbeing. What that means is that rather than just selling online or stacking products on a shelf in a traditional way, we try to bring the products and the brands that we stock to life through events and education. Whether that’s through a workshop or a talk, an event or festival, or through our online store or the pop-ups that we host. My background has always been in buying so I’m a retailer at heart and love finding new ways for customers to access, learn about and shop organic and natural products and brands.

Department stores are only just clocking on to natural beauty now so I was left with only a few options. The guy in the health food shop down the road didn’t know about beauty and buying online created so many wasted products through trial and error. I’d read that more organic brands than ever were coming to market but I just couldn’t find them. Secondly, having seen the demise of the high street during my time as a buyer I wanted to create a concept that would bring the theatre back to the shopping experience. It’s why we team our web store with different events to bring brand stories, the founders and the products to life for people but also to shed some light on the complex world of ‘clean beauty’. My hope is that people come to us for impartial advice on

WHY DID YOU START YOUR ORGANIC ONE-STOP BEAUTY SHOP? There were a couple of factors. Firstly, I wanted to create a space where people could discover a variety of different beauty brands. When switching to a natural skincare regime, I found it so difficult to find brands that suited my skin and made a lot of mistakes along the way!

the brands that we stock but also have fun with their beauty regimes and feel inspired.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH PRODUCTS TO STOCK? At first, I approached the brands of the products that I used in my own beauty regime and luckily; they believed in the vision and continue to support me. Now I’m lucky that we get approached directly but there’s a strict criteria, which a brand must meet in order to partner with us. Of course, they’ve got to meet the EU standards (be cruelty free, safety tested and registered with the EU cosmetic platform etc.). The product must also be natural, ideally with a good proportion of organic ingredients and have made considered packaging choices both for the product itself but also how it’s shipped to the customer. There is no point harvesting considerately from nature for your products and then

shipping them out in a non ecofriendly way! But more than that, we check every ingredient in each product. There are still some natural ingredients that we won’t include our range. For example, Phenoxyethanol, which is a natural preservative, but can cause skin irritation so we check for those. We also query any ingredient sourcing, for example, palm oil derived products need to be farmed sustainably. It’s all a balancing act, but there’s a blended criteria we work towards and will collaborate as much as we can with our partners on this.

WHAT PRODUCTS WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO HELP TO KEEP YOUR SKIN FRESH IN SPRING? Spring for me is all about coming out of hibernation and prepping your skin for summer so there are three elements that I add into my regime. Firstly, I exfoliate more regularly. For my face, I like to use Codex’s Bia exfoliator, which is really gentle. For the body, I love Bumi Naturals’ poppy seed exfoliator. Then I moisturise my legs with a body butter, which helps to hydrate your skin but also starts to give you a nice glow ready for showing them to the world! I really like the soapNskin rose and sandalwood body butter because it sinks into the skin really quickly and isn’t greasy. Lastly, I love adding in a facial mist in summer to tone, boost radiance and hydrate on the go. My favourite is Terre Verdi’s rose mist because it’s 100% organic rose flower water so it’s really simple but effective and smells incredible. When it gets really hot in summer, I keep this by the bed to keep me cool on hot nights.

ARE THERE ANY SKINCARE PRODUCTS YOU REALLY COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT? The brand that inspired me to switch to a natural and organic regime was AD Skin Synergy so I can’t live without their nourishing night treatment and cleansing balm, which is my two-step night regime. It’s the most effective cleanser because it does everything including removing eye make-up then

you finish with the oil that’s super hydrating and you’re done in two simple steps. All my friends have this cleanser now because I won’t stop going on about it! My regime in general is pretty

Health & Beauty for transitioning out of the heavier cream I use in winter but is still very nourishing because I have a dry skin type.

WHAT IS YOUR BEST SELLER AND WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS? We are selling tonnes of re-usable facecloths at the moment. It’s often the first swap people make when they’re trying to limit waste in their regimes. We work with a lovely lady called Tina from Ginger Green Co. who hand makes all of her cotton rounds and face cloths from organic cotton. She uses two different textures too so you get a soft side to remove make up and a slightly rougher side to gently exfoliate as you cleanse.

ARE THERE ANY NEW PRODUCTS OR SPOILERS ON THE HORIZON? By the time this goes to print, we should have opened our next pop-up store location which I’m very excited about. We’re partnering with SMUK London, an organic hair and beauty studio in Belgravia where we’ll be featuring a selection of brands, as well as a really exciting schedule of in store events. The dream is to find a permanent location for our concept, and this is a step towards that goal as we’ll be in residence for three months until the end of May so I really hope it’s a success.

19. beautifullybritishmag.co.uk minimalist because I like multitasking products so I can travel with them, save time and use less packaging but I like to switch up my day moisturiser depending on the season. At the moment, I’m using the Cut.Le.Crap serum. It’s oil based but is very light so is good TELL US 3 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOURSELF! I live in London but I’m not a fan of going on the tube so I cycle absolutely everywhere, rain or shine! I’ve just started taking pottery classes and loving being creative and making dishes for my home, even if they’re a little wobbly!

BLOMMA BEAUTY www.blommabeauty.com