i+m Naturkosmetik

i+m Naturkosmetik is a German natural-cosmetics company based in Berlin, founded in 1978 [1]. It makes certified-natural, fully vegan skincare, body and hair care, and is unusually open about its politics: the company calls itself "Germany's political cosmetics brand" and organises its business around the principles fair, organic and vegan. It remains active today, operating from Berlin and listing a 2025 nomination for the German Sustainability Award among its most recent activity [3].

The name comes from its two founders. According to the brand, the midwife Inge Stamm and her friend Monika Berg started the company together and combined their first initials — Inge + Monika = i+m [1]. Some retailer descriptions credit Inge Stamm alone as the founder and public face of the brand [10], but the company's own history names both women.

The brand traces its beginnings to the 1970s, when Inge Stamm, then working as a midwife, noticed that newborns' skin often reacted badly to the conventional, petroleum-based products of the day. With no natural alternative on the market, she began mixing her own plant-based skincare, leaving out preservatives, mineral oils and synthetic ingredients. The company describes her background as a combination of training as a chemist, midwife and naturopath [1]; some third-party retailer copy instead describes her as a pharmacist [10], a difference that likely stems from translating the German term for her trade.

As demand for her creams grew, Stamm and Monika Berg decided to focus on the new venture full time, and i+m Naturkosmetik was founded in West Berlin in 1978. By the company's account, Stamm kept working night shifts as a midwife in the early years, sleeping a few hours on a camp bed at the factory between managing production and her next shift. Berg remained with the business until 1988, after which Stamm ran it on her own.

In 2000, the company moved to fully vegan formulations, removing the last animal-derived ingredients — beeswax and honey — from its products [1]. The brand presents this as an early step in the vegan-cosmetics movement, taken well before plant-based beauty became mainstream.

The most difficult chapter came in 2006. The company says Stamm had resisted the industry trend toward heavier marketing and more elaborate packaging, which cost the brand visibility and eventually pushed it into insolvency [1]. It was rescued by Jörg von Kruse and Bernhard von Glasenapp — two men with backgrounds in management consultancy and commercial law who, by the brand's telling, wanted to build a more sustainable kind of company — who rebuilt the business together with Stamm.

Inge Stamm retired in 2013 and died in 2024 after a period of serious illness [1]. Management passed to von Kruse and von Glasenapp, with Verena Zydek joining the leadership in 2015. Von Glasenapp left in 2019 to run an organic countryside hotel, though the company notes he stayed involved with its women's-shelter project in Zambia, which i+m opened in 2014. Von Kruse and Zydek have continued to lead the company since.

i+m Naturkosmetik is privately held and has no parent company on record. Following the 2006 rescue, ownership and management have centred on Jörg von Kruse and, since 2015, Verena Zydek. The company reports no acquisitions and operates as an independent firm rather than part of a larger cosmetics group.

The brand sums up its guiding principle as FAIR ORGANIC VEGAN, sometimes adding a fourth value, "brave." Its stated aim is to remain what it calls Germany's political cosmetics brand and to push the wider economy "away from self-interest and competition and towards fair cooperation." The company says its main corporate objective sits above profit and growth: to maximise sustainability across the business and society.

Much of this is formalised through Economy for the Common Good, a framework under which i+m publishes a "common good balance sheet" covering not just finances but ecology, social justice, transparency and democratic participation. The brand's public tagline is "Change The World With Beauty!"

On formulation, the company describes its approach as one where "tradition meets innovation," pairing long experience with plant oils against newer botanical actives. It frames natural cosmetics as reaching their full effect only when raw materials are organically grown and minimally processed.

i+m's range centres on facial skincare, body care and hair care, with sun care also part of the line-up. Its formulations draw on cold-pressed plant oils and botanical actives, among them sea buckthorn, argan, avocado, coconut, olive and almond oils, shea butter and plant-derived hyaluronic acid. The company credits Inge Stamm with being among the first to use sea buckthorn and plant-derived hyaluronic acid in natural cosmetics [7].

The brand excludes a long list of conventional cosmetic ingredients, including parabens, PEG emulsifiers, silicones, paraffins, phthalates, microplastic beads, GMO ingredients and aluminium salts. Its products carry several third-party certifications. According to Cruelty Free International, i+m's products are made to the COSMOS Organic standard and are approved by both The Vegan Society and the Leaping Bunny cruelty-free programme [9]; the company applies the same certifications across its face and body care.

Sustainability is central to how i+m presents itself, and several of its commitments are documented by outside directories as well as the company. i+m says it donates at least a quarter of its profits to social and ecological causes [4]. The sustainability directory COSH! describes the split in more detail, reporting that 10–20% of profits go to the women's shelter in Zambia and a further 10–20% to small ecological and social projects, with the remainder shared among employees [8].

Since 2014 the company has sourced raw materials that are both organic and fair-trade, including argan oil handcrafted by Berber women in Morocco, avocado oil from a small-farmers' initiative near Mount Kenya, and olive oil from a Palestinian partnership that the brand says has donated more than 100,000 young olive trees to families whose groves were destroyed. On packaging, i+m describes a low-waste approach using recyclable and refillable formats, and ships orders through DHL's GoGreen service.

The company also markets itself as climate-neutral — describing its team as "climate-neutral environmental lovers" — though this is presented as the brand's own statement rather than an independently certified claim, and its sustainability page lists no dated climate-neutral certification.

i+m's most prominent recognition is the German Sustainability Award (Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitspreis). The company was a top-three finalist in 2019 and a winner in 2020, and reports a further design-category finalist place in 2021 and a nomination for 2025 [3]. The independent directory COSH! likewise notes the brand received Germany's sustainability award of the year in both 2019 and 2020.

i+m Naturkosmetik is active. It operates from Berlin under the leadership of Jörg von Kruse and Verena Zydek, maintains an English-language webshop, and lists a 2025 German Sustainability Award nomination as recent activity. Its distribution is concentrated in Europe, with some presence in Asia, making it a multi-region rather than global brand [9]. Founder Inge Stamm died in 2024, but the company has continued under its existing management.