A new beauty industry nonprofit is taking aim at beauty’s tossed-out products.
The organization, called Beautyfor, is taking on excess inventory from beauty brands and will sell them in quarterly ticketed sales in New York. Its inaugural sale will be June 22, with tickets going live June 8 on its website.
Its cofounders and co-chief executive officers, veteran beauty editors Zoë Weiner and Gabby Shacknai, came up with the idea following a sale of donated products they organized earlier in the fall to benefit the Israel Red Cross and IsraAID following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The reception from that sale, the two said, far exceeded expectations.
“We thought we would raise maybe $1,000 or $2,000,” Shacknai said. “We had over 1,200 people between two days of in-person sales, and we raised over $125,000. Neither of us were aware of product waste, either, so when we found out that up to 40 percent of beauty products wind up in landfills each year, we decided to bring awareness to the problem.”
The nonprofit will allow participating brands — which currently include Peter Thomas Roth, IGK, Juice Beauty, Tower 28, Act + Acre, HigherDose and Dedcool, among others — to nominate their charities of choice at the top of the year, which the brands will then vote on. For each of the quarterly sales, Beautyfor will pick three of the 12 winning charities to spotlight.
“The four quarterly sales are the crux of our organization,” Shacknai said. “But we also plan to host some events in between that may spotlight singular brands or organizations, and that will be a bit more intimate in feel.”
For the June 22 sale, the three charities are The Jed Foundation, The Trevor Project and the Humane Society.
“The three pillars of the organization are sustainability, since this is an alternate destination for products that would otherwise end up in the trash; philanthropy, as all of the proceeds from our sales go to charity partners, and community, because we didn’t expect so many people to come shop and interact with us in the fall,” Weiner said.
To be eligible for donation, products must be at least three months away from expiring. Most retailers in the U.S. require products to be six to 12 months away from their expiration dates for them to make shelves. At the sales, they will be sold at a discount of 25 percent or greater.
“There will also be plenty of activations, the sorts of things that we as editors have gotten to enjoy for many years brought to the masses, as well as promo codes, vouchers to redeem with local beauty destinations and discounts for some of our partner brands’ websites,” Shacknai said.
The reception has been overwhelmingly positive from brands, with only a few declining to participate due to their own inventory constraints, Shacknai said. It’s also been positive with industry insiders. Beautyfor has formed an advisory board which includes makeup artists Daniel Martin and Vincent Oquendo, dermatologist Michelle Henry, Megababe founder Katie Sturino, beauty editor Kayla Greaves, and editor-turned-consultant Emily Dougherty. Allison Turquoise, a content creator and packaging expert, has also joined.
“We’re working with them to gut check ourselves throughout this process and to make sure we’re staying true to the core of our mission,” Weiner said.
For larger brands, Beautyfor presents an opportunity to mitigate product waste. For smaller ones, it’s also a brand awareness opportunity. “The smaller brands have a lot of excitement around the community portion of it, and many of them are looking to reach new shoppers,” Weiner said. “They may not have a billboard in Times Square or an endcap at Sephora, but we as editors love great products and want to highlight those brands.”
