UPDATE: We are no longer stocking Hippie Stick at Shop Naturally

In the last 12 months, we have seen a larger shift towards sustainable packaging than at any time in the 12 years we have been running our store. One category where it seems like a difficult task to pull off is the natural makeup brands. If you think of things like liquid foundation and mascara, it's hard to think of how this can be done plastic free without compromising the integrity or viability of the product for its whole usage period. If you take a mascara for example, it needs to be packed in to a small tube that's leakproof and to have a brush for application. When you're talking about a natural mascara with a shelf life of 3 months, keeping it air-tight and using materials that won't promote bacteria growth are absolutely vital. Liquid foundation needs a pump and a good seal, or at the very least, a squeezable tube and cap. These can be made with recycled materials to reduce the impact, but there's still a limit as to what can be done. We're seeing some products like cream foundations, powder eye shadows etc in refillable containers which is great, but one New Zealand company have jumped right to the finish line with the absolute perfection in packaging of their lip balms and tinted lip butters. Enter Hippie Stick.

Hippie Stick is a small yet innovative artisan brand from New Zealand, hand crafting nourishing natural lip balm and tinted lip butters that are packaged in a cardboard tube. While this type of packaging has been used for lip balms and deodorants for a little while now, Hippie Stick have gone one step further by embedding flower seeds in to the lid of each lip balm and butter. The have chosen the humble corn flower, which is easy to grow and the bees just LOVE them!

Visit the Hippie Stick brand page in our store to see the delicious balms in flavours like pineapple, mango and lime + coconut. For nourishment and tint, you'll get the quality tint of a lipstick with the nourishment of a balm in their tinted lip butter range.