There are many brands that call for changing our thinking about the Environment. But there are not many brands whose goal is changing our behavior itself. Toun28 belongs to the latter. CEO Park Jun-su, shocked by the number of animals falling victim to the plastic waste humans produce, and CEO Jung Maria, deeply versed in natural cosmetics, lead the brand with the emphasis on our "action."
In its early days, what drew attention to Toun28 was that it was "vegan cosmetics that invested more in ingredients than in containers." That it made cosmetics with good seasonal raw materials whose origins were transparently disclosed, tailored to the skin of each individual who sought Toun28, quickly spread by word of mouth. The packaging, considered less important than good-quality cosmetics, was based on paper. That ingredients matter more than a fancy container for cosmetics seems obvious at a glance, but for a beauty brand raised under the competitive logic of the era of overproduction, it would not have been an easy choice.
[Toun28 CEO Jung Maria © Toun28 official Instagram]
But Toun28 created the brand's distinctiveness by practicing its philosophy not as one-off marketing but as continuous action. And it is transparently disclosing how much that distinctiveness is leading to concrete results.
The Power of a Brand That Leads to Better Choices
When you access the Toun28 website and click "Mission," multi-digit numbers catch the eye. The numbers represent the amount Toun28 has contributed to date toward supplying biodegradable fishing gear, and the number of plastic bottles we have reduced. The amount of trash picked up through plogging activities, and the number of the "Toun28 Earth Task Force" who took part in plogging, are also considerable. From its early days, Toun28 has supported the supply of biodegradable nets with 1% of the sales funds of the brand's official online store. It is the result value of efforts focused on the action of making and clearing away less of the marine trash — such as waste fishing nets that take the lives of more than 200 million animals a year.
[Their meaningful action results, confirmable in concrete numbers © Toun28 website]
The philosophy that action is important to draw out results is also expressed through practice. Designating the 28th of every month as "Ton Day," all of Toun28's employees act for the environment, such as through plogging. On Ton Day this past May, they carried out "Hongdae City Plogging," and on Ton Day in June, ocean plogging. On Ton Day, they pick up not only marine trash — the origin of Toun28's problem awareness — but also trash from urban streets around us like Hongdae and from construction sites. This routine of Toun28 shows that it is settling the company's mission not as a mere declaration but as a culture.
[The reef-guardian campaign together with Outrigger and Toun28 © Outrigger Resorts]
Its connections to outside the company are also active. Recently, Toun28 is carrying out a "reef-safe campaign" together with the global resort brand "Outrigger Resorts & Hotels," to mark June's "World Ocean Month." As part of the environmental campaign, it raises awareness of the importance of "reef-safe sun-care products" that do not threaten marine ecosystems, and encourages consumers' environmentally conscious choices by providing harmless sunscreen and more.
A World Inconvenience Will Change: A Challenge Toward a Sustainable Future
The concrete result of choices for the environment is precisely Toun28's solid-beauty product line. Toun28 is the brand that first coined the term "solid beauty," and a pioneer that popularized in Korea plastic-package-free solid products such as shampoo bars and body-wash bars. Its natural shampoo bar, with kelp, black beans, and bamboo charcoal as main ingredients, surpassed a cumulative 1.6 million units in sales.
[Toun28 shampoo bar © Toun28]
With ten times the ingredients concentrated compared with liquid products and containing no preservatives, the solid products are excellent not only in being eco-friendly but also in efficacy. A soap-form shampoo bar, unlike liquid shampoo, needs no packaging and thus creates no plastic waste. However, the "inconvenience" of consumers who think the method of use is more cumbersome than liquid-beauty products — which can be pressed to use as much as one likes — could also become a barrier to approaching the brand. The paper packaging that made Toun28 widely known can also be more inconvenient than a plastic container.
Through the website, CEO Park Jun-su made Toun28's path clear with the message, "The era in which convenience changes the world is now over. Now comes the era in which inconvenience changes the world." And that meaningful inconvenience is being accepted by consumers as a new value can be confirmed by Toun28's growth.
[Toun28's skincare using eco-friendly paper packaging © Toun28]
The results of Toun28's growth — sales that grew rapidly after 2020, settling in the upper ranks of vegan-cosmetics brand reputation on par with formidable global and large-corporate brands, and environmental-campaign collaborations with various brands — are all the result of the "good inconvenience" that consumers willingly choose. The "acting beauty" that Toun28 pursues is not a mere slogan but the realization of a new consumption paradigm. Here is a sustainable future of beauty, made together by a brand that acts directly for the environment beyond thinking about it, and consumers who join in that action.
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by Editor L