Indie beauty brands have been taking the lead on disrupting the deodorant category with cool packaging and clean formulas. Appealing to millennials and Gen Z’s commitment to the environment, the cool kids of personal care have already adopted refillable deodorant concepts.
Now Dove is getting into the refill game in a bid to tackle plastic waste, part of Unilever’s mission to help care for the planet by creating a closed-loop economy. The company worked with A Plastic Planet on material selection, and Dutch design consultancy VanBerlo developed the sleek design focused on minimizing material usage.
“Imagine a world where nothing hits the bin, where we can use the products we love without the guilt of creating more waste,” said A Plastic Planet co-founder Sian Sutherland. “As one of the biggest beauty companies in the world, Dove recognizing this, and leading the way to make refillable personal care products widely available to all, is a major step forward for the beauty industry.”
The deodorant is packaged in a beautiful palm-sized, refillable, buy-just-once stainless steel case that comes housed in a white secondary package made of 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council-grade paper. While the refill concept doesn’t entirely eliminate plastic because the inserts are made from plastic, the design uses 54% less plastic than the traditional deodorant, 98% of which is recycled.
“Cutting consumption and crossing over to circular business models by design, Dove refillable deodorant gives you back an experience not unlike a Swiss army knife,” said VanBerlo design and innovation director Sjoerd Hoijinck. “A quality object that is personal and ages well over time.”
“The ergonomic design, the smooth weight in your hand, elevates a simple everyday product to something of beauty and permanence,” she added. “Everything we make begins at the design phase, and this is a perfect example of how we can design differently in the future.”
In 2019, Dove announced one of the biggest plastic reduction plans of its kind in the global beauty industry, which reduces the use of virgin plastic by more than 20,500 tonnes per year. Dove believes they can remove as much as 300 tonnes of plastic waste by the year 2023, and they’ll do it by redesigning packaging.
“Our refillable deodorant represents a new, more sustainable way of consumption, reinventing the daily deodorant for a planet in crisis,” said Augusto Garzon, Dove Global Vice President of Deodorants. “Thanks to this sleek, minimalist design, we’ve created something more sustainable and more desirable.”
The refillable design will be available in Target and Walmart stores in the US.
