Waste not, want not is the mantra at Each & Every, an indie brand that has been making a name for itself in the deodorant space since 2017. This sustainable self-care company uses materials like cedarwood oil—extracted from cedar tree byproducts such as sawdust, shavings, and bits and pieces that come from wood used within the furniture industry—in many of its natural deodorant scents.
 
Now, the company is taking that philosophy into a new category: skincare. Today, the brand has launched new Skin Goals Facial Oil, a cold-pressed vegan formulation that includes a pair of upcycled ingredients. 

Just ahead of the launch, We chatted with CEO and Co-Founder Lauren Lovelady about using upcycled ingredients for personal care, the impact of the pandemic and its foray into skincare products.
 
HAPPI:  How did your brand come to source the cedar wood fragrance oil? And how did this idea of upcycling raw materials come to be in the first place? 
 
LL: We approach all of our ingredient sourcing by seeking farms and suppliers who meet our clean criteria. For essential oils, specifically, this means we trace the ingredient to its origin and consider where it was grown and harvested and how it was distilled. We work with the farms and suppliers to ensure they are sustainably harvesting and that they consider the long-term vitality of the local ecology, including environmental and animal welfare. These practices look different for each ingredient, depending on the plant and what is best in their specific environment. When we were looking for cedar, we were delighted to find an upcycling opportunity. Cedar is commonly used in furniture, so we are able to take the shavings that remain and distill the cedar oil from them. This ensures that we aren’t taking the entire material and that every piece is used.  
 
HAPPI:  Are there other upcycled ingredients currently used by your brand?  
 
LL: Yes! We are launching into skin care this month and our first product will contain two ingredients that are upcycled. One of the key ingredients is chia seed oil and after the seeds are cold-pressed to extract the oil, the remaining cake from the seeds gets turned into defatted chia flour, which is used in the food industry. We also use pomegranate seed oil and the pomegranate seeds we use are a byproduct of the pomegranate juice industry.  
 

HAPPI: Are there other “targets” for upcycling that you can share with us—and can you share if there are limitations currently in place now keeping your brand from using that source?  
 
LL: Upcycling is just one way to be sustainable but is not necessarily the only way to ensure sustainable harvesting. We prioritize ingredient quality, safety, transparency, and sustainability and there are times when an upcycled ingredient may meet our sustainability criteria but does not meet our quality criteria. It’s more important to us that the material is sustainably sourced than upcycled specifically, and we work hard to understand the full lifecycle of the material.
 
HAPPI: Do you believe upcycling is something for all personal care brands can implement into their business model? Why or why not?
 
LL: It is certainly something that brands can consider. It requires a lot of due diligence and relationship building, but that transparency is important to us as a brand and it’s something we have prioritized. 
 
HAPPI: How did your brand fare over the course of the pandemic—not that we are out of the woods, per se. But were there changes in your sales—good or bad—or to your operations? 
 
LL: We saw highs and lows like many brands do. We saw a surge in e-commerce particularly during quarantine, and with deodorant being our primary product last year we saw a lot of consumer behavior around making the switch to natural while staying at home. Many consumers told us that the stakes were lower during that time. They felt like they could take a chance to see how their body responded to natural deodorant when they weren’t seeing other people socially. But we saw supply chain impacts like so many others as well. Because we source ingredients from all over the world, we have a very global supply chain, and we saw production delays, shipping delays and higher costs as we all wrestled with the pandemic. We are still battling some of those impacts but were very fortunate to see the highs help balance the lows.