RainPharma

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.

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. 

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.

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!