The Ugly Truth Behind Beauty

When it comes to food, we often check the ingredients on the back of the box. When we buy new clothes, we look at the label to see what it’s made of. Do we do the same for our cosmetics?

I’m sure most of us don’t, but it’s something we should start doing. Unfortunately, the fashion and beauty industries are dangerously unregulated when it comes to what chemicals can and cannot be in our products. While many of us are now aware of the impacts our clothing can have on the planet, our cosmetic products are much more of a mystery. The scary truth is that many of the products we buy have chemicals that can be toxic to us and to the environment.

Quite a recent discovery is the impact many popular sun creams have on coral reefs – countless tourists have accidentally endangered the oceans that they are going on holiday to see. Their sun cream comes off in the water and sadly contributes to coral reef bleaching. This bleaching has a huge knock-on effect, as thousands of species of marine life depend on coral reefs for survival. Not only this but they help communities nearby, both physically by protecting them from storms and currents by acting as a buffer, and financially, by being a huge tourist attraction.

The oceans are affected by lots of the chemicals found in make-up, creams, and hair products. Parabens are artificial preservatives, so they help prolong the life of our products. This is great for our wallets as we don’t need to buy replacements as often, but not so great for our skin, hair, and marine animals. In people they can cause hormone imbalances and skin inflammation – could you imagine the damage it causes to animals that ingest them?

Fortunately, parabens are identified on the ingredients list of the items we buy, so we can avoid purchasing them. However, not all products display all of their ingredients – perfumes for example, and other fragrances, can contain up to 3000 chemicals, and they are not all identified on the packaging. As consumers, we don’t know what is in our products, and when we are told, we often don’t understand what the ingredients are.

One product we do understand is plastic. Not only is plastic packaging a huge issue, but some exfoliators even contain microbeads of plastic. Like plastic micro-fibres from synthetic clothing, these microbeads end up in our oceans and ingested by sea creatures. Luckily, natural exfoliators are more common, but natural packaging is not. Where possible, avoiding plastic packaging is best (think soap and shampoo bars) but using plastic bottles more than once also stops them being bought frequently. Refill stations are becoming more popular in stores, large companies like Boots and The Body Shop are trialling refill stations in some of their stores – in fact, The Body Shop have a refill station in one of their Nottingham stores!

So it all sounds horrible, but as consumers, we can make a difference. By choosing to buy natural products from brands that are honest and transparent, we can force the industry to end its use of toxic chemicals, protecting ourselves and our environment. Simple things like using products until they are empty and buying the most ethical products we can afford, can collectively have a huge impact.

- Tegan