Beauty & Wellness Briefing: Can Credo Beauty solve the beauty industry’s pump problem?

Back in April, Glossy surveyed more than a dozen eco-minded beauty brands to learn about the challenges holding them back from reaching their sustainability goals. Each interview inevitably pointed to one big issue: packaging — but more specifically, pumps. 

“That’s basically where the frontier is,” skin-care founder Tata Harper told Glossy about her brand’s inability to find or create pumps that can be recycled. “We still haven’t been able to find a sustainable solution [for our pumps] that works and doesn’t degrade,” added Irene Forte about her namesake luxury skin-care line, which is sold at Neiman Marcus and Blue Mercury. Meanwhile, execs from Rahua and Ogee, among others, agreed that pumps are currently the industry’s biggest opportunity for innovation.

The majority of pumps used in the beauty industry today, from the most inexpensive body wash to the most expensive serum, haven’t evolved much over the past decades. Most are made with mixed materials, like metal, plastic, glass or rubber, and include more than a dozen small parts, which make them impossible to recycle in a municipal setting.

A mono-material pump, or a pump entirely made from one material, like plastic, has been adopted by a handful of brands like Ren Skincare and Inn Beauty Project. But due to the way recycling is automatically sorted in municipal centers, these are still unlikely to be recycled. Meanwhile, many hair-care brands, like Bumble & Bumble and Aveda, sell pumps separately for their larger-size products to encourage reuse, but no one has solved the larger issue that most pumps end up in landfills. 

Credo Beauty hopes to change this with a new brand launch hitting stores this September. 

Credo currently owns three in-house lines — Follain, Exa Beauty and EleVen by Venus Williams — and it plans to launch a fourth this September. The details of the six-product line are still under wraps, except for one aspect: It will be used to pressure-test a new innovation in pumps and caps by Credo Beauty sister company Pact Collective.

“It took us a decade [to launch this line] because we wanted to create something based on a real need,” Jackson told Glossy. “We always wanted to use our own brands as a litmus test for what can be done and how far we can push a boundary. So, because we had started Pact and were inspired by customer behavior, and based on how much intel we had, we created the pump for the [new line] from all recovered materials.” 

Finding a second life for recycling is one of the biggest challenges for recyclers. A project like this creates a circular system for waste. 

Pact Collective is a non-profit, beauty-focused recycler launched as an experiment between by Credo Beauty and clean cosmetics brand MOB Beauty in 2021. First launched in Credo stores to test the service, which accepts all beauty packaging, the company quickly became the in-store recycler used by retailers including Sephora and Ulta Beauty. Pact also offers packaging mail-back programs for brands like Hailey Beiber’s Rhode, Glow Recipe and Victoria Beckham Beauty.

Pact was founded as an alternative to leading recycling company TerraCycle, which launched in 2001. It was known in the beauty industry for its high pricing and, more recently, the controversy and lawsuits tied to the limited transparency around its recycling practices. 

According to Pact Collective, it signed 49 new businesses in 2023, taking its count to 158, and had a 71% retention rate. Between 2021 and 2023, the non-profit diverted nearly 240,000 pounds of waste from landfills. 

To make the pump dream a reality, Pact Collective and Credo Beauty created a new packaging company called New Matter. “Ultimately, New Matter will be this closed-loop package innovation [company],” Jackson told Glossy. “It’s been a long project and it’s had lots of twists and turns, but we did it. I’m so excited about it.” If successful, New Matter will be a B2B packaging company with offerings available to all brands, but how the pricing will compare to components made from virgin materials is still unseen.

In two years, Credo Beauty has already found success with Pact Collective, both from a mission and a business standpoint. “The whole idea with Pact is to do two things: divert packaging from landfills, but also provide education,” Jackson said. For example, when a Credo shopper brings empties into a store to recycle, they’re met with a staffer who walks through each piece of waste with the customer to explain how it’s best recycled and where it may end up.

“Every customer is invested in that conversation, which is so interesting,” Jackson said. “There’s this feeling of goodwill that customers have if they’re part of the solution.”

Jackson told Glossy that there is a clear line between top spenders and those who recycle in-store. “[People who bring in products to recycle are] by far our most valuable clients,” she said. Credo Beauty tracks this by offering loyalty points to those who bring products in to recycle, further enticing shoppers by gamifying beauty recycling. 

Jackson co-founded Credo Beauty in 2015 after roles at Sephora, Benefit and Estée Lauder. She took over the role of CEO in 2023 from Stuart Miller, who went on to run Hårklinikken. Credo is privately held and its 2023 revenue was estimated to be $2.8 million.

“We’re in an interesting place because we’re building a business just like anybody else, but we’re also trying to enact positive change in the beauty industry,” Jackson told Glossy. “So [we’re] often spending a lot of time on something that doesn’t just serve us — we’re trying to serve everybody.”

Executive moves: 

• Estée Lauder Companies announced its longtime CFO Tracey Travis will be stepping down from her role in June of 2025 after a 12-year tenure with the conglomerate. Her successor has not yet been identified. 

• Shifts are happening at Olaplex under new CEO Amanda Baldwin, who left Supergoop for the brand in late 2023. Catherine Dunleavy, who was previously at Away luggage, will join the brand as both COO and CFO. Meanwhile, Katie Gohman will join the team as CMO. Her CV includes exec roles at Marc Jacobs, Coach and Ralph Lauren. 

News to know:

• Hairitage by Mindy — the hair-care brand from Youtuber Mindy McKnight that’s sold through Walmart, CVS and Amazon — kicked off an official partnership with the WNBA’s Dallas Wings. It’s the latest in the goldrush to sponsor women’s basketball that includes Urban Decay’s sponsorship of the Los Angeles Sparks and Glossier’s partnership with the WNBA and Team USA Olympics team.
• Also betting big on women’s basketball this week is Laneige. The K-beauty brand announced its first WNBA partnership with the Phoenix Mercury. It will kick off during the WNBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix on July 18 and will include activations and VIP gifting.
• Lush is betting on nostalgia with its latest limited-edition collaboration with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It includes bath bombs, shampoo bars and other products shaped like pizza, sewer lids and other things reminiscent of the ‘90s-era cartoon. 
• Unilever is reportedly cutting more than a third of its Europe-based roles, or about 3,200 jobs, according to Reuters. It’s part of a larger initiative to streamline the business by 2025. Unilever owns beauty brands including Dove, Clear, Dermalogica, Sunsilk and Vaseline.

• Meanwhile, Dyson is reportedly cutting 1,000 jobs in the United Kingdom, or about a third of its workforce in the region. It’s part of a larger restructuring of the business, as reported by Bloomberg. The brand welcomed a new CEO, Hanno Kirner, in February.  

• The Body Shop could be brought back from administration. It’s been reported that British business tycoon Mike Jatania and Aurea Holding, an investment firm he leads, are in talks to revive the brand. The Body Shop shut down its U.S. operations earlier this year after filing for bankruptcy.
• Sephora has announced a new theme and city for its 2024 Sephoria beauty event tour. For the first time, on September 27-28, the event will kick off in Atlanta in Pullman Yards, a buzzy arts and entertainment district. The large-scale, ticketed consumer event will also pop up in Paris (Oct 4-5), Shanghai (Oct 24-27) and Rio de Janeiro (Nov 1-3). Ticket prices range from $135-$445, depending on timing and VIB status, and include freebies valued above $1,000.
• RMS has entered the fragrance market with a collaboration with perfume brand Heretic Parfum. Called Scarlet Moon, the scent will be sold direct-to-consumer, selling for $150 on both brands’ e-commerce sites. 

Stat of the week:

The contract manufacturing segment of the beauty industry could almost double in size over the next decade. According to market research firm Straits Research, the personal care contract manufacturing market is expected to reach $39.93 billion in value by 2032, up from its estimated $22.24 billion in 2023. Personal care contract manufacturers are factories with end-to-end development and production capabilities to create finished consumer goods like skin care, hair care and cosmetics. A contract manufacturer, also known as a CM, can develop, own and sell formulas independently or hand-in-hand with beauty brands.

As part of the market forecast, Straits Research also revealed a list of 15 contract manufacturers it considers “competitive players” currently targeting the growing market share. It includes VVF LLC; McBride plc; KIK Custom Products; Vi-Jon; Sarvotham Care Limited; Tropical Products, Inc.; Prestige Brands Holdings; MANA Products; COLIPA; Health and Beauty Solutions, LLC; Delon Laboratories; Apollo Health and Beauty Care; Garcoa Laboratories; BPI Laboratories; and Levlad LLC. 

In the headlines:

Everist’s marketing shift to product performance over sustainability supercharges sales. Botox is out and plasma injections are in, but is L.A.’s ‘natural’ anti-aging movement any better? Scentbird’s CEO is also a spiritual guru, but not all customers are pleased. African skin-care brand Uncover raises $1.4 million to help it go global. How a distinctive beauty brand fell apart, sinking almost $700 million with it. “Die Hot With A Vengeance” author Sable Yong on why writing about beauty has been therapeutic.

Listen in: 

213Deli founders Nicole Collins and Corey Weiss join the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the growing opportunity in text-commerce, including the custom tech stack fueling their new company and the shopping habits in China they believe will inevitably impact how the West spends money.

Need a Glossy recap? 

CeraVe leans into ‘edutainment’ with new ‘soap opera’ campaign. Courteney Cox’s Homecourt expands into body care. Snif and Monet McMichael’s fragrance collaboration launches at Ulta Beauty. Fashion and tennis have long been successful partners. Can beauty join the game, too? How expensive can fragrance get?