Image courtesy of Pxhere
By Siona Ahuja ’24
Staff Writer
The cosmetics industry has been scrutinized for turning a blind eye toward unethical practices that are harmful to the environment. The industry produces more than 120 billion units of packaging material annually. Although there has been a surge over the past decade or so of products marketed as “pure,” “organic” or “cruelty-free,” a majority of these are still taking a toll on the environment. Eighty-nine percent of the ingredients used in cosmetics are not regulated by the FDA, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review or any other publicly accountable institution, giving brands a chance to add hazardous chemicals and carcinogens that damage both the human body and the Earth.
One significant environmental impact of the cosmetics industry is microbeads. Microbeads are little plastic balls less than 5 millimeters in diameter most commonly present in skincare products to give them an exfoliating effect. While these particles are scrubbed off of the skin in one to two minutes, they have rinsed down the drain, where they escape wastewater treatment centers and remain in the environment for tens of thousands of years. These beads have the capacity to upset the entire food chains. They are routinely digested by marine life which, in turn, is consumed by humans, who end up ingesting the microbeads’ harmful toxins.
While countries like Canada, the United States, South Korea and some European nations are realizing the toxic effects of microbeads, these plastic particles have yet to be universally eradicated. Since some versions of plastic microbeads are too small to see with the naked eye, Beat the Microbead, an app and database, helps buyers check for the presence of this pollutant and make informed decisions about specific products. Skincare specialists and cosmetologists recommend using natural exfoliants instead, such as coffee grounds and jojoba beads. These experts also place a greater emphasis on chemical exfoliants, thus eliminating the need for physically abrasive and environmentally harmful skincare.
While under the pretense of being eco-friendly, popular brands are still including bizarre animal products in cosmetics. Animal wax is a recurrent product in lip balms, and lipsticks owe their reddish tint to crushed red beetles. Most lipsticks have an ingredient called “pearl essence” — another name for fish scales — that gives them a unique luster. There are many, many more ingredients that have been renamed with elegant terms in order to obscure their origins.
Fortunately, many brands are acknowledging this crisis, and in response, newer and cleaner companies are being launched. ILIA Beauty and Au Naturale are relatively transparent brands that are powering their way through the makeup market with natural tints and vegan products. The CosmEthics app and PETA’s website give exhaustive directories of animal ingredients and their ethical alternatives.
A much less acknowledged side of the makeup world is the illegitimate procuring of ingredients for most products. Vanilla, a familiar ingredient used as an aromatic in the cosmetics industry, is the second most expensive spice in the world. Almost 80 percent of this spice sold globally comes from Madagascar where child labor, extensive working hours and underpaid cultivators are commonplace. While the price of vanilla fluctuates between $200 to $400 a kilogram, the field workers are paid only around $8 per kilogram. Similarly, cocoa farmers in tropical West Africa, especially in Ghana and on the Ivory Coast, supply almost 70 percent of the world’s cocoa. Many organizations have exposed the extensive use of child labor, human trafficking and even slavery in these extremely competitive cocoa farms where wages stoop as low as $2 per day.
Mica, a mineral that adds glitter to everyday makeup, is largely found in India where it is illegally scavenged on protected forestland. This has caused major deforestation and loss of wildlife in large parts of the country. Children as young as 6 years old are involved in mica scavenging, a hazardous activity that increases one’s risk of tuberculosis and early death. Workers’ lives are at risk of being suffocated in mica mines; in fact, a 2016 report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation revealed that seven children had been smothered to death in mica mines in a span of just two months.
The daily use of cosmetic plastic products generates millions of tons of non-biodegradable waste. Makeup wipes, toothbrushes and disposable razors are the most commonly disposed of items. Diana Felton MD, the state toxicologist with the Hawaii Department of Health, said, “20 million pounds of single-use wipes (including baby wipes and disinfecting wipes) are disposed of every day in the U.S. Many wipes are disposed of in landfills, and despite claims to the contrary, most are not biodegradable and do not rapidly break down, creating too much trash to fit in our landfills.” The plastic fibers from these wipes leech into the oceans and create a hazard to marine life. To make matters worse, these single-use wipes come in equally harmful plastic packaging, which doubles the waste quantities they contribute. Makeup experts suggest eliminating makeup wipes from people’s routines entirely and instead of using organic makeup removers or reusable washcloths.
Similarly, disposable razors and toothbrushes have bodies made entirely out of plastic that, when thrown away, pile up in landfills for years to come. In 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans tossed out more than 2 billion razors. Since then, the American population has grown by almost 75 million. According to research by FOREO, a Swedish multinational beauty brand, 1 billion plastic toothbrushes (50 million pounds’ worth of plastic) are thrown away annually. These toothbrushes and razors face the same fate as the makeup wipes. As more awareness is raised about these polluting products, recyclable metal razors and bamboo toothbrushes are making headway in the beauty and health care industries.
As the world opens its eyes to the hazards of daily beauty practices and items, a few companies are trying to create change. Makeup artists and influencers like PaintedByEsther and Salwa Rahman are inspiring their followers by upcycling containers, encouraging people to buy secondhand products and refusing to promote companies that do not have a waste reduction policy. “The concept of refillable makeup should become the norm, as it … drastically reduces the eco-footprint of an item,” says Lyndsey Bates, U.K. director of the world’s first refillable makeup brand, ZAO Beauty. “Furthermore, packaging can then be made sustainable.”