What is Sustainable Beauty? At its most basic it is beauty products made up of ingredients that are not harmful to the environment. However, it goes far deeper than that. Sustainability has linkages to harvesting, farming, labor practices, recyclability, government policy and far more. However, to keep this article from becoming far too detailed we will use the following definition for sustainable beauty:
“Sustainable Beauty does not use ingredients that are known to be toxic to our environment.”
This definition is only a starting point to which we can begin to classify the marketplace. It speaks to ethical decision making and the use of conscious ingredients. The next level of sustainable beauty goes to sustainable sourcing. This is where we begin to delve into farming and harvesting practices that have the future in mind. That do not ruin the soil, pollute the water ways or manipulate seeds so that they can only be used once.
Lastly, we delve into biodegradable ingredients. This is where we begin to tackle the issue of plastic components, microplastics in ingredients, long term pollutants and the list just goes on. Short version, we need better options as a consumer group. Are biodegradable products easy to produce? Absolutely not! However, they are the right choice ethically and morally. We as consumers need to be more thoughtful when purchasing the products we use and educated on how our purchasing patterns impact what is produced.
Major manufacturers of consumer products have policies in place regarding carbon neta, utilizing renewable energy like solar, planting trees, and reducing virgin plastic. Unfortunately these are all half measures and even those are not aggressively pursued. Those initiatives are abandoned the moment they impact profitability.
This leads us to what can we as consumers do? Numerous studies have shown that our buying patterns will drive a change in the retail options available to us. We need to educate ourselves better on the products we are purchasing and using. We need to bring forward not just educated purchasing but ethical purchasing. We can use our voice as consumers to drive the change we want to see.
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