Clean beauty is all about finding power in nature, but there aren’t many people within the world of natural skincare that connect with the ocean in the same way as the brains behind OSEA Malibu.

Born from a love of the sea, this range of skin loving concoctions harnesses the unique benefits of marine botanicals, alongside the usual plant-based beauty heroes. This is no brand hopping onto a trend; OSEA has been in the game for more than twenty years and counting, and hasn’t stopped making waves the whole time.

Sustainability is also high on the priority list at OSEA, which is oh-so-important when you’re working with ingredients from such a fragile source. We chatted with founder Jenefer Palmer to find out more about the story behind the products, how our beauty regimes affect the ocean, and why there’s more to seaweed than meets the eye.

EcoSalon: Where did your personal connection with the ocean begin, and why was it important to you that it was core to OSEA’s ethos?

Jenefer Palmer: I’ve always been drawn to the ocean. I come from a long line of women connected to the sea. My grandmother, Elsa Reuschle, one of the first female chiropractors in the U.S., swam daily in the frigid Long Island Sound (outside of NYC) until her mid-nineties. Through her mentorship, I learned about the full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and trace elements present in seaweed and the incredible healing benefits they have on skin.

In the late ’80s, as a spa director in southern California, it was nearly impossible to find skin care for our clients that weren’t loaded with toxic synthetic chemicals. OSEA was born in 1996 from my desire to create natural luxury seaweed-based skin care. Products that not only were free of toxic synthetic ingredients but actually delivered powerful, age-defying results. As my grandmother taught me and chemistry confirmed, seaweed is a nutrient-dense superfood. Seaweed, the star ingredient in OSEA products, contains powerful bioavailable nutrients that are readily absorbed to rejuvenate the skin.

ES: OSEA has been around for over twenty years! How have your products and the natural beauty changed in that time?

JP: OSEA was definitely a pioneer in the natural luxury skin care world. Back in the ’90s, Aveda was one of the only other truly natural brands available. It’s so inspiring to see now in 2017 how the personal care landscape is changing—there are so many more natural options. Natural retail stores such as Credo Beauty, Follain, and The Detox Market are really leading the way. Even with OSEA’s immense growth over the past 21 years, I’m proud to say that we continue to use only the highest quality and most effective plant-based ingredients.

ES: Your formulations feature some beautiful marine ingredients. Can you tell us a bit about them and their unique benefits to skin?

JP:  USDA certified organic Gigartina, Undaria and Macrocystis marine algae are rich in vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants, trace elements, and essential fatty acids.

Our seaweed contains bioavailable ingredients, meaning that the active, nutrient-rich compounds are more readily absorbed by your body. Greater absorption of nutrients means better results for your skin! Our seaweed extracts deliver results. They visibly minimize fine lines and wrinkles, plus address hyperpigmentation. Seaweed concentrates also naturally brighten skin, deeply hydrate plus reduce the look and frequency of blemishes, breakouts and that good old “oily shine”.

ES: How do you go about sourcing your ingredients from the ocean sustainably without upsetting the delicate ecosystem?

JP: We source our USDA certified organic seaweed from the Sea of Patagonia, some of the most pristine waters in the world. Many companies pollute the ocean by venturing out on industrial diesel-powered boats to harvest seaweed using invasive methods that damage marine life and the ocean floor. OSEA’s seaweed is eco-responsibly hand-foraged in small batches. Oddly enough, we are actually helping to balance the delicate ecosystem by harvesting Undaria algae, as it is globally one of the most invasive (albeit incredible) species.

ES: What inspires you when it comes to creating new formulations?

JP: I find inspiration to create new formulations in many places: the Malibu farmers market, Zuma beach, my garden, places I travel to and even cookbooks. It’s hard not to be inspired by the transformational power of plants. Some of my best inspiration comes in the kitchen. I love to cook. I love to eat. I find myself thinking, how can I incorporate that persimmon into a product? Pesto body polish anyone?

ES: You also manage to keep your products completely vegan! Has keeping animal ingredients out of your products been a challenge?

JP: There are so many vegan ingredients available now that it’s really very simple to formulate without animal by-products. What’s more challenging, however, is being a plant-based vegan company. A lot of skin care is technically vegan but loaded with toxic synthetic chemicals. Being plant-based vegan takes more thought and creativity.

ES: What is some of the most positive feedback you’ve ever gotten from an OSEA convert?

JP: Our Blemish Balm has frequently been called the “Holy Grail” of lightweight moisturizers for treating blemish-prone skin. Can’t really top that!

ES: Are there any ways conventional beauty products damage the ocean that you think most people are unaware of?

JP: If you live in a coastal region, everything you rinse off your body, i.e. soap, creams, shampoo, etc. ends up going down the drain and into our oceans. So when you apply that toxic petrochemical-laden lotion, you’re not only harming yourself, you’re also polluting our oceans. Oxybenzone, a common ingredient in sunscreen has been directly linked to the death of the coral reefs. This happens when swimmers wear sunscreen! Plastic packaging, especially the soft plastic of your favorite beauty cream continues to clog our oceans, disrupting the delicate ecosystem. Always, always opt for beauty products packaged in glass or hard plastic. Refill items such as soap or shampoo, or better yet, make your own! Ocean health is interconnected to human health.

ES: If you had to pack for a beach vacation, which OSEA products would be a must have for you?

JP: Sea Minerals Mist and Essential Hydrating Oil for serious hydration and soothing after-sun care.

ES: What would your dream sea adventure be?

JP: To be on a small research vessel in Antarctica with scientists working to study and prevent climate change.

*Disclaimer: Help support EcoSalon! Our site is dedicated to helping people live a conscious lifestyle. We’ve provided some affiliate links above in case you wish to purchase any of these products.

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Some eels have proven they can use Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate the expansive Atlantic Ocean.

The Earth and its eels

Lewis C. Naisbett-Jones, at Lohmann Lab at the Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, began studying eels after discovering juvenile European eels undertake a migration from the Sargasso Sea to Europe. This journey is nearly 6,000 km.

Naisbett-Jones explains that the adults return to the Sargasso Sea some 15 years later.

“This fascinated me, particularly from a navigational perspective, and after realizing that we still didn’t know how these eels achieve this journey, I decided to study it myself,” he adds.

The study

Naisbett-Jones’ study was extensive. In order to figure out how the eels navigate, he took almost 1,000 young European eels, and placed the eels in apparatuses that mimic the Earth’s magnetic field at three points—each point featured a different intensity and direction.

Every day for a month, Naisbett-Jones took 16 eels and placed one eel in each container. He then turned on the magnetic coil that surrounded the container and allowed the eels to choose where to go.

“[O]verall, the eels did indeed respond to the magnetic fields. And they did so in a way that, had they been in the Atlantic Ocean, would have directed them into the Gulf Stream,” NPR reports.

The study was able to show that eels can, in fact, use positional information during their ocean migrations.

Future research

Although freshwater life-history stages of eels have been relatively well studied, researchers have barely scraped the surface with the oceanic stages.

“We still don’t know exactly where the American and European eels spawn, nor have any eggs ever been collected for these species in the wild,” Naisbett-Jones says.

“They’re rather elusive!”

Naisbett-Jones adds that the research could go in many directions from here. However, he’d like examine the research in a geomagnetic map-sense and see if that “sense” is the means by which adult silver eels relocate to the Sargasso Sea breeding areas.

Naisbett-Jones would also like to examine if geomagnetic navigation will remain the leading hypothesis for how many long-distance migrants journey.

Currently, though, he’s researching another sea creature’s travels.

“I’m working on a project that’s looking at geomagnetic compass navigation with loggerhead sea turtles,” Naisbett-Jones says.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say much more right now, but I do hope to work with eels again soon!”

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The post Eels Navigate the Ocean Using the Earth’s Magnetic Fields (And We Can, Too) appeared first on EcoSalon.

President Obama recently expanded the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. This area also is known as Papahānaumokuākea. The expansion is 582,578 square miles and now the world’s largest protected area.

“Papahānaumokuākea encompasses 10 islands and atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, which supports over 7,000 species — a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii,” Grist reports.

Watch the video below to see some of the creatures that reside in the area.

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The post Here’s How Much President Obama Loves the Ocean [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

Jellyfish are incredibly beautiful to look at, but I’ve yet to see one that looks as amazing as the creature in the video below.

Scientists identified the jellyfish as belonging to the genus Crossota.

“Note the two sets of tentacles — short and long,”Ocean Explore Gov reports. “At the beginning of the video, you’ll see that the long tentacles are even and extended outward and the bell is motionless. This suggests an ambush predation mode. Within the bell, the radial canals in red are connecting points for what looks like the gonads in bright yellow.”

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The post This Jellyfish is One of the Most Beautiful Creatures Ever [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’ve always wanted to travel to the Great Barrier Reef and this amazing video makes me want to go even more.

A few years ago, David Attenborough helped make one of the most beautiful nature experiences of all time. “After donning Samsung Gear virtual reality headsets, viewers can journey back in time to witness an animation of some of Earth’s original life forms, before joining Attenborough under the waves, examining coral and sea life off the northeast coast of Australia,” Mashable reports. “It’s a seamless experience that belies the months of work and experimentation that went into creating it.”

Watch the video below to see what you can experience.

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The post See the Great Barrier Reef Without Getting Wet [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

Dutch company Star Sock to produce socks made out of recycled fishing nets.

Star Sock, the company that manufactures sportswear and performance socks for labels such as Lotto, Dakar and New Balance, will soon be making socks with yarn made out of recovered fishing nets. The recently launched Healthy Seas Initiative is a cooperative effort between Star Sock, Aquafil (producer of the recycled yarn) and the ECNC Land & Sea Group non-profit to create more awareness of marine waste issues among consumers, companies and policymakers. Although recycled fishing nets have been utilized in the B2B sector for carpeting, Star Socks’ venture marks the first fishing net recycling scheme for consumer products.

The Healthy Seas Initiative is focusing on removing waste litter from our oceans and re-utilizing it in cost-effective and sustainable ways. Abandoned fishing nets make up to 640,000 tons of waste in the oceans, accounting for nearly one-tenth of all marine litter.  Often made out of nylon and polyester, these nets remain in the marine ecosystems for hundreds of years and can easily capture and cause the deaths of animals such as dolphins, turtles and marine birds.

Star Sock became fascinated by Aquafil’s recycled yarn when looking for more sustainable production practices, and so brought them in contact with the ECNC biodiversity restoration group to develop a collaborative biodiversity project. Since discarded fishing nets are an impending issue in nearly all bodies of water, the project is applicable worldwide. However, the company has decided to initially test pilot the initiative in Europe, eventually hoping to create a recycling system where nets are delivered directly to the recycling facility.  This would cut out all of the harm caused by dumping waste into the oceans and dramatically cut the costs of obtaining material for recycling.

Star Sock’s goal is to produce half of all their socks with minimal negative ecological and social impact by the end of 2015, and with no negative impact by 2020. The ambition will hopefully be implemented into the manufacturing of each product line by the third decade of the 21^st century. Although small, the company is very dedicated to developing a sustainable approach for their entire supply chain. Star Sock is efficiently working towards creating sustainable solutions to offer the “best possible socks for all consumers, both for your feet and our entire environment”. Keep an eye out for socks, swimwear and underwear made out of recycled fishing nets in the coming year.

Images: Star Sock

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Kids these days. Texting with one hand, solving the world’s problems with the other.

Meet Boyan Slat, a 19-year-old Dutch student who has plans to remove more than 7 million tons of plastic waste currently polluting the world’s oceans. Slat created the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit organization that’s helping to develop his novel idea, which he revealed at a TEDx event last year.

The Ocean Cleanup Array is a device Slat developed that includes an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms capable of being delivered to large areas of the ocean where plastic debris has accumulated, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a gigantic floating area thick with plastic waste that may be as large as twice that of the U.S.

Among the challenges in dealing with these plastic islands is that the debris is often dispersed over hundreds or thousands of miles, and can be found floating just beneath the ocean’s surface—so the areas are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. But the new technology seems to be capable of working with these conditions and removing the plastic in a low impact and feasible method. Once in the troubled area, the Ocean Cleanup Array would work much like a funnel, forcing plastic towards the platforms where it would be filtered out and later recycled.

Slat’s idea came about through a school paper he wrote that analyzed the plastic particles common in the oceans for size and amount. The paper won him praise and prizes, including Best Technical Design 2012 at the Delft University of Technology.

If dispatched to the oceans, the technology could help to save the lives of countless marine animals and fragile ecosystems impacted by the plastic debris. As well, it could reduce human health risks by eliminating common causes of toxicity in fish including DDT and PCBs.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Tyler Ingram

The post Ocean Plastic Pollution Meets Its Match: A 19-Year-Old appeared first on EcoSalon.

The recently launched eco-conscious fashion line Océé is inspired by oceanic imagery. Each piece is made to order and 2% of the proceeds benefit Surfrider Foundation Europe.

Océane Buret connected with the ocean at an early age, while spending summers sailing with her family across France and Europe. Since then, she has spent time working in the fashion industry in Paris, New York, Auckland and Los Angeles. Chaz Gangster is an American artist whose work is inspired by the swirling colorful display of oceanic imagery. He has also worked on costumes and art featured in music videos by artists like MGMT, the Killers, and Chairlift.

The two met in New York City in 2009 and decided to start an eco-conscious fashion line together. This first collection by Océé features five prints of Gangster’s art on unisex T-shirts and tank tops made from organic cotton. The prints – named “Onde,” “Abysse,” “Anémone,” “Evume,” and “Méduse” – pay tribute to the priceless but fragile environment in our oceans. Fittingly, the collection was made in partnership with ocean conservation organization Surfrider Foundation Europe, to which Océé donates 2% of their profit.

One of Buret’s main goals, however, is to propose a new behavior towards fashion, develop an alternative to mass production and fast fashion and raise awareness about sustainable development among its customers. Each piece in the collection is a limited edition of a 1,000 and are made to order according to custumers’ selections, which involve print, size and shape. The only way to purchase an item is to pre-order it online via Océé’s website.

Buret hopes to expand the line to include swimwear, surfwear, accessories and even more custom items. In the meantime, we’ll just lose ourselves in these gorgeous prints.

The post Océé – Riding the Slow Fashion Wave appeared first on EcoSalon.

The best of EcoSalon’s stories this week.

Change. We need it to stay sane. The world needs it to stay habitable. Where can it be found? Here are 5 suggestions from the last week at EcoSalon.

In inspiring stories.

In a pair of running shoes.

In a sunlit headstand.

In an app that will make you want to see the world.

And in a timeless natural metaphor for change.

What are you changing today?

The post The Friday 5: Change Something Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

Understanding plastic pollution around the world.

Power. When I think of the ocean, that’s the first word that comes to mind.

I’ve been held under by her for what seemed like hours while surfing. I’ve been battered by hurricane force winds sailing across the North Atlantic a few years ago. Right now, on World Oceans Day, I’m reminded of that power again. The non-profit I work for, The 5 Gyres Institute, is hunkered down in our sailing vessel waiting for the first typhoon of the summer season to pass by.

We’re in Yokohama Marina near Tokyo, Japan, preparing to sail into The Japan Tsunami Debris Field, to learn how fast it’s traveling and what the threats to the ocean may be, as well as the implications for North America and Hawaii when the field eventually makes landfall on the other side of the Pacific.

5 Gyres has gone farther than anyone else to demonstrate that the plastic in the ocean is a problem everywhere – not just the North Pacific. We’ve sailed 25,000 miles in all oceans, documenting the human stain of plastic everywhere we’ve traveled. We take crews from all over the world; teachers, students, artists, musicians, activists, basically anyone who has a vested interest in the ocean’s health and can serve as an ambassador for our cause once she returns to land.

Science is a great thing for understanding, but science often tends to stay in academic circles and if we as a global society are going to solve this problem, we need different touchpoints and other onramps for activism. That’s how we make change.

Our latest expedition will give us an alpha point for our research into plastic pollution – plastic and trash enter the ocean everyday, but trying to figure out when it entered the ocean is nearly impossible once you pick it up in the middle. If we can identify objects from the tsunami, we’ll know how long it’s been there, and learn how fast it’s degrading into smaller pieces and how fast it’s being colonized by sea life. We also plan to reunite any keepsakes with their owners in Japan.

But right now, it’s all about witnessing power in the ocean. The Typhoon Mawar – ironically, the Malaysian word for Rose, is bearing down on southern Japan generating winds over 110 mph. Now that’s power.

Earlier in the week we traveled north to Sindai and Fukushima, the hardest hit area by the tsunami, to volunteer for tsunami debris removal. Everywhere here there is unimaginable destruction. Piles of cars, harbors with new topography, thousands of abandoned house foundations where the buildings once stood – and the beach, piled with plastic and every manner of human wares. Haunting.

We worked at a woman named Shakido’s house that was buried in the earthquake which caused the tsunami. We took an all night bus to shovel mud and rock, but the reward was amazing. We felt like we were doing something. Something good. Her house had been left empty for almost a year because of radiation aftermath from the reactor meltdown. Shakido is about 80, and right out in front of her house are destroyed rice patty fields. She watched the tsunami flood the fields and destroy them from her front porch. 60 years ago she watched allied planes bomb the city from the same vantage point.

Time heals wounds, and time changes everything. And power shifts.

What I see in Japan is a resilient people who are overcoming an incredible disaster that left 20,000 of their people dead. What I learn from watching them dig out from this disaster is that destruction can be remedied, that pollution can be eliminated, that life must go on. It’s the same for our oceans.

Plastic pollution in the ocean is a human caused problem. It affects marine life and has implications for the human food chain. But like tsunami recovery in Japan, it’s a solvable problem.

On this World’s Ocean Day, remember this: if you divide the amount of plastic produced for the U.S. markets by the population, you get roughly 300 pounds consumed by every woman, man and child annually. The solution to plastic pollution starts with you. But awareness is half the battle.

Take the 5 Gyres Plastic Promise and learn about five simple ways you can reduce your plastic footprint.

The solution starts with you. Be the sea change you want to see, and be part of the powerful movement that looks to a better tomorrow. As trite as it might sound, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Read more exclusive reports from previous 5 Gyres expeditions on EcoSalon:

The Eye of the Gyre

Garbage, Saints and Whale Sharks of the South Atlantic

Reflections from a Two-Timer: The Final Chapter in a Voyage Through the Atlantic Gyre

Full archive here.

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