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Our skin and hair are two of the most fundamental aspects of our bodies, in both health and appearance. And yet, hair and skin are the final frontiers in my sustainable lifestyle journey. I’ve gone in and out of phases of using shampoo bars but have often defaulted to more convenient, reliable, and less sustainable staples to treat my dry and oily scalp. And as for skincare, I’ve learned to remember to use SPF, but have never gone much deeper other than the odd treatment for winter-time dry skin.
Over the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of exploring skincare and hair care more than ever before while trying out Seed Phytonutrients’ Scalp and Roots Oat Mask, along with some of their other skincare and hair care products. Upon first use, I was excited about their organic haircare products, in particular the mask, but I wasn’t sure if it had worked. Naturally, I decided to be pragmatic about it. I would just have to use my preferred method of inquiry to see what it did–repeated use. And after about a month, I can firmly say that this mask has greatly improved my dry and oily scalp. While it hasn’t completely “cured” me of those conditions, it has made them less noticeable to me. I’m not quite as itchy, I don’t flake as much, and my scalp just feels healthier.
With all of the above said, I do believe I’ll continue to use other Seed Phytonutrients products. For me, the Everyday Shampoo and Conditioner, Body Cleanser, Facial Cleansing Powder, and Lip Balm are newfound staples that I would have a hard time saying goodbye to. They are all intuitive, well-packaged, and, most importantly, effective. Seed Phytonutrients’ products work.
To learn more about Seed Phytonutrients and their approach to sustainable, science-driven skincare and hair care, read on for my interview with founder, Karika Purohit Patel.
MW: One of the first things that jumped out at me while researching Seed Phytonutrients is that you are formula first. Can you break down what that means?
KP: Being ‘formula first’ means that we are extremely particular and bullish about what goes into our bottles. Our mission is to craft clean, high-performance hair, skin, and body care formulas that you can trust will be good for you, and the planet.
We choose to power all of our formulas with seeds because the seed is the most concentrated part of the plant, and an ideal choice for top quality ingredients. It’s where a plant’s nutrients are encased and protected from environmental elements, so they remain in their purest form. Seeds contain high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, phytosterols, carotene, and vitamins A, C, D and E.
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We take product performance very seriously, and we work tirelessly with our world-renowned formulator to ensure our products actually do what they say they will do. We often say we craft formulas that are more trusted than they are trendy, and this is a commitment we hold to the utmost standards!
MW: Why did you choose to create vegan and cruelty free products? What are some of the challenges that come along with that decision?
KP: Creating ethical and clean formulas were non-negotiables for the brand as early as brand conception. Formulation technology and innovation has come such a far way to allow us to build beautiful, efficacious formulas without any compromises. We are very proud to have become Leaping Bunny Certified in August 2020 to double down on our commitment of crafting clean and ethical formulas. But we don’t stop just at vegan and cruelty free – each product is absolutely always sulfate, paraben, gluten, silicone and synthetic fragrance free.
Note: Leaping Bunny is a certification body that ensures animal cruelty-free practices.
MW: What are some of the challenges and benefits of being a smaller, family-run sustainable beauty brand?
KP: Given our history of being founded as a L’Oreal incubator brand and then acquiring the brand from L’Oreal in May 2020, the brand’s journey has been far from traditional! The brand’s rich history has provided many advantages including gaining mass awareness from the onset of launch. However the challenge our brand now faces is to tell our new story and re-establish ourselves as Seed 2.0 the marketplace.
We are a very small team with limited resources since we are fully self-funded, so that can be challenging at times given we have so much to say and so much more to do! But with all that being said, one of our biggest strengths as Seed 2.0 is having the opportunity to pave a new and exciting path for the brand. We are able to build upon a very strong and established foundation, which is not commonplace for most brands. In addition, our now even stronger and closer ties to best-in-class R&D and manufacturing is a major feather in our cap. So, although we are a small brand today, we have certain capabilities of a larger brand.
MW: Can you walk me through Seed Phytonutrients’ approach to packaging?
KP: We are committed to continuously improving the sustainability and recyclability of the packaging for all of our products. In October 2021, we moved away from our revolutionary shower-friendly paper bottles with plastic liners in favor of a more sustainable material– aluminum!
About 75% of all aluminum ever produced is still in circulation today because it has a high consumer recycling rate and it can be endlessly reprocessed and reformed without any major loss of metal quality. Also, because it’s so lightweight versus many other packaging materials, it requires minimal energy for transportation.
We utilize curbside-recyclable packaging materials (aluminum, glass, paper) as much as possible, while ensuring optimal functionality of our products. For packaging components requiring materials that are not recyclable curbside, we’ve partnered with Pact Collective on a mail-back recycling program to help close the loop on hard-to-recycle beauty packaging.
Note: Pact Collective is a group dedicated to lowering the amount of waste from packaging in the beauty industry.
MW: What are some of your sustainability goals going forward?
KP: We believe that beauty can, and should be, sustainable. That’s why we commit to offsetting and reducing our carbon footprint annually, using recyclable packaging for all of our products, and partnering with Pact to recycle the packaging components that you can’t recycle at home. We feel that it’s our responsibility to lead the way and promote environmental sustainability for the beauty industry as a whole. We say that we are on a journey of continuous improvement, as we are always looking for ways to improve our packaging recyclability and reduce our footprint on the planet.
In addition, we are always innovating and formulating product formats that marry sustainability and product performance. Our water-activated cleansing powders are an example of how we are doing that today and how we look to bring more innovative ideas like this forward in the coming years.