Organic, Vegan and On Your Doorstep

LoveGoodly helps shoppers discover conscious brands.

Eco-entrepreneur Katie Bogue Miller and her partner Justin Lassoff have built a career on helping women make healthier, more responsible shopping choices, from fashion to cosmetics.

Their latest effort, organic beauty subscription box LoveGoodly, is designed to help women discover all-natural, earth-friendly, vegan products every two months, while supporting worthwhile animal and women’s health charities.

“It’s a big passion of mine to help people find better brands with better quality that are better for you, vegan and cruelty-free,” Bogue Miller explains.

Unregulated and potentially toxic

It’s an important niche because while governments in Canada and the European Union have banned more than 1,300 ingredients considered unsafe for use in cosmetics, the U.S. has banned only 11, leaving consumers to fend for themselves in vetting the safety of skin care, makeup and other personal care items.

Every day we expose ourselves to so many potential toxins in our personal care products, Bogue Miller reveals, much of which is absorbed into the skin and can enter the bloodstream. The average U.S. woman uses 12 personal care products or cosmetics a day, which contain 168 different chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group. While most men use fewer products, they’re still exposed to about 85 such chemicals daily.

Bogue Miller, who had previously cofounded an eco-friendly flash-sale website, says her job is to seek out the best-performing, best-packaged natural products and deliver full sizes of these products to the company’s thousands of subscribers every two months.

The bimonthly subscription and full-size products are a departure from other beauty sample boxes, such as Birchbox, and the longer timing between shipments is a conscious decision, designed to keep people from getting more than they can use.

What’s in the box?

Subscribers pay $29.95 every other month for a box that contains four to five full-size products that are valued at over $85.

These products have ranged from hand-poured, organic essential oil candles to moisturizers, cleansers, lip balm, natural nail polish, supplements, natural vegan snacks, and often a fair-trade accessory such as a scarf or piece of jewelry.

Many of the boxes are curated by celebrity vegans such as Alicia Silverstone or Emily Deschanel, who are passionate about conscious products, and the charities LoveGoodly supports with its sales.

At least 5 percent of the price of the box, and a percentage of sales on its e-commerce site, go to charities that include animal rescue organization Farm Sanctuary; anti-animal-testing organization Beagle Freedom Project; and Curecervicalcancer.org, dedicated to treating cervical cancer in developing countries.

Moving plant-based cosmetics into the mainstream

Perhaps just as rewarding, Bogue Miller says, is the opportunity to help move plant-based, organic brands out of the natural food store and into the mainstream.

With many big subscription-box companies, brands have to donate samples to get their products in the box and, hopefully, gain sales. Bogue Miller pays a reduced price for the full-size products she includes in the boxes, and she provides feedback on packaging and customer response, so brands can make their products ready for larger outlets without as much financial risk.

Brands such as Blissoma, Little Barn Apothecary and Mullein & Sparrow can deliver a single product, such as a moisturizer, through the box, and then customers who like it can find the remaining range of their products on LoveGoodly’s website.

The company is working on greater customization for each box, and Bogue Miller also wants to expand LoveGoodly’s shopping site, bringing more natural products to a much wider audience.

Bogue Miller claims, “We would like to become the green version of Sephora.”

Photo credit: LoveGoodly