The beauty industry around the world has been growing and this success is mainly due to the rapid development of new products and skincare regimens evolving every day. But the environment is paying a charge at its expense for these beauty products with each passing day. The beauty and skincare industries have a notoriously adverse impact on the entire ecosystem.
The beauty industry, from some of its unlawful practices of developing skin care through toxic ingredients, animals or their by-products, or by testing them on animals, has been a highlight of how we have misused nature and how these things can lead to fatal consequences. The factors where our wildlife, marine-life, and forests are depleting is alarming. The over-abuse of the environment for our beauty needs can lead to more destruction than one can imagine. By unintentionally promoting these wrong practices of “clean/green-washing” by many brands, we’re also unknowingly contributing to unethical beauty.
Let us unfold some factors that will help us understand the pathway that leads to beauty standards that protect the environment and take care of an individual.
WHAT EXACTLY IS ETHICAL BEAUTY?
Ethical beauty begins with the truth. It can be the truth about sourcing organic and natural ingredients being cruelty-free, vegan, or how an organization treats its employees. Today, people want to buy products from brands that they connect with for being sustainable, transparent, and natural, leaving behind the era where beauty products were ladened with artificial ingredients and contributed consistently towards toxifying the environment.
The industry is filled with brands that claim that they’re ethical or sustainable, but most of them are either greenwashing or marketing gimmicks. The most basic beauty products, especially where skin and hair care are concerned, are laden with artificial preservatives, compounds, dyes, colors, fragrances, and other ingredients that harm the skin significantly. It’s vital to understand as a consumer what you are looking for and what makes the brand truly ethical and sustainable.
Let’s understand those five major aspects that are involved to categorize a brand/products as clean beauty and the myths related to their definitions, of which some brands take utmost advantage.
It takes subconscious effort and a lot of research for any consumer who decides to choose sustainable beauty and therefore, these factors/features of any brand or product are to be measured clearly before you take your first step towards supporting nature:
1. CRUELTY-FREE:
Animal-cruelty has been a harsh practice in the beauty industry where products are tested on animals at any stage during development or post production for skin and eye irritation. Hypo allergen testing is carried out on rats, rabbits, and even guinea pigs, which lead to adverse effects on these animals and in some cases also lead to their death.
Through popular marketing tricks, a product/brand might claim itself to be cruelty-free but could still contain animal ingredients. In all possibilities, to get animal ingredients, a life would be put on stake. The product may also contain palm oil, an ingredient that causes destruction of thousands of hectares of rain forests and all the animals that live in them.