Weleda

As a pio­neer, Wele­da wants to do its part for a bet­ter world. The cos­me­tics brand has clo­se part­ner­ships with local com­mu­ni­ties that grow the raw mate­ri­als for its care pro­ducts. Far­mers’ wages are abo­ve avera­ge. For exam­p­le, sesa­me seed har­ve­s­t­ing in Mexi­co is a lucra­ti­ve side inco­me for the far­mers. Working with Wele­da gives the far­mers more secu­ri­ty and con­fi­dence in the future by ear­ning a living wage clo­se to home. For the laven­der fields, we go to Mol­do­va. The coope­ra­ti­on bet­ween the laven­der far­mers and Wele­da star­ted in 2005. Today, more than 200 far­ming fami­lies are alre­a­dy invol­ved. For them, laven­der cul­ti­va­ti­on has beco­me an inte­gral part of their inco­me. We at COSH! are par­ti­cu­lar­ly plea­sed to see Wele­da giving local com­mu­ni­ties a boost in this way, and con­tri­bu­ting to a fai­rer world. 

The pro­ces­sing of raw mate­ri­als into cos­me­tics and medi­ci­nes takes place at sites in Basel (Ger­ma­ny), Huni­n­gue (France) and Schwä­bisch Gmünd (Ger­ma­ny). It is nice that pro­duc­tion takes place in Euro­pe, becau­se this allows us to assu­me good working con­di­ti­ons. As a mem­ber of the Uni­on for Ethi­cal Bio­Tra­de (UEBT), the brand also adhe­res to the strict social, eco­no­mic and eco­lo­gi­cal requi­re­ments set by this organization.

Wele­da is B corp cer­ti­fied! B Corp cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on reco­gni­zes com­pa­nies that ope­ra­te in a respon­si­ble, envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly and soci­al­ly just man­ner. ​”Pro­fit remains an important goal, but we must never achie­ve it at the expen­se of peo­p­le, ani­mals or the envi­ron­ment,” says Dr. Ste­fan Sie­mer, Head of Sus­taina­bi­li­ty at Weleda.

Bel­gi­an Wele­da is an expert when it comes to natu­ral care. The brand makes 100% natu­ral face cream, body lotion and sal­ves with the NATRUE label. More than 80% of all ingre­di­ents at Wele­da come from orga­nic or bio­dy­na­mic far­ming or, whe­re pos­si­ble, from con­trol­led picking of wild plants and flowers. 

NATRUE was crea­ted by the Inter­na­tio­nal Natu­ral and Orga­nic Cos­me­tics Asso­cia­ti­on to cer­ti­fy natu­ral and orga­nic cos­me­tic pro­ducts. Accor­ding to NATRUE, only the dried plants count to deter­mi­ne a pro­duc­t’s orga­nic con­tent. The­r­e­fo­re, a per­so­nal care pro­duct con­tai­ning water or alco­hol can never be 100 orga­nic, even if it con­ta­ins only orga­ni­cal­ly grown ingre­di­ents. Did you know that NATRUE cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on also gua­ran­tees you that the­re are no micro­pla­s­tics in your per­so­nal care pro­ducts? A plus for the envi­ron­ment, ani­mals and your skin. 

Dis­clai­mer for pro­ducts car­ry­ing the ​“BIO” label: this is a self-desi­gned label of the Wele­da brand that is not inde­pendent­ly veri­fied. This label only rela­tes to the bold­ly prin­ted ingre­di­ents on the ingre­di­ents list, so the pro­duct is not 100% organic.

The brand uses palm oil in some pro­ducts. The palm oil Wele­da does use is cer­ti­fied orga­nic and comes from a sin­gle RSPO cer­ti­fied plan­ta­ti­on in Brazil. 

Bio­di­ver­si­ty is important to Wele­da. ​“Wit­hout bio­di­ver­si­ty we would not exist,” the brand says. That is why Wele­da actively sup­ports various bio­di­ver­si­ty pro­jects world­wi­de. They thus pro­tect the plants and ani­mals that are much nee­ded for our pla­net, but also to make care products.

The brand says that so far the­re is no per­fect solu­ti­on for the pack­a­ging of all pro­ducts. Wele­da pro­ducts are free of syn­the­tic pre­ser­va­ti­ves, but this lea­ves them with fewer pack­a­ging opti­ons than pro­du­cers that do use syn­the­tic pre­ser­va­ti­ves. They curr­ent­ly use dif­fe­rent mate­ri­als depen­ding on pro­duct requi­re­ments, each with its own advan­ta­ges and dis­ad­van­ta­ges. About 60% are made of glass, 15% of alu­mi­num and the rest of the pack­a­ging is made of various pla­s­tics. For exam­p­le, body lotion, after­shave and oils are packa­ged in glass bot­t­les. Glass and alu­mi­num are easi­ly recy­clable. Howe­ver, the pack­a­ging of seve­ral other per­so­nal care pro­ducts as well as the caps still con­sist of pla­s­tic types of poly­ethy­le­ne (PE) and poly­ethy­le­ne tere­phtha­la­te (PET). The­se pla­s­tic con­tai­ners are made from fos­sil fuels, a minus point. For­t­u­na­te­ly, the pla­s­tics used con­tain no traces of phtha­la­tes or sof­ten­ers, estro­gen-like mate­ri­als. No hor­mo­ne dis­rup­t­ors, in other words. Tog­e­ther with a team of experts, Wele­da is curr­ent­ly loo­king for ways to opti­mi­ze their cur­rent pack­a­ging materials.

When pack­ing and ship­ping the pro­ducts from its Bel­gi­an warehouse, Wele­da is also working as sus­tain­ab­ly as pos­si­ble. The boxes are fil­led with shred­ded card­board or stuf­fing made of pota­to starch, which is ful­ly com­post­a­ble. The pla­s­tic air bags the brand uses are also ful­ly compostable. 

Water and ener­gy are a cru­cial com­po­nent in the pro­duc­tion of the creams and oint­ments. Wele­da always tri­es to mini­mi­ze its impact on the pla­net. For exam­p­le, water from pro­duc­tion is re-con­den­sed to put it back into the cycle. In 2013, the per­so­nal care brand redu­ced their water con­sump­ti­on by 25%. In addi­ti­on, they use 100% elec­tri­ci­ty from rene­wa­ble sources in their own buil­dings. Wele­da has been stri­ving for a more sus­tainable indus­try for many years, and can ser­ve as an exam­p­le for many.

The bran­d’s chain is quite long. For exam­p­le, ingre­di­ents come from Mol­do­va, Peru, New Cale­do­nia, among others. Pro­duc­tion takes place in Euro­pe and the pro­ducts are sold in 50 count­ries. So befo­re your new day cream rea­ches your home, it may have come a long way. For­t­u­na­te­ly, the brand does car­bon off­set­ting through sus­tainable pro­jects in Ugan­da: the cook­s­to­ve and bio­gas pro­ject. Both pre­vent defo­re­sta­ti­on, impro­ve public health and sup­port the local economy.

Wele­da offers a wide ran­ge of vegan per­so­nal care pro­ducts, but not all pro­ducts are vegan! So be sure to check the label befo­re buy­ing a pro­duct! What ani­mal ingre­di­ents did we find? Wele­da uses bees­wax in their body lotion, shaving cream, eye oint­ment, scrub and mois­tu­ri­zing lotion for men. The shaving lotion for men also con­ta­ins goa­t’s milk. 

The NATRUE label on all Wele­da pro­ducts gua­ran­tees you that the pro­ducts are not tes­ted on ani­mals. Wele­da also has out­lets in Chi­na. At COSH! we warn you when cos­me­tics are sold in Chi­na. Why exact­ly? When a cos­me­tics brand exports to Chi­na, the brand auto­ma­ti­cal­ly gives Chi­na per­mis­si­on to test on ani­mals. But Wele­da is the excep­ti­on to the rule! The brand sells in Chi­na, but with the gua­ran­tee that they do not test on animals. 

Wele­da sells in Chi­na only pro­ducts that can be regis­tered wit­hout ani­mal test­ing, such as cer­tain soaps and oral care pro­ducts. Wele­da refu­ses to launch any part of their per­so­nal care pro­ducts in Chi­na as long as ani­mal test­ing is neces­sa­ry to mar­ket new cos­me­tics. Wele­da is thus demons­t­ra­ting that their values and prin­ci­ples are ful­ly exten­ded to the smal­lest details of their busi­ness. Fan­ta­stic to see! At COSH! we hope that many other cos­me­tics brands will fol­low Wele­da’s exam­p­le in China.

Wele­da offers care pro­ducts for the who­le fami­ly. The pro­ducts are divi­ded into three cate­go­ries: face care, body care and pregnan­cy and baby. The face and body care pro­ducts are for every stage of life and every skin type.

Wele­da is very trans­pa­rent about their raw mate­ri­als; they recei­ve a 9/10 from COSH! On their web­site, the brand details whe­re each raw mate­ri­al comes from and from which com­pa­ny. For exam­p­le, we see that sesa­me oil comes from Mexi­co through the local fami­ly-owned com­pa­ny Sesa­jal. For each ingre­di­ent, you can thus find the ori­gin and sup­pli­er. Great!