“My vision was to create something desirable and sustainable” Nicolas Gerlier, President and Founder of La Bouche Rouge tells Hello! Fashion on his latest visit to London. He’s definitely succeeded at both.
La Bouche Rouge is interesting in that it’s one of the only fully sustainable beauty brands that doesn't look at all like a sustainable beauty brand ‘should.’ With a distinctly high-end (and not one bit hippy or woo-woo) aesthetic, it’s luxury through and through which is probably one of the reasons why you probably hadn't even realise it is one of the most ‘net zero’ companies in the space.
In October 2016, La Bouche Rouge became the first French, plastic-free beauty brand to offer a clean makeup line in handmade, refillable cases. “The idea was really to create the first makeup line without plastic, and we did it,” Nicolas says, “The idea is to fight waste. There were one billion people on the planet 100 ago, there are eight billion of us today… We cannot consume like the previous generation.”
“If you have something high end and sustainable, you are creating the future,” Nicolas tells us, “the mission of luxury is to elevate our daily life, to elevate our way of consumption. Because it's a new approach, it's quite unique what we are doing, but I'm convinced in five years It's going to be common because we have no choice. We cannot continue to produce plastic things.”
Now Nicolas is taking what he’s applied to lipsticks and using it to craft their first fragrances. “We have invented a new approach of beauty with craftsmanship. We have eradicated plastic from A to Z, including packaging, supply chain, and formula. It’s a new approach to refill because the refill is 100% recyclable.” You’ve probably heard of the adage ‘Buy once wear forever,’ but now ‘buy once, refill forever’ is the idea behind La Bouche Rouge’s refillable perfume bottles.
The result of Nicolas’ endeavours is a handmade ‘objet.’ The perfume comes in five fragrances and stands in 100ml refillable bottle topped with a twist off spray. La Bouche Rouge even asked its glassmaker to abandon their existing habits in the pursuit of sustainability, “The bottle is the first glass bottle produced without waste,” confirms Nicolas.
In traditional production, a third of all bottles are rejected for small imperfections in the outer glass or shape of the inner drop. La Bouche Rouge is putting a stop to this practice. Like its signature lipsticks the glass bottle is enveloped in a hand-crafted leather from the prestigious Tanneries de Puy. The real coup de grace however is the Insta-worthy aluminium refill. La Bouche Rouge has indeed, “invented the first single-material refill,” explains Nicolas. Again plastic-free and boasting the signature LBR aesthetic, you simply pour the contents into your bottle and spritz.
“I do not believe in refill if you do not have a precious object, and I do not believe in refill if you do not have a recyclable refill,” explains Nicolas.
Makes sense to us.
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