In episode 73 of the Disruptors for GOOD podcast, I speak with Tiila Abbitt, Founder of Āthr Beauty on disrupting the $500 billion beauty industry through actual clean cosmetics and sustainable packaging.

Founded in 2018 by Tiila Abbitt, a passionate, highly creative product development professional with 11+ years’ experience – including the international prestige beauty industry.

Tiila has a BFA in sculpture and an MFA in fashion design. She worked in the fashion industry for over 5 years before transitioning to beauty. She is highly passionate for the sustainable beauty product realm.

Tiila spent 7 years at Sephora in charge of product development for makeup collaborations and accessories.

Her obsession with sustainability lead her to become the lead R+D for sustainable materials while also being on the sustainability leadership council for the retailer.

Being a global brand, Tiila quickly learned that in the USA, there are only 11 banned chemicals in color cosmetics while in the European Union, there are over 1300.

Because of this, she learned how to formulate color cosmetics with a very large chemical ban list and how to substitute for cleaner alternatives. Tiila has had a long tenure passion for the organic product realm and has been a vegetarian for over 24 years, and also incorporating a plant based diet.

Always bringing natural, organic alternatives into her everyday (including learning how to cook organic food at an organic restaurant while in college) she started to look at natural makeup formulation and just found that none of the offerings could truly compete with the efficacy of conventional beauty.

The space lacked choice of color and trend, as well as truly sustainable packaging.

Plastic makeup componentry is a huge source of pollution globally and Tiila really wanted to create a brand that was ethically-sustainable, beyond the formulation, but in everything that Āthr Beauty creates.

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