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" The reason I had a plane ticket to Nicaragua had nothing to do with charity; this trip was about a business practice called fair trade. I knew that fair trade meant purchasing quality ingredients or goods at fair prices and preventing exploitation of workers, but what I didn&amp;#039;t know about was the incredible range of positive benefits that it has for a community. The goal behind fair trade is sustainability: improving the quality of life in indigenous communities while preserving the planet&amp;#039;s resources. This form of global trade benefits everyone: Companies such as The Body Shop can ethically source quality ingredients, the community finds a way out of poverty, and we, as consumers, know where our product came from and that our purchase is helping to create a better world. For The Body Shop and a growing number of other cosmetic companies, &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; beauty goes beyond recycled packaging and natural ingredients. It&amp;#039;s about social responsibility: using their products, money, and influence to institute global change \u2014 one product and one community at a time. During travels in the 1980s, the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, learned that many of the communities she visited were not getting paid fairly for their ingredients or goods \u2014 often not enough to cover the cost of production or wages. Inspired by the early fair-trade movement happening with coffee and tea, Roddick started a Community Trade program \u2014 working with undeveloped countries that were otherwise powerless in securing a fair price for their products. Twenty-one years later, The Body Shop spends more than $12 million buying ingredients as well as gifts and accessories, like wooden massage tools and tote bags, from suppliers in more than 20 countries. One of those suppliers is a cooperative of sesame farmers in Achuapa, a village in Nicaragua. When Roddick met the farmers in the 1990s, they were struggling to make a living by exporting sesame oil. Roddick worked out a fair price for the sesame oil (now used in more than 40 Body Shop products, including the Moringa Milk Body Lotion, $16) by calculating how much it costs to grow, as well as the community needs: the cost of living, the cost of education, etc. The cosmetics company then gave the farmers a forecast \u2014 somewhat of a contract \u2014 that projected how much sesame oil the company would purchase over the course of, say, a year, giving the farmers a newfound sense of stability and the ability to invest in their community. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re not about charity,&amp;quot; says Graham Clewer, global head of ethical trade at The Body Shop. &amp;quot;A hand up is always better than a handout.&amp;quot; Since this relationship began, the co-op has built eight primary schools that educate 400 children. And it&amp;#039;s currently building a boarding house in Achuapa so 40 kids (mostly children of single moms or those who live in neighboring communities) can attend secondary school. There have been other improvements as well: 13 sanitary water wells built; an acupuncture and natural medicine clinic opened by a single mother of six; a bank, which offers low-interest loans and encourages community members to save money; a model farm, to test organic farming methods; and even family workshops to educate the community on complicated social issues like gender equality and domestic violence. A lipstick is always a quick pick-me-up, but Aveda&amp;#039;s Uruku Lip Pigment, $14, helps lift the spirits of millions. Fifteen years ago, Aveda&amp;#039;s founder encountered the Yawanaw\u00E1 tribe in Brazil. The tribe was dispersed after losing much of its land to rubber plantations, explains Chuck Bennett, vice president of earth and community care at Aveda. &amp;quot;Culturally, they were on the verge of extinction.&amp;quot; To support the tribe, Aveda began purchasing urukum seed from the tribe. The antioxidant-rich seed is used for the tribe&amp;#039;s body-painting rituals because of its vibrant red pigment, which Aveda now uses in its Uruku makeup line. Aveda has also initiated local social projects and school development and has provided equipment for urukum production. The goal: &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re working to move beyond the charitable relationship so they can become a fully sustainable community,&amp;quot; says Bennett. The tribe has recently secured the rights to 125,000 acres of sacred land (for a total of 450,000), reestablishing their sense of community. A body butter sustains a community of 40 families. Nu Skin Enterprises is a cosmetic brand known for its quality skin care as well as its outreach to others less fortunate across the globe. In 1996, the company created the Force for Good Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to improving quality of life in indigenous communities. Nu Skin is involved in hundreds of humanitarian projects in more than 50 countries, including one in Malawi, Africa. &amp;quot;Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world,&amp;quot; says Sandie Tillotson, senior vice president and cofounder of Nu Skin Enterprises, &amp;quot;but also one of the most peaceful, so we knew they would be receptive to our help.&amp;quot; They decided to tackle the biggest problem: poor farming techniques. Enter the Build a Village initiative. Nu Skin built a &amp;quot;model&amp;quot; village that functions as an agricultural school, teaching farmers and their spouses modern farming techniques, even building a reservoir so the farmers could learn irrigation techniques. The village is currently home to 40 families, with the goal of housing 100. The families will stay for two years, learn to farm for themselves, and then relocate so new families can move in. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the concept of teaching a person to fish, rather than just giving them the fish,&amp;quot; says Tillotson. For every Nu Skin Epoch product purchased, 25 cents is donated to the Force for Good Foundation. With each purchase of Epoch Baobab Body Butter, $30, Nu Skin will use that 25 cents to plant a baobab or fruit tree in Malawi, which will help further preserve the environment. If you&amp;#039;ve been to your local Origins store lately, you might notice that things look different. The stores have gone eco-chic: low-energy lighting, plenty of live plants, low-emission paints, and natural river-rock floors. But perhaps the biggest &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; difference is something you can&amp;#039;t see. In July 2007, Origins purchased wind energy credits to offset 100 percent of the traditional energy used by its retail stores, manufacturing plants, and third-party manufacturers. &amp;quot;Essentially, the wind energy brings more clean energy to the power grid, pushing off dirty energy,&amp;quot; explains Lynn Mazzella, senior vice president of global product development and sustainability at Origins. &amp;quot;As we worked on our Origins Organics line [a 2007 REDBOOK MVP winner!], we felt it was important to reduce our carbon footprint.&amp;quot; And let&amp;#039;s just say, the results are mind-blowing: Purchasing wind energy credits for 135 stores is equal to offsetting 4,304 metric tons of carbon dioxide \u2014 the equivalent of taking 825 cars off the road or planting more than 850,000 trees. In even bigger news, Origins&amp;#039; parent company, Est\u00E9e Lauder, has followed suit \u2014 purchasing wind power for the manufacturing of the other 28 brands in its portfolio.  THE FAIR TRADERS: Weleda Wild Rose Day Cream, $25, contains wild rose from local farmers in Senir, a village in Turkey. Lush Fair Trade Foot Lotion, $20, includes cocoa butter harvested from farmers in Costa Rica and Dominican Republic. Dr. Hauschka Lipstick, $21, packs fair trade shea butter from Burkina Faso, Africa. THE CARETAKERS: Yes to Carrots&amp;#039; Seed Fund helps local communities purchase farming equipment and seeds and provide agricultural education. Lend a hand with their Feel the C Pampering Hand &amp;amp;amp; Nail Spa, $17. Noodle &amp;amp;amp; Boo&amp;#039;s Raise Your Hand Campaign helps fund water-purification systems in small villages. Support it with their Believe Honey Soap, $14. If you know of other charitable beauty brands, spread the word in the comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/beauty/makeup-skincare/advice/a4115/fair-trade-beauty-products/>