June 16 is World Refill Day. You would be forgiven for not knowing about it — the annual initiative, spearheaded by French beauty giant L’Oréal, is still in its infancy. Created in 2024, it’s part of an uphill battle to curb waste and make refillable beauty a reality.

“Ultimately, we are trying to create a market where there isn’t one,” says Ezgi Barcenas, chief corporate responsibility officer at L’Oréal Group. “We will do that by putting refillable products on shelves; educating customers about the benefits and the fact that it doesn’t compromise on desirability or performance; and identifying the right price point and the right formats. Hopefully it inspires other categories, brands, and industries to do the same — and becomes the new norm.”

Early signs say it’s working. According to L’Oréal, sales of refillable products grew 34% between 2024 and 2025, following the first campaign. In the meantime, the company has steadily expanded refills across its portfolio. This year’s campaign includes 28 products across 18 brands, from Aesop to Prada Beauty and Lancôme. The ultimate goal is to make refills the new normal, so every product in every category has a refill available.

The broadstroke approach was designed to maximize customer engagement with refills. “There are refillable products at every price point, in all categories,” says chief corporate affairs and engagement officer Blanca Juti, who has been tasked with boosting customer engagement through the World Refill Day campaign, building customer awareness online and in-store, and generating internal support to scale refills across more product ranges. “We know customers want to shop more sustainably, and refillable products have the double benefit of also making things better for their wallets. But [according to a L’Oréal customer survey] only 42% know refills are an option for beauty products.”

Refillable beauty packaging is coming back into focus as a sustainability goal for beauty brands after a few years of false starts. Modern iterations of refillable products were introduced by L’Oréal in the 1990s. The growing sustainability movement of the 2010s and early 2020s saw enthusiasm for refills renewed, but the category has struggled to gain mainstream adoption, despite mainstream brands beginning to incorporate refills into their product lines.

Chanel and Hermès, skincare specialists Emma Lewisham and 111Skin, makeup brands Charlotte Tilbury and Isamaya Ffrench, fragrance brands Diptyque and Le Labo, and wholesale retailers Selfridges and Harrods all offer refills for certain products. In January, L’Oréal-owned skincare brand Aesop will launch a mono-material refill pouch optimized for recycling, says global head of sustainability Rebecca Lawson, enabling its 500ml amber bottles to be refilled. “This innovation reflects the brand’s commitment, as a B Corp, to reducing material use while encouraging more circular consumption behaviors,” she notes.

Still, refillable beauty has a long way to go. The category has been positioned as a sustainability play on the basis that it reduces the packaging and transport emissions associated with product replenishment, with the added bonus of being cheaper for loyal customers, but there is still waste involved, and the hygiene factor makes beauty a tricky category to crack.

“Its no longer niche, but it’s not a top consumer priority,” says Chris Beer, senior data journalist at consumer insights platform GWI. “Globally, 30% of consumers say they want beauty brands to provide refillable or recyclable product options. That puts it behind more practical expectations, like affordability and product range, but ahead of some of the themes that often dominate beauty conversations, such as self-acceptance content. The potential is real, but brands need to read it correctly — it’s part of a broader set of behaviors that consumers now look for.”

Convenience is king

Refillable packaging is an easier sell for products people buy over and over again, where customer loyalty is high and cost savings are more compelling. This includes everyday items such as detergents, soaps, and shampoo. Products in smaller packages, including makeup, are a harder sell, and require more innovation to make the same impact claims, because the packaging is already relatively small and refills can be temperamental. Fragrance works well because it is alcohol-based, so it’s not a problem for it to be poured into the same bottle. But oil-based products such as hair oils, lipsticks, or face creams require product refills to sit inside their own sealed pod, which customers can swap out, retaining the main outer packaging. In some cases, products need to be reformulated to ensure shelf stability and peak performance in the new packaging.

Ultimately, convenience is king. “Consumers are looking for convenience,” says Juti. “People adopt new technologies like ChatGPT very easily, because they remove friction.” Refillable beauty, however, is often perceived to add friction — something brands need to work hard to overcome.

Juti points to Lancôme’s Absolue Longevity cream as an example of refillable beauty products that are just as convenient as, say, buying coffee pods for an at-home machine. “All you have to do is give it a twist and remove the pod, then replace it with a new one,” she explains. Each time customers do this, they can save 100% of the glass used in an entirely new jar, 95% of the metal, 36% of the plastic, and 31% of the cardboard, according to L’Oréal. “It’s also much more compact to ship, which saves transport emissions,” adds Juti.

To get consumers on board with refills, brands need to be realistic about what drives sales, says Sian Sutherland, co-founder of plastic-free advocacy organization A Plastic Planet. “Consumers do not wake up wanting a packaging system; they want a product they love, at a price that makes sense, in a format that is easy to use. Beauty is also an emotional category, so refill should not feel like a compromise or a lecture. It should feel clever, beautiful, and obvious — the better way to buy.”

For New Zealand beauty brand Emma Lewisham, the burden of making packaging more sustainable, and refills more convenient, lies firmly with brands. “When I came to understand what the beauty industry truly takes from the earth, and what it leaves behind — billions of units sent to landfill every year, much of it impossible to recycle at the kerbside — there was never any question of looking away,” says founder Emma Lewisham. “But people will not give up a superior product simply for a more sustainable one. Formulations that deliver real, visible results are the main hook in making a refill model succeed.” Her hunch was right: to date, the brand has sold 250,000 refills, accounting for 35% of its total sales. What’s more, refillable products consistently outperform the rest of the range in wholesale retail settings.

Price also plays a part. The general consensus is that refills should be cheaper than buying a whole new product, but exactly how much money customers save depends on the category and the brand. Emma Lewisham prices refills at a 10-15% reduction, which Lewisham says incentivizes customers without undermining the value of the formulation itself. In the fragrance category, Le Labo sells a 50ml bottle of its signature Santal 33 scent for £172. The 500ml refill bottle, which customers can decant into smaller vessels, costs £835 — a 52% saving compared to buying the equivalent volume in entirely new packaging. A 50ml bottle of Prada Paradoxe Radical Essence costs £107. The 100ml refill bottle costs £130 — a saving of 40%.

According to Mintel’s 2025 report, The Sustainable Beauty Consumer (US), there is a strong opportunity for brands to “reposition these replenishment options as smart financial investments that simultaneously champion environmental responsibility”. Refill programs could also act as a gateway to more sustainable behaviors, the report adds: “Highlighting small, attainable actions, like refillable packaging, multi-use products and mindful consumption, shows impact, fosters accomplishment and may inspire further action.”

Creating objects of desire

So far, L’Oréal has made the most headway with fragrances — all of its hero fragrances now come with a refill option. The category’s success comes down to the fact that fragrance bottles have become objects of desire — status symbols that customers collect and feel more compelled to keep.

L’Oréal started making refillable fragrance bottles in 1992 with Mugler — in a bid to save money, rather than emissions. “We started offering refills with Mugler, because the Angel perfume comes in a star-shaped bottle that is almost impossible to make,” Juti explains. “A high share of the bottles we manufactured were broken. We made it into an object of desire that people could keep, so we didn’t have to make so many of them.”

An original fragrance bottle might be complex to manufacture, with multiple materials in play, but refills often come in simplistic packaging that is easier to separate and recycle. The impact savings can be significant: L’Oréal says customers that buy one 100ml refill for their 50ml Mugler Angel eau de parfum bottle can save 73% of the glass, 100% of the metal, 58% of the plastic, and 76% of the cardboard. Meanwhile, customers that buy one 150ml for their 50ml Armani Acqua Di Giò eau de toilette bottle can save 57% of the glass, 49% of the cardboard, and 21% of the plastic. Similar figures apply to Prada Paradoxe, YSL Libre, and Maison Margiela Lazy Sunday Morning.

Unlike clothing, beauty products run out or expire within relatively short timeframes, so some level of continuous consumption is necessary. But L’Oréal says it wants to ease the burden of this. “The ultimate luxury should be that you have beautiful things and you don’t need to continue buying more of them,” says Juti.

While fragrance is a natural leader, other categories have just as much potential if designers channel their creativity toward packaging as much as the product inside, says Sutherland. “Color cosmetics have real potential, particularly where the compact, case, or palette is designed as a long-term object rather than a throwaway accessory.”

The sustainability play hinges on plastic

L’Oréal’s refill program sits under its L’Oréal for the Future framework and complements broader efforts to reduce packaging intensity, says Barcenas, because refills are more lightweight than conventional packaging. But there are no set targets for how much it can and should grow.

It takes a whole host of innovations to make refillable beauty products possible, continues Barcenas, and L’Oréal is hoping to help scale them. Of the 13 startups in this year’s L’Oréal Sustainable Innovation Accelerator, six are set to explore next-gen packaging materials. The cohort includes a seaweed-based packaging material, as well as recycled and plastic-free options. Having been through the accelerator and mentorship portions of the program, these innovations are now in pilot phase, and should soon be scaled across the L’Oréal portfolio. “We’re very excited about what’s in the pipeline,” she adds.

Investments in material innovation probably won’t compel customers to adopt refills, but they will be critical in making mass adoption worthwhile from an impact perspective. How progressive a refill program truly is hinges on the materials used — some refill programs overlook this, simply trading one problem for another, slightly less bad one. For example, the refill packaging might still use plastic, be sold in small quantities that don’t actually decrease packaging intensity, or introduce other hard-to-recycle materials.

When it comes to recyclability, Italian haircare brand Davines says it took time to bring refills to market because mono-material packaging was not readily available, so the brand had to invest in research and development to realize its goal. Now, its 500ml Essential Haircare refill pouch uses 74% less plastic than buying a new product entirely.

“Refill is only a solution if it actually reduces plastic,” says Sutherland. “Too often, we see a beautiful outer pack being refilled by a small plastic pouch, sachet, or cartridge. That can be an improvement, but it is not the end of the story. The danger is that refill becomes another sustainability halo, while the plastic system remains largely untouched.”

The end goal, she continues, is to scale non-toxic materials that “can return to nature without contaminating the earth or our bodies”, alongside plastic-free and recyclable refill options like glass, aluminium, and steel. “A refillable pack that still goes into the bin does not cut plastic. A refillable that is still made of plastic with toxic chemicals such as BPA, PFAs or other endocrine-disrupting chemicals still dramatically impacts human health,” says Sutherland. “A non-toxic refillable pack that is actually refilled, again and again, does.”