The most luxurious sustainable beauty brands to know now

French brand La Bouche Rouge is a trailblazer in eco-conscious luxury beauty, offering refillable options in offcut leather since its inception in 2017. You'll find pigmented lipsticks, compact powders and eyeshadow palettes in chic packaging that can be refilled indefinitely (and make for excellent gifts). The latest launch is a range of four beautiful fragrances made from upcycled ingredients. Each one is of course refillable, with refill tubes made from recyclable aluminium.

Guerlain has launched a number of planet-focused initiatives in recent years. The brand's 'bee university' brings together leading experts in attempt to slow declining bee populations, while its support of Indian vetiver production has revived a slowing farming industry. The new Aqua Allegoria Harvest Neroli Vetiver fragrance spotlight honey produced by the brand's Women For Bees initiative with UNICEF.

French newcomer Ulé uses 'vertical farming' to sustainably source its ingredients. This means that plants are grown indoors without pesticides, vertically (as the name suggests), in order to maximise space. This clever process also ensures that yields are consistent (and 100 per cent traceable)as there is no risk of bad weather, pests or pollution while 95 per cent of the water used is recycled. The brand also goes a step further to ensure no water touches the ground in order to avoid soil pollution. As it's part of the Shiseido group, products are elegantly formulated and a pleasure to use. This oil is especially notable: it's rich in skin-kind vitamins and can be used both as a face oil or ingested as a skin supplement.

Aesop's apothecary-chic bottles have long signified good taste, but the brand's longevity is also due to its effective formulas and eco credentials. Everything Aesop does is vegan and ingredients are obtained via the Ethical Sourcing Programme, which ensures that suppliers provide safe working conditions and operate to the highest eco-conscious standards. The brand also aims to achieve net zero greenhouse emissions by 2030 and uses renewable energy to power its ultra-sophisticated stores and offices globally.

Aveda has always been at the forefront of sustainability in the beauty industry, but this year sees the brand ramp up its efforts even further. Every single hair, skin and beauty product is now entirely vegan – a reformulation process that took years to complete.

Over 85 per cent of the range is bottled using recycled plastic, and experiments with sugarcane-derived bioplastics are currently underway.

This limited edition collaboration donates $10 to Charity: Water to provide clean water, sanitation and hygiene to those in need. The brand has raised $69M for global and local organisations since kickstarting its Earth Month campaign in 1999.

Gucci's latest fine fragrance offering, The Alchemist's Garden Where My Heart Beats, isn't just a breathtaking composition of green violet leaves and rosy peonies, it also marks the brand's first perfume that uses alcohol made through 100 per cent recycled carbon emissions done via Coty's (Gucci Beauty's parent company) innovative partner, LanzaTech.

This means that carbon emissions that would typically be released into the atmosphere has now been turned into alcohol via LanzaTech's CarbonSmart technology. Fingers crossed, we'll be seeing similar practices being adopted by Gucci's future releases and other perfume houses.

Challenging the status quo of the beauty industry one water-soluble product at a time is Mono Skincare, the first beauty brand to create an organic skincare tablet, saving on water waste and lowering carbon emissions. The premise is simple: drop the skincare tablet into the reusable bottle, fill with water at home, and see your new skincare serum appear before your eyes.

Partnering with non-profit Conservation International, Francisco Costa describes his new beauty venture as 'eco-beneficial', moving beyond the now-expected sustainability considerations to actively benefit both the environment and the local communities of his native Brazil.

The brand pays homage to a trio of healing Amazonian plant extracts – breu, kaya and cacay – which are sourced from local farmers, maintaining biodiversity and ensuring preservation of the precious landscape.

Biossance is a leader in biotech skincare, creating safe lab-grown active ingredients that are endangered in the natural world. Central to the brand's formulas is squalane, an exceptional skin hydrator. Traditionally the beauty industry has harnessed this ingredient from shark liver, but Biossance formulated the first 100 per cent plant-based version, without compromising on efficacy. Not only that, the brand utilises sugarcane waste to create conscious packaging, uses recyclable boxes and paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), and offsets its shipping by planting trees and funding reforestation projects.

Though their packaging might keep to the minimal aesthetic, there's so much more to Oway than meets the eye. The Italian brand subscribes to the practice of agricosmetics, following a sustainable manifesto which includes biodynamically growing their own plants, only using glass and aluminium packaging, and using renewable energy to run their production.

Doing its part to minimise the beauty industry's Co2 emissions problem is Forgo, a company founded off the idea of 'bring your own water'. By supplying their hand wash and body wash in powdered format and letting you add the water at home, every refill saves 85 per cent in emissions compared to a normal bottle of liquid soap.

Before environmental awareness was even on the radar of the wider beauty industry, there was Davines. Set up in 1983 with sustainability at its heart, the B-Corp certified hair brand is committed to improving the world as well as your hair, with a wealth of eco-projects.

The brand has been carbon-neutral since 2018, and is now focusing on achieving net-zero emissions by 2030.

The most exciting product in the brand's sizeable roster is A Single Shampoo: a forward-thinking formula boasting 98.2 per cent biodegradable ingredients (including olive oil-derived surfactants) and housed in a sugar-cane plastic bottle.

Refillable packaging is trickier when it comes to facial skincare, due to the issues of ingredient stability and hygiene. Noble Panacea has crafted an innovative workaround, housing recyclable single-dose sachets of its remarkable creams and serums within a keepsake box. Each sachet keeps the formula free from degradation, safeguarding the active ingredients inside. Once you've worked through each dose, send the empty sachets back to the brand, and receive your refills.

What's more, the brand works with Girl Up to empower women and girls from disadvantaged backgrounds through science education.

This brand goes one step further than using recycled plastic in its packaging: it's what makes the product. Re=comb saw the opportunity to take plastic waste and turn it into beautifully marbled combs which make an aesthetically pleasing addition to any dressing table. Individual pieces of PP plastic are gathered and melted down to create completely unique combs for a hair tool that's as individual as you.

Chantecaille has always passionately supported charities, especially those helping endangered animals: in fact, there's a whole tab covering the initiatives on the brand's website.

Biannually, special limited-edition collections are also released, including this Wild Meadows blush, which sees proceeds donated to conserve the biodiversity of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains.

The botanical cleansers used in Wildsmith Skin's all-natural products aren't just gentler on your skin – they're kinder to the environment too. But this smart British brand's eco efforts don't stop at organic formulations: it's also one of the first to use mycellium packaging, which is made from mushrooms and entirely compostable.

An entirely closed-loop business, Loopeco's Brit-made natural skincare products come housed in chic amber glass packaging that can be kept and topped up via the brand's refill cartridges.

This impurity-absorbing matcha and kaolin clay face mask even comes housed in a paper box embedded with seeds, so you can simply compost it and watch as the flowers bloom.

Originally developed for the spa in her family-run Hotel Post Bezau resort, Susanne Kaufmann's beauty line is now a sustainable favourite.

Her latest planet-protecting move is to develop an innovative refill scheme for three best-selling products: Shower Shampoo, Cleansing Gel and Hand Soap.

Developed by fellow Austrian brand ALPLA, the refill bottles are lightweight and low plastic, and can be used to easily top up your original glass bottles. Once empty, each cost-effective refill package can be placed in your household recycling. Purchasing a refill instead of a brand-new product will result in a 69 per cent reduction in carbon emissions.

Highr's ultra-creamy lipsticks are made using solar energy, and the brand is entirely carbon neutral (including factors such as its employees' daily commutes into the total).

L'Occitane was an early adopter of cosmetic refills, and currently offers refillable pouches for the majority of its bath and body products. There's a recycling programme in-store, where customers can return empty beauty packaging from any brand. Plus, the brand is committed to sustainably and ethically sourcing its ingredients and is constantly giving back to various charities including Hometree and Unicef.