Design Life-Cycle
assess.design.(don't)consume
Amber Luong
Hannah Roxas, Simone Kane
Des40A
Professor Cogdell
Raw Material Life Cycle of Glossier You Perfume
Perfumes are well-known all over the world. Perfumes give a scent to an individual in which they want to smell a certain way. People love to get compliments on how good they smell so the hunt for the best perfume suitable for them will be a long ride, not for Glossier You Perfume though. Glossier You perfume is designed to fit everyone. The perfume adjusts to the person's body to give them their own scent. It's like their own natural scent but better. Glossier You perfume uses certain raw materials to get its unique scent and aesthetic packing everyone loves. The energy used in production allows the product to form and be used throughout the world. Glossier’s You perfume uses its materials to create its perfumes to last throughout its lifecycle in which the raw materials and product manufacturing are the most important steps in making the You perfume.
The raw materials used to make the Glossier You Perfume are unique since it is a different scent for each person. Pink pepper, iris, ambrette seeds, and ambrox are the main ingredients of the Glossier You Perfume that make it so unique in its scent. Each of these ingredients has its own properties to contribute to the scent, so combining it all together mixes all the scents to which it is a liking for everyone, no matter the preference. Pink pepper is a dried berry, which gives a bright, sparkling, and spicy scent. To get pink pepper into the formula for the perfume, “the aroma of pink peppery is extracted using steam distillation to produce an essential oil from the tiny red berries” (Scent Lodge). Ambrette seeds give off a woody, warm, and are “extracted from the seeds of this plant” to create its essential/ liquid oil which is “usually left to mature for several months, during which time it practically loses the greasy, oily nuances inherent in the fresh product” (Yudov). Afterward, “unnecessary fatty acids are first removed from the solid oil. For this, the oil is dissolved in ethanol and the solution is cooled: the acids precipitate, and then they are removed. Sometimes precipitation of acids in the form of calcium or lithium salts is used. The resulting product is called ambrette absolute” (Yudov). Iris is a flower plant that gives off a floral, powdery, and green scent. It first ages for 3 years and gets crushed and ground at its root and is “solvent extracted”, and is then crushed, rotated, coated with solvent types, which leaves behind a waxy material. Then it gets dissolved in ethyl alcohol and “burns off and produces perfume oil” (Alan). Ambrox is a chemical compound that gives off a creamy, musky, salty scent. It is “produced by the reaction of ambergris (main component of the grey ambergris, a waxy substance from the digestive tract of sperm whales) with atmospheric oxygen” (Scentspiracy) and is then “synthesized by sclareol” and dehydrated to form Ambroxide. All of these four main ingredients are processed and used other materials in order to be mixed into the perfume to create a unique scent.
The other materials that are also formulated into Glossier You Perfume are “Alcohol denat., fragrance/ parfum, water/ aqua/ eau, hydroxycitronellal, farnesol, and limonene” (Glossier). Alcohol denat is used in “perfumes to dilute and merge oils and aromas, and also to help the fragrance last longer on your skin” (Lush). Alcohol denat was used to help merge all four of the main ingredients to create a scent that will last. Water is added since “perfume with water would appear stronger to the nose as the water would help release the scent from the oil while pure alcohol would hold it back” (Healthy Journal). Farnesol is “used to anchor and enhance the components of a perfume” (Lisalise). Both water and farnesol are added to help enhance the scent of the fragrance. Hydroxycitronellal is a tertiary alcohol that has a lily scent to it. “Limonene is a colorless liquid with a pleasant, lemon-like odor that can be found in the rind of citrus fruits. Perfumers use limonene to impart its unique scent or flavor in a variety of everyday products” (Fragrance Creator Association). Hydroxycitronellal and limonene are added to contribute to the unique scent. These ingredients are added to either help mix and bring out the scent of the main ingredients or give their own added scent to the fragrance mixture. All the materials in the glossier You perfume are added and mixed together during its manufacturing and processing process to finally create a unique scented perfume. Now that the perfume is made, the perfume liquid needs a bottle to be held in.
The packaging of the Glossier You Perfume is also unique like its scent because of its signature millennial-pink color and thumbprint indent bottle which also “needs you to complete it” (Glossier). The Glossier You Perfume bottle is made of glass which is the base of the bottle, aluminum for its spray nozzle, and plastic for its red cap. “Glass is made from natural sand, soda ash, and limestone which are melted at very high temperature and at high temperature glass is structurally similar to liquids, however at ambient temperature it behaves like solids.” (Glass Alliance Europe). Glass can be molded into a variety of shapes allowing the thumbprint indent of the You perfume to be formed. The metal spray nozzle is made out of aluminum, which aluminum is made out of bauxite ore. “To separate the aluminum from the bauxite, it goes through a chemical process that leaves behind a toxic, red sludge. Making aluminum also releases super potent greenhouse gasses, called perfluorocarbon” (Verge Science). Once the aluminum is separated and ready to be used, it is shaped into a cylinder-like shape to form a spray nozzle. To cover the spray nozzle of the perfume, Glossier uses a red plastic cap. Plastic is known to be reusable but non-degradable. “Plastics are made from natural materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and crude oil through a polymerisation or polycondensation process” (Grain). Not only is the cap plastic, but it is also dyed red, which “this solution is most often used with perfume closures made of polypropylene or other materials whose natural color is not very attractive” (Politech). Dyes are dyed onto the plastic to give it color but other materials get added to it. These are the materials used for the perfume bottle itself so there are many more materials put into the packaging of the perfume.
The packaging of Glossier’s products is well known for their aesthetics and again their signature millennial-pink color. To hold the You Perfume, Glossier changed its bottle box from a red plastic box to a white “recyclable, molded paper carton” (Glossier). The raw materials (cardboard/ newspaper/ natural fibers) of the molded paper carton are “blended with water to make a pulp slurry…A vacuum pulls the slurry through the mesh tool until the desired thickness is achieved. The wet parts are released from the mesh tools and dried…Debossed logos or artwork can also be applied at this stage” (SPI). Glossier switched to using recyclable molded paper cartons to be more eco-friendly. Around the box is a rubber band used for safe transit. Rubber comes from the sap of a rubber tree in which the latex is found between the layers of the tree. “Natural rubber comes from latex, a milky fluid composed primarily of water with a smaller amount of rubber and trace amounts of resin, protein, sugar, and mineral matter” (Advameg, Inc.). After getting the sap and latex, the other materials are added to create rubber bands that can be reused several times. Outside of the perfume packaging, another packaging method is used.
To put all the products in, Glossier likes to use their iconic bubble wrap inside a pink resealable pouch to package their products. Bubble wrap is made out of polyethylene, a type of plastic. Resealable pouches are made out of 3 layers of film that are laminated to create one sheet. The first, innermost layer is made with “linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)”, the second middle layer is made with “metalized PET, VMPET, aluminum, VMCPP, nylon, or any combination of these materials”, and lastly the third most outer layer is made with “PET, BOPP, or paper, and is often matte for brands that want a non-glossy finish” (EcoEnclose). The three layers are made in order to make a whole sheet to make strong pouches. Lastly, Glossier includes stickers for every order. Stickers are made with different materials depending on the type but the most common stickers are vinyl stickers. To make vinyl stickers, “the PVC which are converted into flat sheets and married to pressure sensitive adhesive in order to create sticker vinyl. If you really want to break the process down to its foundation, it's the blending of a polymerized colorless gas and a sticky glue we in the decal industry like to call, "adhesive"” (GoDecals). This allows you to peel off the backing of stickers and stick your stickers anywhere. Now that the manufacturing and process are done, all the materials are formulated into its products, the You perfume can be delivered to customers.
To deliver, like any other company, they all use cardboard and packaging tape. Cardboard is recyclable and can break down quickly. “A cardboard box is basically made up of a flute (made up of recycled paper), sandwiched between two liners. It is now very common for these liners to also be made up of a considerable proportion of recycled content, sourced from old cardboard or other sources of second hand paper” (Brown). Since cardboard is made out of flute and old cardboard and paper, it can easily be recycled and used to deliver products. Plastic tape is made from “either the thermoplastic polymer polypropylene – also known as poly pro tape – or from polyvinyl chloride – also known as PVC tape” (Gertin). Glossier has its own logo printed onto its plastic tapes. Delivering packages are added materials that help bring products to people to use.
Once the You perfume is delivered to customers' homes, they can start to use it. To use the perfume, people press down on the spray nozzle to spray the fragrance which only sprays a certain amount each time. You can spray it as many times as you want before the perfume liquid runs out, which should take at least a year since it is 1.7 fl oz/ 50ml per perfume bottle. Glossier You Perfume will leave you smelling fresh in your very own unique scent until it is used up and thrown away.
Once the You Perfume is used up, it becomes waste so customers would throw them away, which ends up in landfills or recyclable bins. Glass bottles are dumped into recyclable bins where they can be recycled. “It can be crushed, melted, and repurposed infinitely, without ever reducing the quality…“new” glass bottles are almost always made using a portion of recycled glass” but in reality, most glass “tossed in a recycling bin will never make it to a glass recycling plant, let alone be repurposed into new materials. Most bottles break during the initial placement in the bins, or during transport and sorting. The remaining shards are left worthless and dumped in a landfill, where they can take up to 2 million years to decompose” (Sioneer). When glass bottles are recycled, some are actually melted and reused, but the leftover shards of the broken glass are left to decompose. The spray nozzles are dumped into landfills to be remade into new products again. Aluminum cans get sorted in which, “the machine uses infrared sensors to sort out what's metal and what isn't. Then blasts away any plastic or glass with jets of air. A powerful magnet sucks up any scraps of steel, leaving just aluminum” (DCODE by Discovery). After the aluminum is sorted, they are melted and put into molds to create ingots. It then passes back and forth on rollers to thin out the ingots to be flat and long enough to use the aluminum for new products. Since the spray nozzles are also aluminum, they would also go through a very similar process as aluminum cans. The red caps of the perfume are also dumped into landfill but because it is plastic it is unable to decompose. Some of the waste of Glossier You Perfume can be remade into other products like the You perfume again. Once the You perfume usage is completed and dumped into recyclable bins and landfills to be recycled or left to decompose, its lifecycle has ended.
Glossier’s You Perfume goes through its lifecycle again, from raw materials to manufacturing, delivering, usage, and recycling/ waste.
Glossier’s You Perfume has many raw materials and manufacturing steps to form the raw materials into its very own product to last its lifetime. It is unique unlike any other perfume so it is talked about a lot among people. Glossier You Perfume will leave you smelling so good, you will buy it again and again after each perfume bottle, allowing it to go through its lifecycle multiple times.
Work Cited
Advameg, Inc. “Rubber Band.” How Products are Made, 2023. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Rubber-Band.html#:~:text=Natural%20rubber%20comes%20from%20latex,%2C%20sugar%2C%20and%20mineral%20matter
Alan, Minhajul. “Iris Perfume – Properties, Distillation, and History.” Natural Perfumery Blog, 6 Oct. 2021. https://naturalnicheperfume.com/blog/iris-perfume-properties-distillation-and-history/.
Scentspiracy. “Ambroxan: The Evolution of a Synthetic Fragrance Ingredient”. Scentspiracy, 16 Mar. 2021. https://www.scentspiracy.com/synthetics/ambroxan
Brown, Tim. “How a Cardboard Box Is Made.” The Manufacturer, September 18, 2014. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/how-a-cardboard-box-is-made/
DCODE by Discovery. “How Are Aluminium Cans Recycled? How Do They Do It?” www.youtube.com, 21 Sept. 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmMP67eC2tg
EcoEnclose. “Stand Up Pouches and other flexible packaging for food.” Ecoenclose, 2023. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.ecoenclose.com/resources/ultimate-guide-to-stand-up-pouches#:~:text=Most%20pouches%20are%20made%20with,all%20different%20types%20of%20polymers
Fragrance Creator Association. “Limonene.” The Fragrance Conservatory, 2023. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://fragranceconservatory.com/ingredient/limonene
Gertin, Michael. “Everything You Need to Know About: Packing Tape.” Gertex Solutions, 2022. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://gertexsolutions.com/gertex-blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-packing-tape/
Glass Alliance Europe. “What is Glass?” Glass Alliance Europe, 2018. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.glassallianceeurope.eu/en/what-is-glass#:~:text=Glass%20is%20made%20from%20natural,temperature%20it%20behaves%20like%20solids
Glossier. “Glossier You.” Glossier, 2023. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.glossier.com/products/glossier-you
GoDecals. “How a Sticker Is Made [INFOGRAPHIC].” Go Decals, Accessed 8 Mar. 2023.
Grain. “How Plastics Are Made.” Plastics Europe, 2023. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023.
https://plasticseurope.org/plastics-explained/how-plastics-are-made/
Healthy Journal. “You Can Put Water in Perfume?” The Healthy Journal, Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.thehealthyjournal.com/faq/can-you-put-water-in-perfume
Lisalise. “Farnesol - From Perfume to Medicine.” Lisalise Blog, 13 June 2011, https://www.lisaliseblog.com/2011/06/farnesol-from-perfume-to-medicine.html
Lush. “Alcohol Denat.” Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.lushusa.com/ingredients/10022.html
Politech. “Perfume Caps – Transparent, Lacquered or Metallized?” Politech Cosmetic Packaging, 23 Oct. 2020. https://politech.pl/en/blog/perfume-caps-transparent-lacquered-or-metallized/
Scent, Lodge. “Why Pink Pepper Is the Hottest Ingredient in Perfumery.” Scent Lodge, 26 Feb. 2021, https://scentlodge.com/why-pink-pepper-is-the-hottest-ingredient-in-perfumery/
Sioneer. “Single-Stream Recycling and Its Impact on the Glass-Landfill Problem.” Sioneer, 5 Nov. 2018, https://www.sioneer.com/single-stream-recycling-and-its-impact-on-the-glass-landfill-problem/
SPI. “What Is Molded Pulp.” Sustainable Packaging Industries, 2022. https://s-packaging.com/pulp/what-is-molded-pulp/
Verge Science. “Is Aluminum Better than Plastic? It’s Complicated.” www.youtube.com, 21 Jan. 2020. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ0zCdUpa7w
Yudov, Matvey. Ambrette and Аmbrettolide in Perfumery. Fragrantica, 27 Sept. 2022. https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Ambrette-and-Ambrettolide-in-Perfumery-17092.html
Hannah Roxas
Professor Cogdell
DES 040 A A06
TA Lauren
March 15, 2023
The Embodied Energy in the Process of Glossier You
Glossier has become a well-known brand among the new generation for being effortlessly chic, and minimal, and having their iconic millennial pink all over their products. In 2017, the brand came out with the perfume, Glossier You which was created by Dora Baghriche and Frank Voelkl. It is a popular perfume priced at sixty-four dollars with a total of 4694 reviews. Glossier You has surfaced in the media for being a unique “skin smell - enhancer” for each wearer’s body. Due to this, it is important to study its sustainability to see if its mass production tries to reduce its carbon footprint. The central idea of my paper will be to examine Glossier You’s life cycle and how the embodied energy of raw materials, manufacturing, and distribution contributes the most to its environmental impact. By gaining more knowledge about how much energy goes into its life cycle, customers can be more mindful of what they are consuming and how it affects the planet overall.
It is important to understand the embodied energy that enters Glossier You’s first step in its life cycle, raw materials. This perfume is unique as Glossier’s website states “An eau de parfum that melts into skin and smells a bit different on everyone.” This is created by having a formula with ingredients that are designed to mix with the skin’s natural oils. Glossier’s website states that the ingredients are, “Pink Pepper, Iris, Ambrette Seeds, Ambrox, Alcohol Denat., Fragrance/Parfum, Water/Aqua/Eau, Hydroxycitronellal, Farnesol, Limonene.” Molecule ingredients that are common synthetics, such as Ambrox, Alcohol Denant, and Hydroxycitronellal, are produced through organic chemistry and sometimes extracted from natural ingredients. Specifically, alcohol denaturation involves a mixture of alcohol and ethanol. Ethanol needs to be extracted through dry-milling, which involves gas or oil to transport the corn at the start of the process and at the end to transport the ethanol. Coal is converted into electricity as secondary energy to power the grinder to ground corn into flour, a temperature cooker to reduce bacteria, fermentors, and distillation columns to cool and dehydrate the ethanol for blending. Certain molecules from natural ingredients like Pink Pepper, Ambrette seeds, and Limonene can be extracted using fractional distillation. Distillation occurs when a liquid is separated into its constituent substances with the desired purity. Distillation is powered by thermal energy to vaporize the liquid at high temperatures and then cool it to separate oil from water. However, distillation is not energy-efficient. “Distillation has a relatively low thermodynamic efficiency, requiring the input of high-quality energy in the reboiler to perform the separation task. At the same time, a similar amount of heat at a lower temperature is rejected in the condenser” (Kiss, Landaeta, and Ferreira, 2012.) For farnesol and flower ingredients such as Iris, solvent extraction is required to produce a better essential oil. The energy that enters solvent extraction is kinetic in that large drums rotate to cover the iris with either benzene or ether. Iris dissolves in the solvent, which turns into a wax that carries the oils. Alcohol and water were then added to the formula to dilute the ingredients and are ready to be blended in the aging process (which can take months or even years).
The next step after all the extracted oils are blended is to undergo quality control. This is usually done by a nose (a professional perfumer who creates mixtures that convey moods or concepts) to ensure that the scent is known as Glossier You. Quality control ensures that there are no harmful ingredients that may harm consumers and Glossier’s reputation. Fragrances are usually quality-controlled by gas chromatography. It involves using a GC-FID which is a production sample of the perfume to be compared to a reference that is already approved (David, Cucu, and Devos, 2020). It uses thermal energy to vaporize the liquid fragrance into the gas. It then uses kinetic energy to move the gas to be carried through a column where different substances move at different speeds, thereby separating them. Once the substances are separated, they are in the stationary phase where they are inspected, and their components are identified (Writers of Perkin Elmer, 2022). Since Glossier You has some synthetic chemicals rather than primary ingredients that require more time to extract, it requires less quality control and saves energy. Once the formula is approved by quality control, they are ready for the manufacturing phase.
Additionally, the manufacturing process of Glossier You involves a large amount of embodied energy in its life cycle. The manufacturing of the glass bottle starts by melting the raw materials. There are two methods to melt glass in a furnace. One option is to use thermal energy for a crucible furnace fueled by either oil (nonrenewable), gas (nonrenewable), or electricity. Another option was a pot furnace. The two ways to melt the glass in a pot furnace are an open fire (with a temperature of 1300–1600 °C) or flame heating (that uses electric current). The next step was to mold the glass into an iconic Glossier bottle. On Glossier’s website, the company writes, “An objet d’art in its own right, the bottle design was created in-house with a real thumbprint indent—much like the fragrance, it needs you to complete it.” The shape of the glass used to achieve the thumbprint indent can be molded by thermal stress in a viscous liquid state and then transformed into a solid when it cools. Thermal stress can be performed either through human labor or electric power. Manual forming involves kinetic energy from a worker to shape the bottle as the glass is still semi-solidified by blowing it in a shape once it comes out of the furnace. In the electric-powered mechanical forming option, kinetic energy uses the pressure of compressed air to create the intended shape of the bottle (Walter, 2022). The bottle was then annealed using thermal energy to maintain a specific temperature to eliminate internal stress and cooled to strengthen the bottle. The glass bottle is inspected manually for unwanted sand particles or bubbles.
The next step is to manufacture perfume caps and pumps for spraying. The bottle cap is dyed to color the iconic bright red to go along with the color of the band. The steel cap manufactured at a temperature using the thermal energy of coal (nonrenewable) between 1000 and 1500 degrees Fahrenheit has a bright red shade (Writrs of Felux, 2021). For the pump sprayer, the crimp type was the most common for finding perfume. Most of the pump components are made of plastic, which is injection-molded and subjected to vacuum plating.
Finally, a packaging box was manufactured to hold the perfume bottle. Glossier You’s the packaging is very minimal as the brand has recently made an effort to be more sustainable. “Sustainability is becoming a larger priority for us as a company, and we are excited to announce that you will be able to choose a limited packaging option without a pink pouch, stickers, or any packaging extras in online orders starting this summer’ (Dazed). For this reason, I will only look at the initial encasing of the perfume bottle and not any extras that can come with it. Glossier’s website says, “It arrives packed in a recyclable, molded paper carton and secured with a reusable rubber band for safe transit.” All these elements for making paper and rubber band packaging are made in factories that have electric-powered machines that convert energy from coal. The paper cartons are made of corrugated cardboard. The corrugated cardboard is made from wood pulp that is put into a fourdrinier machine to make paper and then put into steam-heated rollers to remove water. Fourdriner machines use thermal energy to dry paper and kinetic energy using pulleys to roll the paper. It is manufactured by transporting craft paper into electricity-driven corrugator rolls. The machine heats, glues, and presses the kraft paper into corrugated cardboard. A slitter score trims the cardboard into box blanks and then goes to the fabrication machines to turn it into the finished boxes. Moving on to a reusable rubber band. The rubber was machine-cut and flattened in a milling machine. It was then placed into extruding machines to cut the rubber into hollow tubes. It is then cured with mandrels (aluminum poles) to keep the rubber sticky, which is streamed through thermal energy. Finally, it was removed from the mandrels and slipped into finished rubber bands. The bottles were packaged and shipped to allow them to reach stores.
The final step for bottle-reaching customers is transportation. Glossier says on its “Help & FAQ” page, “Glossier currently ships to the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, and France.” It is significant to note that fragrance has limitations with shipping in the U.S. owing to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Glossier You and perfume, in general, must be shipped by ground only and not internationally since it contains alcohol and is considered hazardous. This means that the only option is to transport the perfume through semi-cargo trucks powered by fossil fuels, such as diesel and gasoline. The average energy required to power these trucks is 2.2 to 3.3 kilowatt-hours per kilometer. It has been found that diesel-powered trucks are on average 45% more efficient for traveling long distances than electric powered since the batteries are heavy and more expensive (Kaufmann and Moynihan, 2019). These semi-trucks travel all over the world for shipping. For example, as mentioned before, after referencing their Balm Dotcom and after the tubs are manufactured in Tennessee, they are transported to New Jersey by cargo trucks to fill the tubes with the product. It eventually makes it to Ohio to the warehouse and then to the stores (Mazzone, 2020). Glossier also gives the choice to purchase the perfume from the comfort of their own home through online delivery. (Glossier, 2017) said on Twitter that they prefer to use UPS for U.S. standard shipping. To examine the UPS, only 770 of the 108, 000 delivery vehicles are hybrid or electric as an energy source (the rest are diesel-powered) (Williams, 2017). Transportation is California’s biggest factor in the use of energy, contributing to global warming. Recently, clean truck regulations were passed in 2020 to increase the use of zero-emission trucks, which manufacturers must start using in 2024 (Lopez, 2022). Until then, we will wait to see how Glossier responds to this new regulation starting in 2024.
Customers do not have to use their own embodied energy to use the Glossier You. Kinetic energy is used as the customer presses down the nozzle with their fingers so that there is atmospheric pressure on the compressed pump so that the elastic spring forces suction of the liquid fragrance and goes up the nozzle to be sprayed into a mist. However, there is no need for additional energy to maintain it. Once the customer uses perfumes, there are several ways to approach the empty bottle.
Glossier You can be reused and recycled in several ways. Glossier provides locations to properly recycle used bottles on their website according to the consumer’s zip code when the product is used up and the bottle is empty. To obtain such locations, consumers can choose how to transport them. Usually, it is walking there, which uses the kinetic energy of the working muscles, or a car that uses specific types (depending on the type of car). The glass bottle can be recycled in a recycling bin, where it is transported by a recycling center through garbage trucks that use diesel fuel. This is beneficial because glass is a material that can be reused without losing its quality, making it use less energy to remake than using new materials. Packaging paper can also be recycled by sorting the contaminants to be transported to a paper mill by a garbage truck. However, the rubber band of the packaging holds the box together, and cannot enter the recycling bin. However, they can be reused to the customer's liking. When the bottles and packaging are recycled, they are transported for waste management through garbage trucks.
Waste management is the final step in Glossier You’s lifecycle. Glass waste management starts with a person putting manual energy into sorting the glass from other recycled materials. The glass is crushed by lasers powered by thermal energy into small pieces called cullets. The glass was mixed with the raw materials to be melted in a furnace powered by coal for thermal energy at over 1,500 °C. It was then molded into new glass bottles for different kinetic energies for either manual or mechanical forming in the same way as at the beginning of the glass cycle. It is good that it is reused because it takes glass over one million years to decompose (Lisa, 2022). The paper begins to be placed into a plumper (electric-powered) to mix with water. The pulp was washed to remove the old ink and dirt. It is then screened (electric-powered) so that it dries into recycled paper. Like glass, reusing paper requires less energy and water (70 %) than reusing paper pulp (Writers of Shred-it 2015). If the paper is not recycled, it takes between two and six weeks to decompose (Lisa, 2022). As rubber bands are not recyclable, it takes up to one year to decompose (Lisa, 2022).
In this study, I analyzed the energy that is mostly needed during the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing process, and distribution of Glossier You. By researching the life cycle of the perfume, I got a better grasp of how much-embodied energy goes into its lifecycle. In conclusion, the next time you pick up a bottle of Glossier You, you better understand how just one bottle has gone through its life cycle filled with embodied energy.
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Simone Kane
Hannah Roxas, Amber Luong
DES 40A
Professor Cogdell
Glossier You Lifecycle Waste Analysis Paper
Glossier’s You perfume launched in October of 2017, and has since become one of the brand’s best selling products. It’s advertised as a perfume made to smell like you, only better, as it supposedly adapts to each consumer’s natural skin pH levels. Its baseline fragrance notes include pink pepper, ambrette seeds, ambrox, and iris, which all together aim to create a “soft, warm, and familiar” palette (Glossier.). Glossier as a brand promotes itself as a company that employs thoughtful design, cruelty-free practices, and is on its way to becoming 100% vegan. Although, it seems the company’s cruelty-free moral compass may not extend to Mother Earth. By diving deeper into the waste production that comes from only one of the company’s products, we get a bigger picture of Glossier’s You lifecycle. This includes raw material acquisition, processing and manufacturing, distribution and transportation, use/reuse and maintenance, and waste management and recycling. The majority of wastes emitted throughout the lifecycle of Glossier’s You perfume come from the raw materials acquisition, manufacturing and production, and transportation and distribution phases. These wastes come in the form of excess materials and environmentally hazardous pollutants that contradict the company’s environmentally conscious public production.
Glossier You perfume’s lifecycle starts with raw material acquisition. The raw materials found in the ingredient list include alcohol denatured, water, and fragrance. Alcohol denatured is a form of alcohol mixed with toxic additives. The majority of alcohol denatured used in cosmetic products is ethanol, which is used to “ensure formula stability, emulsify ingredients, enhance skin absorption, or to preserve the product” (100% Pure). It’s also used to create an unpleasant taste in order to keep people from accidentally ingesting any product that contains the chemical. Starch-based ethanol, which composes the majority of United States based ethanol production, is created through a dry-milling process in which corn is ground into flour and fermented. This process also yields distillers grains and carbon dioxide (US Department of Energy). Carbon dioxide can be considered the first waste product in this lifecycle, as it is the leading greenhouse gas and proponent of climate change today. “a typical operation that makes 50 million gallons of ethanol will produce around 150,000 metric tons of CO2” (Atmos). Next comes the distribution of ethanol, which is necessary to transport it from dry-mills to factories and companies, including Glossier. According to the US Department of Agriculture, 90% of ethanol is transported by train or truck, mainly including tanker trucks and rail cars. Tanker trucks have gas tanks that hold up to 300 gallons of gas, which is necessary because their average miles per gallon is only 5.6. This means they burn a lot of fuel on every trip they take (Prime Inc.), meaning a single truck can release the Nitric Oxide equivalent of 100 cars per mile (Climate Nexus).
The next ingredient used in You is water. Water on its own can’t really be considered a waste product, as it isn’t a pollutant and can always be used. The only instance in which the use of water would create waste is any excess water that may have come in contact or been mixed with ethanol.
The final ingredient in You is fragrance, which according to the Glossier website, is made with pink pepper, ambrette seeds, ambrox, and iris. All of these ingredients are naturally found and biodegradable in their original state. However, the process of extracting these plants’ natural oils on industrial scales requires factories, machines, and transportation. This means the majority of fragrance waste originates in the factories processing the natural materials. This may include greenhouse gasses emitted from factories, i.e., carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, which are the primary greenhouse gasses released when burning fossil fuels. Transporting these natural extracts from factory to factory would also release many greenhouse gasses.
Aside from the actual perfume, we also have to look at the bottle and packaging. The physical bottle is made from baby-pink colored glass, with a metal nozzle, plastic tubing, a plastic cap, and a cardboard box with a rubber band securing it all. Glass is made from sand, soda ash, and limestone. Silica is the ingredient needed from sand to make glass, which means the sand has to undergo a chemical separation process to remove everything other than elemental silica. This means all the other elements and materials that may be in each sample of sand end up being waste products. These excess materials may include nearly infinite combinations of different rocks, elements, chemicals, etc. Glass is colored by adding metal oxides or powders, in this case, baby-pink is most likely made using selenium or manganese. Excess of either of these elements would make up a portion of the end product’s waste. According to Politech Cosmetic Packaging, colored perfume caps are usually made by mass-dyeing plastic made of polypropylene. Polypropylene is made from propylene gas, which is a byproduct of petroleum refining (Natural Library of Medicine). Petroleum refining comes with all the same waste products as other fossil fuel and natural oil mining, i.e., greenhouse gasses. The plastic tubes used to carry perfume up through the bottle are usually made of the same type of plastic and therefore emit the same wastes. The metal spray nozzles are made of aluminum, and would have similar emissions to the other materials’ factories.
Once the raw materials are transported to Glossier’s vendors’ factories, they are mixed, assembled, and packaged. In terms of the actual liquid perfume, waste from combining the ethanol, water, and fragrance would mainly come from the machines used to mix them. Assuming their factories are powered at least in part by fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, we can infer that a major waste product would be greenhouse gasses, mainly carbon dioxide. The same would go for all the other machines in the various factories that mold and fill bottles, insert tubes, and attach nozzles and caps. Another factor to note is that Glossier doesn’t own any of its own factories, and instead outsources through various vendors. This means there are additional transportation wastes due to the fact that numerous factories have to ship processing stages to one another. In order to limit repetition, the size of the processing and manufacturing section of this paper doesn’t completely reflect the amount of waste produced in this process. In reality the sheer number of machines and transports involved in the manufacturing phase emits an enormous amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Not to mention the excess materials that are left behind at each stage, i.e. glass, plastic, metal, and cardboard. All of these materials are processed at separate facilities, meaning the percentage that is reused or thrown out will vary for each material. Glossier also famously packages its products with branded stickers. These would not only add to the factory emissions, but incorporate new wastes, like sticker backings, adhesive, printing inks, and paper.
Glossier ships their products across the US, but also across seas, which means their transportation vehicles may include cargo ships, planes, trains, vans, and cars. The waste emissions from all of these vehicles include: carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter, soot, water vapor, contrail cirrus, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde. The majority of these emissions are detrimental to the environment and contribute enormously to global warming and climate change.
Using Glossier You doesn’t require any extra materials that could create waste, and there are no refilling options offered by Glossier for their liquid perfume. It can be used until the bottle is empty, at which point disposal happens. Other elements of the packing are also put to use, namely the stickers and reusable rubber band holding the package together. The sticker backings result in a waste product which can’t be recycled. Similarly, the rubber band can be reused over again until it breaks, at which point it must be put in the garbage, and can’t be recycled (South San Francisco Scavenger Recycling Guide).
Aside from the rubberband and sticker backings, the main cardboard packaging is a “recyclable, molded paper carton” (Glossier). The glass bottle can be recycled, but the metal nozzle and plastic cap cannot be. The plastic elements could take anywhere from 50 to 200 years to decompose (Mariah Hughes), and the metal nozzle will take between 200 and 500 years to decompose (Muncie Sanitary District). All in all, the majority of elements included in the physical product and packaging cannot be recycled and end up in landfills which contribute to waste for multiple decades.
In brief, Glossier presents itself as an ethical and environmentally conscious company, and many of their actions reflect these morals. These include not testing on animals, attempting to go completely vegan, and manufacturing some reusable and refillable products. Unfortunately, You in liquid form is not one of these products, and does contribute considerable amounts of waste to the company’s total emissions. The fact that Glossier doesn’t own any of its own factories may actually be negatively impacting the environment, because it means they have to outsource to multiple vendors, each with their own factories and waste emissions. This also increases transportation wastes. The majority of wastes emitted throughout the lifecycle of Glossier’s You perfume come from the raw materials acquisition, manufacturing and production, and transportation and distribution phases. These wastes come in the form of excess materials and environmentally hazardous pollutants that contradict the company’s environmentally conscious public production, and may ultimately make them an unsustainable company.
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