THERE’S A GAMUT of organic body-pampering items out in the market but their price points can be intimidating. So how do you “green” your vanity basket minus the big expense? Go local. “Organic products can be very expensive if you import them, but they can be less costly if locally manufactured,” said Jared de Guzman, brand manager for Watson’s Personal Care Stores Philippines, during the launch of Beyond Bath Organics at Manila Hotel Spa.
Beyond Bath, which is manufactured locally by cosmetics trading firm GlobalXchange Corp. (GXC), offers items at an average P247—about half or even a quarter of the price of imported organic products.
The range of organic beauty and personal-care treats include the hair-care line of shampoos and conditioners with nurturing and volumizing properties, as well as the bath and bodycare line, which consists of soap bars, lotions, body scrubs, body butter and liquid body wash. Bath and body treats have pore-cleansing, skin-lightening and soap-free soothing or rejuvenating variants.
Face value
“The packaging is very simple because… we want to show customers they are paying not for over-the-top packaging but what’s inside the bottle and what the brand stands for,” said De Guzman. All products are free of alcohol, mineral oil and parabens, a class of low-cost chemicals usually added to pharmaceutical and cosmetic products as preservative. In lieu of parabens, which recent studies suspect of being carcinogenic, or cancer-causing, Beyond Bath uses naturally occurring and naturally derived preservatives.
Active ingredients sunflower, grapefruit and the newly discovered Inca inchi seed oil offer the benefits of skin-friendly elements like vitamins E and C, high amounts of antioxidants plus anti-aging properties. Inca inchi oil has even been “eco-certified” by Greentech, a European authority in naturally and organically derived cosmetic ingredients.
Sponsoring preservation
“Our products are authentic in a sense that we require suppliers to provide eco-certification for the ingredients,” said Moran. “Anyone can say it’s organic… but they can’t produce eco-certification for the raw materials.”
Moran said thorough investigation and analysis are musts for the brand. Each formulation was created for tropical conditions—therefore suited to Filipino skin—and with the feel of a regular hair- or bodycare product.
“Most organics sacrifice color and texture because they don’t use foaming agents but, with Beyond Bath, you get the benefits of natural and organic products without the usual drawbacks,” she said.
To further the green advocacy, Beyond Bath has partnered with environmentalist group Bantay Kalikasan in sponsoring the preservation of a one-hectare forest at La Mesa Watershed, the major source of water in Metro Manila. The brand also made a commitment, in behalf of each media participant at the launch, to adopt and plant a tree at Ecopark Nature Reserve, under the Adopt-A-Tree Program of Bantay Kalikasan.
These projects, said De Guzman, are in keeping with Watson’s aim to develop Beyond Bath as an advocate of having a green environment and sustainable future for everyone.