The City of Toronto is home to a range of beauty businesses with sustainable processes or operations; this list consists of 6 clean beauty businesses doing their part to make a difference.
Pretty Clean Shop
Pretty Clean Shop was founded by Miriam Juarez in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood in 2019. The idea formed after Juarez watched a documentary on the amount of plastic waste created in North America on a daily basis. It was a real eye-opener for her, and being pregnant at the time with her first child, she began the detailed planning and research process involved in finding out how she could support natural, healthy, and eco-friendly companies.
As she continued to learn, Juarez realized she could provide high-quality products without having to pay or charge more; the only real barrier to “the wonderful world of sustainable living” was the lack of availability at local grocery stores. To combat this, she created a one-stop shop for effective, beautiful, and functional products for home, body, ad personal care – all made with safe ingredients, free of toxins, and unpackaged.
Pretty Clean Shop also goes a step further by providing refills and refillable options for a number of home, health, beauty and DIY products. When shopping online, if a product has the refillable symbol (see below) then the store will honour the following:
- Buy a pre-filled bottle or mason jar (price includes jar deposit)
- Return (clean, empty & with lids)
- Refill (swap for a full one, only paying for the product) or
- Don’t need a refill? Get your deposit back in return for in-store credit
While refills are usually honoured in-store, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some changes have been made. Click here, to read more.
Province Apothecary
After personally struggling with allergies and eczema her whole life, Province Apothecary founder Julie Clark began creating natural, organic beauty products from her home kitchen. In 2010, Clark began studying Aromatherapy, Holistic Health & Esthetics in Toronto, where she formed the foundation of her skincare expertise, while having the opportunity to experiment with raw materials and natural ingredients.
While the company has definitely outgrown Clark’s home kitchen, her devotion to fresh, seasonal, and organic beauty continues. Now a certified holistic esthetician and aromatherapist, Clark continues to commit to offering customers high quality innovative, sustainable, and small-batch skin care. As well, Province Apothecary holds the following certifications & memberships:
- Just Beautiful Pledge
- Vegan Certified
- Proudly Canadian
- Cruelty-Free
- Bullfrog Powered Business
- Green Business Certified
- Think Dirty Member
Not only has Julie Clark provided North America with access to such high-quality, sustainable products, but also donates a percentage of sales to several different organizations each year. These organizations are selected by the Province Apothecary team, with the sole aim of benefiting the community. In the past few years, donations have been made to the following organizations:
- Black Lives Matter TO
- The Care Collective – Frontline Workers
- Planned Parenthood, Toronto
- Native Women’s Resource Centre, Toronto
- Supporting Our Youth (SOY), Toronto
- Canadian Honey Council
- Earth Roots
- Nature Conservancy of Canada
- Canadian Organic Growers
- 1% for the Planet
The Province Apothecary website also includes a Land Acknowledgement, as the Province Apothecary Clinic, Office & Production Facility are located upon traditional territories of the Anishinabek, Huron Wendat, and Haudenosaunee First Nations.
To book a virtual appointment with a Holistic Skincare Therapist for a skin, naturopathic, or meditation consultation, click here. To see Province Apothecary’s products, click here.
Queen’s Shop
Queen’s Shop is a hair salon located in Bloordale Village, dedicated to sustainability, beauty, and the local community. The salon’s founder, Alicia Lumsden, searches for “plant-powered products, sourced as sustainably as our current world allows.” Her mission is to find a way for beauty to harmoniously coexist with nature.
Queen’s Shop offers haircuts, colouring, and highlights for clients in an inclusive and safe space, actively supporting all people, with a zero-tolerance hate policy. As well, Queen’s Shop is a Certified Sustainable Salon under Green Circle Salons. What does this mean? Well, Green Circle Salons work to recover and recycle up to 95% of a salon’s beauty waste. This includes taking responsibility for:
- Hair Clippings
- Excess Hair Colour
- Metals
- Single-Use Items
- PPE Waste
- Paper, Cardboard & Plastics
Queen’s Shop is one of Green Circle Salon’s Certified Partners – or “Waste Warriors”, and has been since 2015. With their help, Queen’s Shop has successfully recovered and/or repurposed 95% of their salon waste, and in 2019, they diverted a total of 850 lbs of waste!
While the shop is currently closed due to COVID-19, Queen’s Shop does have an online store of their many carefully-selected beauty and haircare products. To browse their selection, click here.
Wildcraft Care
Wildcraft is a Toronto-based clean beauty company devoted to creating 100% natural skincare products at attainable costs. All products are “thoughtfully minimalist, handmade in small batches and simply designed with fresh and organic ingredients.” Wildcraft Care founder, Laura Whitaker, founded the company on the belief that all-natural skin products deliver the best possible skincare routine.
Wildcraft makes all of their products themselves, paying attention to every detail, and perfecting each formula to ensure consistency and excellent quality. As well, extra care is taken in ensuring ingredients are sourced organic, cruelty-free, never tested on animals, elemental or plant-based, sustainable, and/or socially conscious.
To shop Wildcraft’s natural, carefully-created beauty products, be sure to check out their website, here.
Think Dirty
Think Dirty is the #1 beauty ingredients app, working to connect ingredient-conscious consumers to more natural brands. Their mobile platform engages consumers and businesses to help make healthier and more socially conscious choices regarding ingredients, safety, and environmental health. Over 4 million consumers use Think Dirty to shop and to learn about various toxic ingredients found in everyday cosmetics and personal care products. This is done via an easy search or barcode scan. Think Dirty currently hosts over 500K products, and just over 18 million scans have been completed on their app, spanning 33 countries. Think Dirty users can keep track of products they’ve purchased and used, and provide a platform for connection and information-sharing between beauty lovers.
Think Dirty also partners with companies as committed to clean beauty as they are. For certain natural beauty brands, Think Dirty will offer a verification service that carefully reviews a company’s ingredient list in a database. Upon inspection, if passed, the brand will be listed with a checkmark icon to let users know the brand’s ingredient list has been carefully vetted.
For more information on Think Dirty’s Dirty Meter and various methodologies for assessment, click here. If you’re interested in checking out their various partnering brands and shop their wares, click here!
The Detox Market
Since 2010, Founder and CEO of The Detox Market, Romain Gaillard, started the company with the hopes of cleaning up the beauty industry. Since then, the Market’s team has been working hard to curate the highest quality green beauty products; researching thousands of products so customers can feel secure in their choices.
With numerous locations throughout the City, including Union Station and Yorkville, the Detox Market aims to make reducing waste and sustainable living less overwhelming, and more accessible. As well, the company has curated an online “Sustainability Collection” to provide consumers with “thoughtful, affordable, and eco-friendly switches that fit seamlessly” with their daily needs. Their goal is to help consumers make small adjustments in their daily routines that can make significant long-term impacts.
The Detox Market also has their own sustainability program, called “Sustainability Starts Now”. The company is part of a campaign called #ShowYourStripes, a fact-based, visual representation of the global rise in temperature over the pas 120 years. When Founder Romain Gaillard came across the campaign, he says he was stunned; comparing where his parents were born on the chart, to where he was born was eye-opening enough, but when he saw where his children placed on the dark red stripes? Well, he realized thinks needed to change, and as soon as possible. The Earth CPR Initiative is The Detox Market’s roadmap for sustainability for the next 5 years, including goals to become carbon negative, planting at least 2.5 million trees, and inspiring others to follow their lead.
To learn more about The Detox Market’s sustainability initiatives, see here. To shop products from the Sustainability Collection, see here.
The Sustainable Switch 
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