To refill or not to refill, that is the question?
There is a growing demand for in-salon refill stations, where clients can bring their empty hair-product bottles back for a top-up. Want to find out about the realities of this on-trend idea?
“Refilling is quite a conundrum,” Herb UK Founder and Managing Director Raoul Perfitt says. “We all want to reduce our use of plastic, but we also need the product we use to be housed safely so it doesn’t spoil.”
When Herb UK fills a bottle with its Organic Colour Systems (OCS) product it does so under strict hygienic conditions. Regular microbial tests and swabs are taken to ensure each product has a good shelf life.
“We have to be strict on this because it’s how our products can contain such low levels of preservatives and the highest number of natural and organic ingredients; keeping OCS as one of the most natural professional ranges on the market,” Raoul says.
But maintaining these standards in a salon environment is a huge challenge.
“At this stage, the only way I can see in-salon refills working is for products to contain higher levels of synthetic preservatives and ingredients than we’re comfortable using.”
He suggests refill stations effectively turn a salon into a product producer – with all the obligations that go with that.
“It makes them liable for the product’s quality, stability, efficacy and batch traceability, not to mention label requirements, which can include legal warnings and instructions as well as ingredient lists.
“These regulations are onerous, even for a company like ours with 30 years manufacturing and production experience.”
Raoul says his company will not offer a refill station option until it’s found a 100% safe and proven sterilisation and label compliant process – one that protects its hairdressers from the consequences of getting these things wrong.
But that doesn’t mean other work can’t be done on reducing environmental impact. In fact, Organic Colour Systems has been leading the environmental charge in salons for decades.
Today, every OCS bottle – both retail and colour – is made with 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic.
“That means they’ve likely been some kind of single-use container in a past life,” Raoul says.
These 100% recycled bottles are then filled from 1000kg reusable containers ready for distribution to the salon.
“All the customer has to do is use the product and pop the bottle in their recycling collection to be melted down and made back into our bottles,” Raoul says. “Our ultimate goal is to ‘close the loop’ with full visibility and control of our bottle recycling programme.”
Raoul urges hairdressers to educate and remind their clients about the importance of recycling, and to ensure they’re maintaining good recycling and environmental practices in-salon too.
Among many other initiatives, Organic Colour Systems offers an eco-option for one of it’s most popular styling products, Control Volume. This option requires clients to keep the pump – which is not recyclable but will last for years – from their original Control Volume purchase. They can then reuse the pump when they purchase their 100% recycled and recyclable Volume Refill pumpless option.
“There’s real room to grow recycling in this sort of area. In fact, it always astounds me how few people buy the refill bottle,” Raoul says.
“I would encourage our salons and their clients to strive, every day, to do a little bit better than the day before when it comes to reducing plastic use. We won’t ever stop striving to do better every day. That’s a promise!”
Watch this space for more Organic Colour Systems eco and refill options COMING SOON!
