Green Beauty Conversations by Formula Botanica

Walk into any beauty store today, and shoppers can tell you about the benefits of peptides, retinoids or hyaluronic acid with ease. Yet ask about seaweed and you'll often be met with blank stares or vague memories of green face masks. And that's the case with many skincare ingredients, despite years of research and traditional use. In this week's episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Lorraine Dallmeier asks a provocative question: why do some skincare ingredients make it big almost overnight, while others take decades to gain mainstream traction? If you're a formulator, brand founder or curious beauty consumer, this is one for you.      Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

Could kelp be the future of beauty? Listen to this episode of Green Beauty Conversations with Samantha Garwin, Director of Market Development at GreenWave, to discover the untapped potential of kelp in beauty. Sam reveals why kelp offers benefits land-based plants simply can't, how the beauty industry can harness this ocean-grown powerhouse, and the hurdles still keeping it from going mainstream. If you're curious about the future of sustainable ingredients, this is an episode you won't want to miss.   Special opportunity for beauty brand founders: Apply to GreenWave's Kelp Innovation CoLab, which is offering up to $50,000 in funding to help pioneering brands bring kelp-powered products to market.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

AI has levelled up – and if you've been playing with tools like ChatGPT lately, you've probably noticed it too. Two years ago, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier challenged ChatGPT to create a cosmetic formulation for her, and it was a frustrating merry-go-round of vague advice, incorrect safety limits, and an irritating insistence that she should "hire a cosmetic chemist." Fast-forward to today, and Lorraine decided it was time for a rematch… only this time, she listened. Here's what happened.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

Artificial Intelligence is no longer just a futuristic buzzword – it's already shaping the way cosmetics are researched, formulated, and launched. In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier talks to Hejab Malik, co-founder of Potion AI – a San Francisco-based technology company with over 10,000 global users. Together, they explore how AI is already embedded in beauty R&D, what it can (and can't) do, and whether it will ever replace the cosmetic chemist. If you want to know how AI might transform your own formulation process – and how to stay ahead – you won't want to miss this fascinating conversation. Special offer for listeners: Get 10% off a Potion subscription using the code 'FORMULABOTANICA'.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

Behind the glossy claims and Instagram-friendly campaigns of beauty brands, there's a serious problem: most brands aren't actually measuring their environmental impact. And without hard data, all those 'sustainable' promises risk being little more than marketing spin. In this week's episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier pulls back the curtain on the beauty sector's sustainability gap – the uncomfortable truth that without measurement, the industry can't meaningfully improve. Tune in now to find out the truth.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

Behind every beauty product lies a hidden challenge: a complex data problem that makes true sustainability nearly impossible to measure. In this week's episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Lorraine Dallmeier talks with Evan Peters, CPO of Fairglow, to uncover why the beauty industry struggles to put real numbers behind environmental claims – and why that matters more than ever. Discover how data gaps hold brands back, the power of product-level impact measurement, and what the future of transparent, data-driven beauty looks like. If you care about real change in beauty, this conversation is a must-listen.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

In an industry dominated by multinationals and million-unit launches, it's easy to feel like being a "small" beauty brand is synonymous with being insignificant. But what if this wasn't true? In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO and podcast host Lorraine Dallmeier unpacks the true meaning of "small" in the indie beauty industry and challenges the mindset that sometimes holds brands back. Whether you're just launching your brand or you've been in business for years, this is your reminder that small beauty brands aren't just capable of change – they're often the ones driving it.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

What really happens behind the scenes of contract manufacturing in the beauty industry? In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier goes inside the buzzing world of large-scale beauty production with Dan Williams, CEO of Orean Personal Care – the UK's only B Corp-certified beauty manufacturer. Whether you're just starting your beauty brand or ready to scale, this episode is packed with practical insights, powerful advice, and behind-the-scenes stories from one of the industry's top contract manufacturers.   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

What if the thing holding your indie beauty brand back wasn't failure – but success? In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, host Lorraine Dallmeier explores why, for many indie beauty founders, achieving success feels more terrifying than falling short. We often talk about fear of failure, but rarely do we acknowledge that fear of success can be just as paralysing. In this episode, Lorraine challenges people to think differently about what success means, and how visibility, money, and mindset play into it. Tune in now!     Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

What does success really look like for a beauty entrepreneur? In an industry that often celebrates rapid growth, aggressive fundraising, and influencer-heavy marketing, there's a quieter, more sustainable path – one that values creative control, profitability, and long-term impact over flashy headlines. In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Lorraine Dallmeier – Chartered Environmentalist, Biologist and CEO of Formula Botanica – is joined by Chinelo Chidozie, co-founder of Bolden, a beauty entrepreneur who bootstrapped her brand into over 1,000 Walmart stores across the United States, without any external funding. If you've ever wondered whether you can grow a beauty brand on your own terms, this episode is for you. Tune in now!      Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

Everywhere you turn in beauty, you get the same message: results, results, results. Products promise to brighten, firm, and smooth – fast. But what happens when efficacy becomes the only measure of a product's worth? In this thought-provoking solo episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO, Biologist, and Chartered Environmentalist Lorraine Dallmeier invites us to rethink one of the beauty industry's most entrenched standards. Tune in now!     Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

Have you heard the news? Clean beauty is out. Dirty beauty is in. This week on Green Beauty Conversations, Lorraine Dallmeier, Chartered Environmentalist, Biologist and CEO of Formula Botanica, speaks with Stephen Smith, the regenerative entrepreneur behind Nuturn – a pioneering skincare ingredient complex that redefines what it means to be effective, ethical, and elemental. If you've ever questioned whether clean beauty has become too clinical, too sanitised, and too disconnected from nature, then this episode is for you.     Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram

What if the next big breakthrough in beauty wasn't hidden deep in a jungle, but growing in your own back garden? In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier asks whether the industry's obsession with exotic ingredients is no longer serving us – or our planet. Must beauty always come wrapped in mystique and flown halfway across the world? Or could the future lie in ingredients that are local, familiar and often overlooked? Tune in now to find out!   Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

How do you turn farm waste into liquid gold and build a cult beauty brand in the process? Well, Allison Taylor from Le Prunier did just that. Along with her sisters, Allison took a forgotten byproduct from their fourth-generation, 100-year-old plum farm and turned it into a skincare phenomenon that's gone viral – while staying completely self-funded. In a world obsessed with growing fast and big, Le Prunier chose slow growth, intention and innovation, proving that less can truly be more. In this week's episode of Green Beauty Conversations, Allison returns to the podcast to tell the remarkable story behind Le Prunier. Tune in now!    Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram  

Is the future of beauty really found in a lab? Or does true sustainability lie in the soil, the roots, and the traditional ways of working with nature? In the final part of this thought-provoking four-part series, Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier looks ahead at the shifting definitions of sustainable beauty, and asks whether the next big divide won't be natural vs synthetic, but harvested vs lab-grown. Tune in now so you don't miss out!    Free Resources Free formulation course | Green Beauty Conversations Podcast | Blog | YouTube Socials: Formula Botanica on Instagram | Lorraine Dallmeier on Instagram