Radical Goodness

At SXSW London 2026, Here Design's Kate Marlow sat down with Natura CMO Tatiana Ponce for "Radical Goodness: The Case for Brands that Mean It" - a conversation about what happens when a beauty brand's values are built into its business model, not bolted on as marketing. Here are five takeaways for anyone shaping the future of cosmetics and beauty design.

1. Goodness as structure, not communication

The clearest distinction Tatiana Ponce drew was between goodness as communication and goodness as structure. Most beauty brands treat sustainability as a messaging layer: a green label, a recycled-materials claim, a campaign. Natura's model works the other way around. Profit becomes the engine that grows the impact, rather than impact becoming the thing profit funds on the side.

For beauty brand design, this means packaging design and branding decisions can't just describe a sustainability commitment, they need to embody it. That's the gap between a brand that performs values and one that's actually built around them, and consumers can feel the difference.

2. Redefining beauty as connection, not comparison

Natura's founder Luiz Seabra built the company in 1969 around the philosophy of Bem Estar Bem, the well-being of the individual in relation to the whole. Rather than the traditional beauty industry narrative built on insecurity and reversal of time, Natura frames beauty as a collective force, a medium for confidence, identity, care and connection.

This reframing has direct implications for cosmetics design and packaging design. If beauty is about connection rather than comparison, the design language, from logo, branded materials all the way to materials and packaging structure all need to reflect generosity and wellbeing rather than aspiration-through-lack. It's a brief that goes well beyond aesthetics into the territory of brand architecture and product design strategy.

3. The "standing forest" as an economic principle

One of the most striking ideas from the session was Natura's model of the standing forest, the principle that a living ecosystem generates more value intact than it does when extracted. The example of the Ucuuba tree, once cut for timber and sold for a fraction of its current value, now sustained because its fruit is more valuable harvested season after season, shows how design-led innovation (in this case, ingredient discovery) can shift entire local economies.

For beauty brands and the design agencies that work with them, this is a model for how sourcing stories can become design stories. Packaging design that communicates ingredient provenance, regeneration and bio-innovation isn't decoration, it's the proof point of the brand's actual operating model.

4. Brand architecture as a vehicle for impact

Natura operates as a motherbrand with a portfolio of sub-brands, each playing a different role in its wider mission, from ocean sustainability to legacy preservation to ingredient innovation rooted in the Amazon. Hearing Tatiana Ponce talk through that portfolio was a reminder of something we believe strongly at Here: brand architecture is never just an organisational chart waiting to be filled in.

Natura's philosophy of Bem Estar Bem is relational, beauty radiating outward from the self to others to the world. A masterbrand that thinks this way shouldn't be mapped with a top-down hierarchy borrowed from manmade structures. It needs a form drawn from nature itself, as interdependent and alive as the brand it represents. Form follows function, and a distinctive strategy should always lead to an inventive form.

For agencies working across beauty brand portfolios, the takeaway is that brand architecture is often a strategy's first artefact, the moment an idea takes shape and becomes visible. Get that form right, and packaging design, sub-brand identity and the masterbrand promise all reinforce each other. Get it wrong, and even the sharpest strategy crumples on its way into a generic framework.

5. Desire beats guilt, every time

Perhaps the most design-relevant insight from the session: sustainability marketing has spent years trying to make people feel responsible, and it mostly hasn't worked. Guilt is a poor motivator. Desire is far more powerful.

This is where Here Design's concept of Beautility, marrying beauty and utility to make good choices desirable, connects directly to the work happening with Natura. The ongoing collaboration focuses on rethinking all design choices that need to feel desirable first, sustainable second, without ever compromising on either.

The session closed with a challenge that applies to every brand sitting on genuine sustainability commitments: silence isn't humility, it's a missed invitation. If a beauty brand is doing the work, design is what makes that work visible, tangible and desirable to the people holding the product in their hands.

This is exactly the territory Here Design works in. We're a branding and packaging design agency working with beauty, wellness and cosmetics brands, alongside others, who need their values translated into something people can see, feel and want. Whether it's bio-material innovation, circular packaging systems, or brand architecture across a beauty portfolio, the goal is the same as Natura's. Make good choices, the desirable choice.

If you're a beauty brand exploring how packaging design, branding or product design can carry your sustainability story further, get in touch with Here Design to talk about what Beautility could look like for your brand.