16 INTERVIEW Richard Scott – Editor, Personal Care Magazine


The internet has had a huge impact on access to education for millions of people around the world. As the necessary technology has improved, the ability to interact in real time with educators has brought remote education even closer to the experience of in-person courses.


The pandemic has put even more emphasis on remote training courses, and as we saw earlier last year, many people became interested in manufacturing their own beauty products during lockdown. One business prospective formulators turned to in order to get to grips with cosmetic science was organic formulation training school, Formula Botanica. Personal Care spoke to Lorraine


Dallmeier, Formula Botanica’s CEO, to find out more about this growing aspect of the industry. Lorraine is a biologist and Chartered Environmentalist and was voted the most influential person in natural beauty for 2020 and awarded the Digital Achiever of the Year award for the cosmetics industry by Google and Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) for growing Formula Botanica from a small startup to a global education institution. Formula Botanica claim their


mission is to make formulation as commonplace as cookery, and Lorraine believes that anyone can learn to formulate with natural, sustainable ingredients. Lorraine is a full Member of the Royal Society of Biology, the Society of Cosmetic Scientists and the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment.


PERSONAL CARE: Could you give us a bit of background about your relationship with sciences and what led you into the beauty industry? LORRAINE DALLMEIER: I’ve always loved sciences. I grew up in the Netherlands and I ended up studying in the UK because my mother is English. I did a degree in biological sciences, and I took 4 years because I spent a year at the University of California in Santa Cruz as well, which was awesome. And I really got into evolution, ecology, plant biology and absolutely


PERSONAL CARE May 2021


loved it. I ended up volunteering in the Australian rainforest as an ecological researcher for several months. Catching, would you believe it 50,000 beetles, which was an experience. And then decided that I wanted to take that further with environmental science and corporate sustainability. So I did a Master’s degree in environmental sustainability and management, auditing and impact assessment. And then worked as an environmental consultant for over 10 years. I worked for Shell, and was based out in the Russian Far East on the world’s largest oil and gas project working in the environment team. I was working on the corporate sustainability side of things, but I always wanted to get back to plants. I decided that I was going to do something with tech and with plants and formulations seemed like a logical fit because I really enjoyed cooking as well and blending things together. I really enjoyed the science of researching the compounds of what plants could do for the skin. And that’s the difference with how I came to what I do now, to the way most people come into the Indie natural sector. Because I came to it very much from a position of positivity.


PC: Do you find there is an element of negativity behind peoples’ motives for entering this sector? LD: Wanting to embrace the positives of plants and what they could mean, I found a lot of other people have come to it very much from a position of negativity, being scared of synthetic chemicals and it took me a while to realise that distinction. Then I obviously started to look into it and used my science background to try and make sense of everything I was reading. So, the first thing I did was when I was on


INTERVIEW


Lorraine Dallmeier – CEO, Formula Botanica


maternity leave over a decade ago, I launched an iPhone app on DIY Beauty. I was sleep deprived, I was


watching the BBC’s Apprentice and I thought if these guys can do it, so can I. It did really well, and I got featured in major publications, the Sun did a spread on my app, Woman and Home did a whole page on me and my babies and my app. And I thought okay what’s the logical next step? And I thought now I’d like to launch my own skin care brand. So I threw myself into learning how to formulate and I ended up taking an online course with what was Formula Botanica at the time.


PC: OK, so you first experienced the business as a student? LD: It was in its infancy at the point and I was one of its first students. It wasn’t finished by any means. The courses were unfinished. The platform needed significant improvement and it was a one


woman show. But I then had the opportunity to take over Formula Botanica, so I bought it lock, stock and barrel on my second maternity leave.


PC:Was it your background in ecology that made you want to focus on organic beauty? LD: Absolutely, I get really excited when I see all the latest scientific research that comes out about plants and there is so much coming onto the market all the time. And you see it in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science and you think it’s wonderful to see how something that we’ve known for millennia is now being proven at a scientific level. And there’s a lot we don’t know, but I think it’s a fascinating topic and I want people to get excited about what plants could mean in their life. But do so in a sustainable manner, and that is very important because obviously there are sustainability challenges around the world of naturals as well.


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