Looking After the Creek, the Skin, and Everything In Between

At LycanCo, we know that you can’t have clean skin without a clean planet. It’s not just a throwaway line—it’s the lens we use when making choices about our products, our packaging, and our place in the world.

We live in a time where the South Australian landscape is once again feeling the strain—dams are low, soils are dry, and the creeks that should be starting to flow quietly through our suburbs again are, and will remain, in many places, dry and littered. The drought isn't new, but it is sharpening our awareness. Walking through a pretty dry creek bed in the middle of the city is a quiet reminder that everything we use ends up somewhere. Nothing disappears.

For us, the question: how do we live and work in a way that doesn’t add to the problem? - is in clear focus, even more than ever.

That’s why we choose ingredients that don’t leach toxins into the water table, that biodegrade safely, and that won’t turn into microplastics over time. It’s also why we’re packaging our soaps and skin care in materials that can be reused, recycled, or composted—because a product isn’t truly sustainable if its packaging lives on as waste.

We’ve been spending time filming some of these reflections in places like Victoria Park wetlands and the nearby creeks—not just because the scenery is beautiful, but because it's also where our waste often ends up. A bottle tossed on a footpath can find its way into stormwater drains, and from there, into creeks, rivers, and oceans. And while it might seem like a small thing, choosing a bar of soap in a compostable wrapper instead of one in plastic wrap does make a difference. It’s one less thing to wash up downstream.

We know there’s no single solution to environmental care. But we believe that how we care for our bodies and how we care for our surroundings should go hand in hand. Our daily routines can be part of the solution. That’s what we’re trying to build at LycanCo—a company that respects the land and doesn’t ask the earth to pay for our convenience.

So next time you wash your hands, we hope you’ll take a second to think about what’s in the bottle—and where that bottle will go when it’s empty. Because it all adds up. And it’s all connected.