A green business that made the leap

Article from October/November issue of Whole Life Times – see original story here.

Having spent years as a performing artist, California native Rianna Loving knew the importance of her skin’s outer appearance, but it wasn’t until motherhood brought an increased awareness of organics and social responsibility that she went back to school to study skincare.

In 2009 she started Organic to Green, where she sells beauty products made with “ingredients the earth naturally provides to treat skin.”

She soon realized that finding healthy ingredients was only the first step. “I didn’t want to put a quality organic lotion in cheap packaging where it would absorb the plastic it was packaged in,” Loving said. “I wanted to be green all the way, not be the contradiction I see out there.”

Her decision to package her products in reused glass bottles meant starting a second company, ReuseCycle, and turning her backyard into a donation center where local restaurants and neighbors drop off wine, beer, and other types of glass which Loving then sanitizes before filling with soaps, moisturizers and salts. Any glass she can’t use is donated to others who want to lengthen its life. “Restaurants donate these unbelievably gorgeous whine bottles that are too big for my beauty line, but you can make them into the cutest lamps.”