Makeup: A ritual for many, highlighting the start of one’s day.
Clung to some compacts and brushes are arrays of worries like sustainability and animal testing.
A Bend makeup company is pioneering the clean beauty industry by making no waste products that are getting national attention.
“And I actually launched Axiology in my AirBNB when I moved here,” said Ericka Rodriguez, the Founder of Axiology Beauty.
Lipsticks handmade originally in a Bend kitchen six years ago are now being sold at Ulta, appearing in countless articles and has become one of Oprah’s favorite Clean Things
“And we’re most well known for our balmies which are zero waste,” Rodriguez said “They’re actually the world’s first zero waste multi use makeup crayon.”
Rodriguez and four employees fulfill hundreds of orders a day as Bend’s only makeup brand and recently announced an initiative to go plastic free.
“I think it’s the perfect place,” Rodriguez said of Bend “I mean everyone here in Bend loves the outdoors, they love nature and so do I. That’s why we really have honed in our mission to keep the environment beautiful, keep the world beautiful, and keep plastic out of the beauty industry.”
“There’s an incredible amount of waste in the cosmetic industry,” said Mandy Butera, the owner of local clean beauty shop Wren and Wild.
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120 billion units of packaging waste a year to be exact, with 70% of that trash ending in landfills.
Butera knows the practices all too well, having worked for a major makeup company until 2014.
“90% of the cosmetic industry, not just clean beauty, but the entire industry are housed in new consumer plastic, not just PCR plastic,’ Butera said.
It’s not just eliminating plastic, Axiology is also cruelty free, and only uses 10 ingredients max in their makeup.
According to the Australian Institute of Science, around 12,500 different chemical ingredients are approved for personal care products like makeup.
“It actually took me 200 formulations to come up with the lipstick that we first launched with,” Rodriguez said.
“When you’re looking to source ingredients that are clean and good for the environment, then yes, the Pacific Northwest is a great place to do that,” Butera said.
We toured the Axiology facility as two of the all-women employees assembled products.
“Amelia is actually in the process of making so she’s melting down some coco butter and she has some soy butter melting as well and then she’s mixing in our pigment,” Rodriguez said on the tour.
Formula that is as unique and environmentally conscious as the place it’s founded in.
“I think it’s inspirational for other people that there are other ways to make things that don’t have to be housed in things that are detrimental to our environment,” Butera said.
With the clean beauty industry expected to reach a valuation of $11.5 billion dollars by 2027, knowing a bit of that is coming from Bend’s backyard is a little more than pretty.
