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Beauty industry veteran Victor Casale knows something about building brands. Founder to Acquisition Chief of MAC Cosmetics He founded CoverFX after serving as a chemist. Currently, he is the co-founder of his beauty startup, Pure Culture Beauty, a custom skincare brand, and his brand of refillable makeup, MOB Beauty, where he helps run two brands simultaneously. I’m back in the world in a big way.
His interest in reinventing the way beauty is packaged and sold comes from a long-standing interest in sustainability. In fact, he spearheaded his MAC “Back to MAC” packaging 35 years before his recycling program, predating municipal recycling in many cities. Today, he is the co-founder of the beauty recycling program Pact Collective, which has 160 members and partners with retailers like Ulta Beauty and Sephora. In this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Casale dives into refillable beauty, her early experiences with recycling, how the Pact Collective works, and how consumers can demand change.
Product life cycle:
“Thirty years ago we were able to launch a product like Studio Fix on the MAC for example, which has been on the market for a long time as a revolutionary product.…Today, almost 18 months. … In less than a year, the customer is saying, “Well, that’s good.” What did you get next? “
Origin of “Back to MAC”:
“What we did at the MAC facility in Toronto is that there was an area in the facility with large cardboard barrels and we took things apart. I was sorting them all out by snapping them in. I turned this material into a pallet that I use to move materials around my warehouse.Some of the dirty stuff I used for the park benches around the facility. And it always stuck with me.
Access to the processing part of the recycling system:
If you are recycling materials, any material has a minimum threshold you want to process at once if there is a cost/carbon footprint benefit. … each material, plastic, metal or glass, has a certain amount of advantages for processing for recycling. And the number of them is large. Those are £50,000, £100,000. they are a big number. And of course the beauty package is very small. It takes time to collect enough. “
Consumer Responsibilities:
“It is the consumer who ultimately decides whether a material is recycled. The company that sells it knows they won’t sell it unless they change it, because that’s where it has the most impact.
We have been conditioned not just by the beauty industry or any other industry, but by an industry that only buys, consumes, and disposes of. I worry about where the ingredients come from. … In general, we don’t think about what happens after we throw things in the trash or trash. And those are the biggest and most impactful changes that can happen, and it’s starting to happen. “
