Trusted Source

If you buy posh food these days it feels like you can get pretty much every piece of information about how it’s produced—who the farmer was, their birth weight and their opinion on Ted Lasso.  And that’s broadly a good thing. We want assurances that what we eat hasn’t been grown using GMOs, or that forests haven’t been cut down to make space for our steel-cut oats.

We’d like the same for our beauty regimes, given that it’s a multibillion-dollar industry that uses plant-derived ingredients in virtually every type of product—French brand Clarins has a herbarium made of more than 200 plants. “Traceability is a global concern for consumers, wanting more transparent data—many fields including food, fashion and skincare are concerned by this need,” says Marie-Hélène Lair, Clarins’ responsible innovation director. “Ninety per cent of clients consider that a brand’s transparency plays an important role in the decision to purchase a product or not.”

Clarins has been working on solutions to this for more than 50 years, when it introduced the Client Card, included with every product, which allowed customers to communicate directly with the brand. “It was a pioneering step in terms of listening to clients, being close to them and offering a sense of transparency,” explains Lair. In 2020, Clarins introduced its Responsible Sourcing Charter, which laid out requirements around reasonable and sustainable farming practices, traceability by country and fair-trade practices.

Now, Clarins has taken another giant leap toward full accountability with a new platform: Clarins T.R.U.S.T. “Suppliers and producers alike share information directly on the platform. Once entered in the system, this information becomes tamper-proof: blockchain technology certifies its authenticity, without allowing anything to be modified,” Lair says. Currently, 30 products and 40 plant extracts are listed on the platform. By the end of this year, there will be close to 100.

How it works: use your phone to scan the QR code on your product’s packaging, which will take you to the Clarins website. Enter the batch number from your product, and you’ll see every step of its journey to you, including details like where the ingredients were grown, the responsibility standards they meet, the exact factory where your product was produced and how it was tested for quality.

The brand isn’t stopping in its drive toward transparency. It is committed to being B Corp certified by the end of this year. This is a rigorous process where applicants have to demonstrate positive social and environmental impact and exhibit transparency. “It recognizes the progress being made by Clarins in terms of management and well-being at work, while also focusing on our environmental impact and positive social actions,” explains Lair. What’s next? Who knows—but like Ted Lasso, we believe. —Aileen Lalor

clarins.ca