Image source, Maddy Savage Image caption,

Selah Li hopes her start-up can help stop cosmetics going to waste

By Maddy Savage

BBC News, Stockholm

Many of us buy makeup, hair and skincare products that we never end up finishing, because they don't suit us, or work as we'd hoped.

But could changing the way we produce and shop for cosmetics reduce the number of partly-used items lingering in bathrooms around the world?

It's a question that Selah Li, a 29-year-old entrepreneur from China, began investigating in 2018, while she was studying a masters in human robot interaction at the Royal Institute for Technology in Stockholm.

Alongside "feeling guilty" about the waste caused by her own unused beauty purchases, she also became curious about how many products end up as waste, because they are never bought from stores in the first place.

"I saw a shelf of fifty shades of foundation and I was very happy because I am a minority here, and I can't always find my shade. But at the same time, as a scientist by training I was wondering: how do they predict the sales and the production of everything?," says Ms Li.