Aussie eco soap startup Single Use Ain’t Sexy acquired by global travel amenities company Buzz

Australian sustainable personal care brand Single Use Ain’t Sexy has announced that it has been acquired by global travel amenities company Buzz for an undisclosed sum, with its CEO and founder set to join the Buzz ranks.

Single Use Ain’t Sexy, an eco soap startup dedicated to reducing single-use plastics with its range of dissolvable just-add-water soap tablets and reusable glass bottles, was launched in April 2020 by founder and CEO Josh Howard who made it his mission to find a solution to the 60 million single-use bottles ending up in landfill every day.

Under Buzz, which was founded in 1999 by founders Barry Gold and Leonard Hamersfeld, Single Use Ain’t Sexy will shift its focus to the wholesale travel market and cease operating as a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand in Australia.

Howard will also join the Buzz team in an international role as part of the acquisition, to help scale the company’s full sustainable portfolio across its distribution network of global travel partners.

Howard told SmartCompany that the partnership with Buzz, a global supplier of premium amenities to the travel industry, will create a platform to “affect a much larger change together”. 

“We decided to sell Single Use Ain’t Sexy to Buzz because we are strategically, creatively, and philosophically aligned. We are lucky to have found a partner who shares our sustainable mission, obsession with creativity and focus on constant innovation,” he says. 

“I’m particularly excited to join the Buzz team, especially with the opportunity to help drive significant change and environmental impact at scale across the global travel sector. It is a massive industry that is being transformed by new solutions that companies like Buzz create.”

Howard describes Buzz as being “at the forefront of creating and scaling sustainable solutions” and says he is excited to be working on international launches. 

“The sheer scale of their global operations means we will save more single-use plastic bottles from landfill with just one hotel partnership than we could achieve alone — that excites me,” he says. 

The companies said in a statement that the strategic partnership aims to strengthen Buzz’s position in the travel sector by adding to its product portfolio, with a focus on refillable solutions.

Co-founder and managing director Barry Gold said in the war against waste, Buzz has always been a first mover.

“We firmly believe we will be stronger together as we continue revolutionising how the world’s best airlines, hotels, cruise and rail lines replace single-use amenities with refillable alternatives for travellers,” he said.

By the end of 2023, Buzz is on track to supply large format and refillable amenities — designed to replace mini single-use plastic bottles — plus other sustainably designed products, to over 50,000 hotel rooms globally for hotel brands including Hilton, Marriott, MGM Resorts, SLS, Atlantis, Belmond, and Jackalope.

Buzz co-founder and creative director Leonard Hamersfeld said creativity and innovation are at the heart of everything the company does.

“We create incredible collaborations with the world’s best brands including Armani, Le Labo, TUMI and Acqua Di Parma. Our vision aligns perfectly with the design-led, market first and impact-driven ethos of Single Use Ain’t Sexy and we are thrilled to have them on board,” he said.

In recent years Buzz’s market-leading proprietary ecoTHREADTM blankets for airlines like Emirates and Jetstar have saved over 100 million plastic drinking bottles from landfill.