Why Our Palettes Are $58

ĀTHR Beauty is a sustainable clean beauty brand. That means we vet each ingredient to ensure it's clean and non-toxic but also sustainable in practices. We use organic and fair-trade ingredients wherever possible and ban over 1400 ingredients from our formulas. Comparatively, the US bans only 11 ingredients from cosmetics, and the EU bans 1300.

Every ingredient must meet all the following criteria first, and if we can save on cost after these requirements are met, fabulous! However, we'll never choose a lower-cost ingredient at the expense of any of these:

All these factors come before cost because, in the end, we're here to produce gorgeous, safe products that do no harm to humans, animals, or this planet. We want to feel good about the products we produce, and we want you to feel great wearing them!

We use crystals in our palettes because they're gorgeous and magical, but also for their skin-illuminating, light-reflective properties. Crystal infusions help reflect harsh light away from the skin, camouflaging wrinkles and fine lines. They're the Insta filters of nature!

Beyond their natural radiance, we love the healing, empowering effects that crystals have on our lives and our spirit. Read our blog 'Crystals: The Science Behind the Spiritual' for more on the magic of crystals!

Crystals are an added cost of course, but so worth it for the magical effects they bring.

Thanks to our skin nourishing and wrinkle/redness-reducing formulas, our eyeshadows can be worn all over the face! They're not only suitable for your skin, they'll help nourish, moisturize, and illuminate your skin!

In every palette, you'll find shadows that double as a highlighter, blush, brow filler, and eyeliner. Read our blog 'Our Palettes: How to Choose' to see which shades do double-duty!

We created ĀTHR Beauty to help shift the cosmetics industry – to stray from the norm and bring ethical and sustainable practices to the forefront. We value purpose over profit, and we'll never support any practice that does harm.

This means we meticulously vet the sources of ALL our ingredients. A couple of ingredients that we vet heavily, and often pay a higher price for to ensure purity and ethical, sustainable practices:

Mica:

Used as the base of most cosmetic powder products, more than 25% of the world's Mica is produced with child labor in Eastern India.

We only source our natural mica from U.S. suppliers with ethical labor standards which prevent the use of child labor. Mica is, of course, more expensive in these regions as it comes from legal, regulated mines.

When we can't guarantee that the source of our natural mica is child-labor-free, we choose synthetic mica. Though it costs more, it's always worth it to know we're not contributing to any harm on this planet, and especially not to children.

Read our blog 'The Truth About Mica' for even more info on Mica.

Palm Oil:

Did you know that cosmetic brands aren't required to test their formulas for heavy metal contamination? The FDA has set recommended limits for things like lead, mercury, arsenic, and carcinogenic contaminants like 1-4 dioxane. The catch is: these limits are voluntary, and it costs more to test for them. So, some brands don't bother testing to avoid the extra cost.

We do test our formulas for heavy metal contamination and are well below the recommended safety limits set by the FDA. It's an extra cost, but again, we'll never compromise safety for profit. Also, if contamination is unavoidable, we'll choose a safe synthetic version of that ingredient to ensure purity.

We're committed to protecting and preserving this planet we love. Because of this, we can't use the standardized eyeshadow palettes that many brands use. These ready-made palettes are the lowest cost option - they're widely available, made of very inexpensive, low-quality plastic, and require very little design for the brand. The catch is: these palettes are not recyclable – they'll all end up in the landfill.

To create the world's first zero-waste eyeshadow palettes, we did a lot of research to ensure that every element was fully recyclable. This includes the palette itself, the outer packaging, the aluminum eyeshadow pans, the tarot cards, and even our soy-based inks.

Sustainable packaging options always costs more, and being the first of its kind, we had to custom design our palette from start to finish - another added cost. To us, it's 100% worth the extra time, cost, and research to not add to the 120 billion units of cosmetic packaging that wind up in the landfill every year.

For more on how we created our zero-waste packaging, plus instructions for recycling your ĀTHR Beauty palette, read our blog'Zero-Waste: How We Do It'.

Our products are made all over the world. We only produce in regions and facilities where we can ensure the ethical treatment of workers and the quality + consistency of our products.

Though it's cheaper to manufacture in low-cost regions and factories, we can't support the poor labor standards and rampant human rights violations that go along with them – not to mention the potential product safety and contamination issues.

This is why we work with Sedex-Certified facilities, ensuring that our supply-chain aligns with the ĀTHR Beauty ethos.

This one goes without saying. There's no reason to use animal products or test on innocent animals. It's an easy switch to choose vegan ingredients and every brand should be doing this.

Why they're not: cost and time. Plant-based options sometimes cost more than readily available animal by-products, so companies opt for the least-costly option. Also, reformulating a non-vegan product takes time, and ultimately, money.

A small extra cost for us is our certifications. We are Certified Vegan and Cruelty-free by both Leaping Bunny and PETA. We want you to know which brands align with your ethos at-a-glance. You shouldn't have to dig for the truth behind the claims. So, we're more than happy to pay for these verified certifications.

For more on the common animal products found in eyeshadows (and the ingredients we use instead), visit our blog.

We're a certified Benefit Corporation – this means we commit to higher standards of purpose, accountability, and transparency.

Where traditional corporations use profit as the primary factor in decision-making, Benefit Corps consider their impact on the environment, society, workers, and the community in addition to profit.

To give back, we donate 1% of our profits (regardless of sales) to 1% For The Planet. This organization works with non-profits in areas of climate, food, land, pollution, water, and wildlife. So far, this organization has helped direct $200 million to environmental non-profits around the world. We are so happy to be a part of this collective that's making a real impact globally.