By Satu Mäkinen

Hello dear reader, exciting news right there in the title! As I am a new face in this blog, let me introduce myself first. I’m the founder of the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards, a yearly online awards contest to celebrate the best all-natural cosmetics made across the Nordic and Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. I’m really excited to announce that we are starting to collaborate with the A Sustainable Closet, and in honour of this event, I would love to share insights about ‘My Sustainable Closet’ and shed a light on the behind-the-scenes of the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards. This way, you can also understand better why our collaboration makes so much sense.

Personally, I have been a nature lover for as long as I can remember. I was born and raised in Finland, surrounded by forests and lakes, and at a very young age I learned that we are part of nature, not a separate unit from it. The extreme weather conditions especially made me respect nature and this respect is something that I have kept with me across the globe. I’m also a curious soul, so whether it has been about getting to know new languages or about searching for the perfect outfit at a flea market, I’ve always been ready to jump on an adventure. The will to learn new languages led me to travel the world and the thrill towards flea markets sparked the idea of starting my own second hand store years ago.

As you can probably guess, I value sustainable and pre-loved fashion above all else. There is something magical about hunting that one perfect piece of clothing, just waiting for the finder. I dove into the world of second hand even further when owning a second hand store some ten years ago. It taught me how rewarding it is to see the special pieces of clothing leave one home and find their way into a new ones.

If and when I buy new fashion, knowing that everything from production to marketing is made sustainably gives me such a piece of mind that no price tag could ever win that. Same principles apply to my beauty closet. I love the feeling that true natural cosmetics give your skin and mind. As our largest organ - skin - absorbs everything, I prefer to pamper my body (aka nature) with energizing and nutritious ingredients.

But I was not always aware of what our cosmetics contain, or how fashion production is handled. As any average consumer, I believed all fashion was made with kindness and true beauty in mind, which I learned not to be the case at quite a young age. Until fairly recent times, I thought the giant cosmetics companies had our best in mind when formulating the skincare and makeup products. Only when travelling the world and dealing with differences in time zones and climates, did I think about diving a little deeper into understanding how I could take better care of my skin. And what I found out about those endless ingredient lists (that I could not even pronounce), was that they were no use for my well-being. A curious soul as I am, I started a new mission - to find the best natural cosmetics available.

I found incredible brands producing exactly the cosmetics I was looking for in my native Nordics. Learning deeper about these brands and what they were against in the cosmetics industry market gave me a strong drive to create something that could lift these brands. I wanted to introduce the products internationally - to bring them to everyone’s reach. On the other hand, I wanted to ease the individual’s search process that I had had to go through myself. The idea for the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards platform grew strong during the summer of 2019. A combination of three main thoughts built the foundation for the awards – frustration towards the ongoing toxic cosmetics market, the massive growth of natural brands I witnessed in the Nordics, and the need the world was expressing for magical, yet natural beauty products.

Nordic Natural Beauty Awards 2020 was the first edition of the awards, and despite the worldwide pandemic, we had such a successful awards year! It is our third year now in 2022, and I have a gut feeling that it’s only the beginning! The nominated cosmetics are tested and the winners selected yearly by our very special Nordic Beauty Jury – 50 Nordic stars from fields such as music, cinema, sports, and fashion. The favourites of the jury, and so the winners of Nordic Natural Beauty Awards, are revealed in October of each awards year. I am truly astonished to see the impact we keep making in the Nordics and also in the world at large. Together with all participants, we are demonstrating that ‘natural’ really is the luxury of today and tomorrow. Similarly to A Sustainable Closet, we want to show how easy, beautiful, and inspiring natural and sustainable cosmetics can be, so I am really excited to begin our collaboration. Together we can strengthen sustainability in our everyday lives.

I know you are asking now - but wait, where can I find more about the awards and all those magical cosmetics? On the awards website nordicnaturalbeautyawards.com, you can find all the incredible cosmetics listed and linked - something I wish that would have existed back in my travelling days. Also, remember to follow the awards’ social media channels for more updates, giveaways, and other fun surprises!

Welcome to join the future of beauty!

Kindly,

Satu Mäkinen

PS. Nordic brand representative; the registration for the 2022 edition of the awards is open at the moment of publishing this blog post. If you produce 100% or 99% natural cosmetics in the Nordic countries, you can apply through the awards’ website at nordicnaturalbeautyawards.com/apply.

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