‘Company with a mission’: Two years in D2C skin care startup Typology secures B Corp status

10-Mar-2021 - Last updated on 10-Mar-2021 at 11:29 GMT

The French Indie brand has a range of minimalist, active skin care serums, moisturisers and peels all available online via its direct-to-consumer model (Image: Typology)

French direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup Typology has achieved B Corp certification just two years after launch – a move of great significance to its founder who wants to carve out a positive impact brand.

Launched in February 2019, the vegan, cruelty-free, Made in France skin care and cosmetics startup offered a range of minimalist products, including tinted, exfoliating and night serums; moisturisers; scrubs and peels; and botanical oils for the face, body and hair – all available via its D2C website.

After just two years on the market, Typology was now Certified B Corporation, demonstrating it met the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. B Corp certification applied to an entire company and covered five key areas: governance, people, community, environment, and customers.

Beauty business ‘with a mission’ for positive impact

Ning Li, founder of Typology, said the company was “very proud” to have obtained B Corp status.

“It is the validation of our commitment as a company with a mission,” Li told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.

“Since the conception of Typology, I wanted to create a company that makes sense and has a positive impact on the environment but also on people,” he said.

Achieving B Corp status was notoriously lengthy and rigorous, but Li said Typology had carved out a dedicated a team of three employees internally to oversee the process for the one-year audit.

B Corp beauty to become the ultimate ‘reference’?

Li said whilst the B Corp certification and label remained “somewhat abstract” in some markets, notably France, in other markets it was becoming increasingly well known and was “already a reference” in some.

Typology, he said, would continue to “communicate regularly on it and educate our consumers by different means”. The brand, for example, already had a dedicated page on its website explaining what B Corp was about and it also regularly communicated information via social media networks, he said.

In an earlier interview, last year, Li said: “Transparency in communication is essential for us. It allows us to rebuild lost trust between skin care brands and the consumer.”