Mother Nature
Keep it all-natural in the bathroom with RainPharma’s products. This Belgian cosmetics brand makes it its business to market locally produced, natural and vegan personal care products. But how sustainable is this brand really? The answer is not so simple, as our research showed.
Belgian brand RainPharma
RainPharma has a team of top experts ensuring the quality and naturalness of their products. They work every day to put even more natural and high-quality products onto shelves. But not just any shop… RainPharma carefully selects its distribution points.
For instance, the shops must have the same mission and values as the brand. RainPharma is dermatologically tested, suitable for vegans, free of harsh preservatives, not tested on animals and locally produced. What more could you want?
Ingredients
RainPharma claims it bans harmful ingredients, resolutely opting for natural ones. Here at COSH!, we encourage such a commitment because natural products are better for your skin.
Unfortunately, we cannot find any certificate or proof of how they are banning harmful substances. For example, we see that their lip balm lists ‘aroma’ in its ingredients but it’s not clear where this aroma comes from. We also seen several alcoholic ingredients are used but some people could be allergic to these. In terms of ingredient screening, there is no info available on the YUKA app yet.
Fair
Their cosmetics are produced locally in Belgium. The brand also sources the natural ingredients and packaging from Belgium or other European countries. For instance, the containers and broccoli come from Germany, the tubes from the Netherlands, the shopping bags from Italy and some of the essential oils and clays are from France.
As these countries are subject to European labour laws, we assume the working conditions are good at RainPharma’s factories and suppliers. At present, though, there is not enough transparency to know whether all the ingredients are traded through neighbouring countries or actually grown locally there.
Circular?
No information is available regarding the brand’s circularity. It’s not clear whether their packaging is made from recycled materials or even recyclable at this date.
The brand also runs promotions offering customers extra plastic to consume, such as a foot bath, an extra plastic gift card, etc. This makes deliveries larger, which is anything but sustainable.
We hope this Belgian brand will soon extend its sustainable values to their promotions and packaging as well. To strive to respect the environment as much as possible not only in their cosmetics, but also in their orders.
Vegan
RainPharma promotes itself as a vegan skincare brand, but they also sell pills containing fish oil. We also see the ingredient squalene popping up in several skincare products. This is shark liver oil, which can only be found in limited amounts in plant sources such as olive oil or yeast. It’s not clear where RainPharma gets its squalene but we certainly hope it’s not from sharks.
At COSH!, we find RainPharma’s projected image of being vegan quite contradictory. Despite their good intentions in their vegan skincare, we do hope they will ensure all their products are vegan in the future.
Slow fashion
RainPharma heavily discounts its products at certain times of the year to make their brand as affordable as possible for all. However, by doing this, they are excluding the part of the population that is unable to make bigger purchases a few times throughout the year and therefore cannot profit from the 20% discount.
By giving discounts when people buy larger quantities, they are also incentivising overconsumption. People buy more than they need, when we should be consuming less to fight climate change. It would therefore be fairer to use one fixed price, also to the workers who should receive a fair wage.
Here at COSH!, we have mixed feelings about Belgian brand RainPharma. On the one hand, this brand offers a lovely selection of natural products. On the other hand, we would like to see all of their packaging and products be sustainable in the future. Because Mother Nature always knows best!
