Mistakes Aren't a Waste! Pacifica Is Selling Holiday Products with Typos For an Eco-Friendly Cause (Exclusive)

Have you ever sent out a resume to your dream job before realizing you spelled your own name wrong? Arguably, that little amateur typo could cost someone thousands of dollars. You know, in a sense. But hey, everyone makes mistakes, even established and successful beauty brands.

Clean, cruelty-free brand Pacifica experienced a slip-up with its 2023 holiday gift sets. An oopsie, if you will. Product packaging that was meant to read as "YOU ARE SO pretty" was accidentally printed as "YOU ARE OS pretty." The little blunder could have cost the brand an insurmountable amount of money and time.

The brand chose to make the mishap about a different kind of green — aka the environment. Considering the Stanford University Waste Reduction, Recycling, Composting and Solid Waste Program relayed that "household waste increases by more than 25 percent from Thanksgiving to New Year’s," as per a 2022 ABC News piece, Pacifica decided against reprinting. Trashing their typo-adorned packaging would only add to the holiday waste problem, and that's not very cheery!

Instead, Pacifica is launching the "One Typo = One Tree" campaign to offset holiday waste and gift Mother Earth with more trees.

Ahead of the campaign, Pacifica founder Brook Harvey-Taylor got candid with Green Matters in an exclusive e-interview, discussing the importance of "One Typo = One Tree," the brand's sustainable mission, and how to be kinder to the planet during the holiday season and beyond.

For every holiday skincare set featuring a typo sold, Pacifica will plant one tree as part of a partnership with One Tree Planted — a 501(c)3 environmental nonprofit "focused on global reforestation." The eco-charity has planted over 92.7 million trees in more than 80 countries since 2014.

"While we already use a sustainably sourced paper made from 80 percent upcycled sugarcane, our first thought was that we can’t just throw these away and reprint. It would just be too wasteful," Brook Harvey-Taylor tells Green Matters. "Our little mishap really did lead to a conversation [on] what more we can do to protect our resources."

For shoppers on the lookout for the error, the brand hinted that the Face Wash Stars Cleansing Kit and the Bright Stars for Glowing Skin Skincare Set possess the typo-adorned packaging.

The Face Wash Stars kit includes three sulfate-free, travel-size cleansers "powered by skin-loving ingredients": The Sea Foam Complete Face Wash, the Kale Detox Deep Cleaning Face Wash, and the Glow Baby Brightening Face Wash.

The Bright Stars for Glowing Skin set includes four orange-scented products from Pacifica's brightening "Glow Baby" line: The Glow Baby Brightening Facial Mask, the travel-size Glow Baby Brightening Face Wash, the travel-size Glow Baby Super Lit Enzyme Scrub, and the Glow Baby Booster Serum. This collection features star ingredients like vitamin C, AHAs, and glycolic acid.

The 2023 campaign begins on Nov. 28 — aka Giving Tuesday — and will continue through Dec. 31.

"A quick Google search reports that 2.3 million pounds of wrapping paper end up in landfills every year," Harvey-Taylor explains. "Many of them are also not recyclable. So try using just a ribbon or twine on pretty packages."

In 2022, Pacifica teamed up with clean, woman-founded sexual wellness brand LOLA for the naughty “It’s a Wrap” campaign, which urged consumers to forget the gift wrapping paper during the holiday season. However, the campaign reminded people to always wrap other, um, packages.

Save paper, use condoms. That's certainly festive!

Harvey-Taylor also recommends going vegan, even if it's just a trial run.

"An Oxford University study showed that vegan diets resulted in 75 percent less climate-heating emissions, water pollution, and land use than diets in which more than 100 grams of meat a day was eaten," she says. "Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66 percent and water use by 54 percent."

Holiday meals at the family table are typically plentiful, so Harvey-Taylor feels it's the perfect time to try out some vegan recipes.

"Take a traditional recipe you love and turn it into a vegan item," she tells Green Matters.

Harvey-Taylor and her "beauty activist" team have honored one core value for almost three decades: "Compassion — for the planet, animals, and you."

"Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs," she explains. "We see sustainability as an act of compassion. We use this as our guidepost for everything we do, including ingredients, packaging, and how we show up in the world as a brand."

We should all follow Pacifica's example this holiday season and beyond: Embrace the mistakes, reduce the waste, and show compassion.