Nowadays, people all across the world are influenced by the beauty industry. While the cosmetics market permeates all walks of life, it has several issues, such as the negative effects it has on psychological well-being and subpar quality items.

Many of us are unaware of the synthetic chemicals we slather onto our skin when it comes to personal care items. The unfortunate truth is that not all components are pure, especially in mass-produced brands we find in the supermarket. Some are progressively harming our bodies, hastening the aging process, and, worst of all, endangering our health. These harmful beauty products attempt to imitate Mother Nature by using inferior, synthetic ingredients that facade claiming it as “natural,” “pure,” and, most concernedly, “safe.”

The system as a whole is defective. Because regulations can’t keep up, big cosmetic corporations can get away with using cheap unqualified synthetic substances with recognized health concerns. Consumers are unconcerned about indecipherable ingredient listings on personal care items. On many levels, this is a bad situation.

In recent years, some beauty companies have been forced to take their products off the market due to concerns about toxic ingredients. In 2018, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay over $4bn in damages after plaintiffs claimed that the talc in its baby powder caused ovarian cancer. Similarly, L’Oreal was sued for false advertising after its “all-natural” products were found to contain toxic chemicals.

Consumers want to believe that their favorite brands of makeup, toiletries, and other personal care products are safe. But in reality, most of these products contain unregulated chemicals known to be toxic when ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. It is estimated that there are over 10,000 chemicals in the beauty market today.

Are natural and clean beauty products safer?

Clean beauty, also known as natural skin care, is having a moment. From 2017 to 2018, the natural skin care market grew by 23% to 1.6 billion dollars, accounting for over 25% of the 5.6 billion dollars of annual skin care sales in 2018. Staunch warnings from influencers such as Gwyneth Paltrow, whose blog Goop warns readers “Do you want antifreeze (propylene glycol) in your moisturizer? We’re going to guess no,” have ignited fear in consumers who are now hungry for skincare that is safe and nontoxic. However, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to define clean and natural, leaving these labels open to interpretation by non-dermatologist retailers, bloggers, and celebrities who have set out to define clean beauty for themselves. While the clean beauty movement has demonized hundreds of compounds, we argue that an arbitrary designation of clean or natural does not necessarily make products safer for consumers.

Without a legal or official definition, the term clean beauty is often left open to interpretation, allowing skincare brands to define it according to their agenda. Primarily, clean beauty is associated with natural or green beauty, even though some companies evoke these connections via “greenwashing” – or falsely labeling products as natural to appeal to conscious consumers. To qualify as a “clean beauty product”, a cosmetic must contain only non-toxic ingredients and be transparent about its labeling, listing all ingredients present in the formulation. Parabens, formaldehyde, and chemical UV filters top a growing list of toxic ingredients to avoid in beauty products although, to be considered a clean beauty product, cosmetics do not need to be all-natural or organic – their ingredients simply must be safe and demonstrate no harmful effects.

The lack of regulation concerning clean beauty products causes confusion and credibility concerns and leaves the term itself open to interpretation. Unregulated arbitrary descriptions may mislead consumers to purchase clean beauty products containing high concentrations of ingredients that may have adverse effects, according to dermatologists’ warnings.

Many of the ingredients that have been denounced by clean beauty evangelists seem to be selected haphazardly as companies attempt to “greenwash” their products to make them more attractive to conscientious shoppers. In July 2018, for example, Whole Foods released its updated list of unacceptable ingredients, which lists over 400 compounds they feel are unfit for their line of premium body care. Their list of banned ingredients includes petrolatum, which dermatologists have consistently recommended to patients with skin barrier disruption owing to its nonallergenicity, superior qualities as a humectant, and economical cost that makes it accessible to patients of all backgrounds.

Additionally, many so-called natural products contain high concentrations of botanical extracts that are a leading cause of both irritant and allergic contact dermatitis and photo-sensitization. In a study done by the University of Ferrara, 6.22% of topical herbal product users reported 1 or more adverse cutaneous reactions, with a prevalence higher in women than men.

Many products that call themselves “natural” also use other terminology that may help you get to the bottom of things:

• Fragrance-free: These products don’t contain natural or synthetic fragrances. But “fragrance-free” isn’t the same as “unscented,” which often means that chemicals have been added to cover up the smell of other ingredients.
• Hypoallergenic: This term indicates that a product is made with ingredients that are unlikely to cause allergic reactions — but it isn’t necessarily reliable. The FDA’s website explains, “There are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term ‘hypoallergenic.’ The term means whatever a particular company wants it to mean.”
• Non-toxic: This catch-all word is essentially a marketing term meant to convey the idea that a product is safe.
• Organic: Organic products use ingredients that are grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or other chemicals.
• Paraben-free: These hormone-disrupting chemicals, which mimic estrogen in your body, are used as preservatives in many skin care products and cosmetics. They’ve been associated with health concerns like infertility and cancer.
• PFAS-free: Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are hormone-disrupting chemicals that can affect your sleep, blood pressure, metabolism and more.
• Phthalate-free: Phthalates are hormone-disrupting chemicals that are sometimes used as dissolving agents in skin care products and cosmetics. They’re associated with decreased sperm quality, among other concerns.
• Sulfate-free: Also known as surfactants, sulfates are chemicals that make products lather or foam.

Natural is basically just a marketing gimmick, not an actual standard that skin care products have to meet. So, when it comes to skin care products, ingredients that are natural aren’t necessarily better or safer for you.

Does beauty industry use child labor?

The global cosmetics market is made up of skincare, hair care, make-up, fragrances and toiletries — and is growing rapidly, with a projected growth of $115.6 billion between 2022-2027. The growing use of the term ‘cruelty free’ is used to confirm that a product was not tested on animals. However, this term does not necessarily mean that a brand’s supply chain is free from human rights abuses such as child labor.

The links between growers, brokers, processors, manufacturers, and companies who sell the final cosmetics products are elaborate and often difficult to trace. The first stop on the journey into your makeup bag for many ingredients is a field or a farm belonging to rural smallholders. Other ingredients can be traced to poor workers without formal employment or social protections, working on large plantations or deep in mines. However, many consumers are unaware that common ingredients in everyday cosmetics can be linked to child labor. Millions of children are losing out on a safe and healthy childhood to work in dangerous or exploitive conditions, farming and mining essential ingredients for common cosmetics.

Worldwide, nearly 1 in 10 children, or 160 million children aged 5 to 17, are in child labor. After decades of progress, the numbers of child laborers who work to support their family or have been trafficked, forced, or coerced to work has been increasing since 2016, and the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have further increased those numbers. The vast majority of child labor is simply for survival, predominantly subsistence agriculture on family farms. But up to 26% of child labor is linked to global export markets.

Palm oil

Palm oil is the most widely-used vegetable oil in the world, a globally traded commodity that is used in approximately half of all consumer goods, including cosmetics. Palm oil is derived from the fruit pulp of oil palm trees grown on vast plantations, and approximately 83% of the world’s total palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. Today, the market is worth an estimated $51 billion. Children as young as 5 years old work on vast palm oil plantations across Indonesia, Malaysia, Ecuador, Sierra Leone, Guatemala, and Colombia. One and a half million children in Indonesia work in the agricultural sector, including on palm oil plantations, where they often labor in unsafe conditions. Because workers on the plantations are often given quotas or paid by weight, workers enlist the help of their spouse or children to meet targets, get bonuses, or avoid penalties.

In cosmetics, palm oil is pervasive, appearing in the ingredients lists of liquid eyeliners, cream foundations, shampoo, lip balm, and lipstick. It can be difficult to identify palm oil in any given list of ingredients: there are at least 200 names of ingredients derived from palm oil including: Palmitate, Sodium Laureth Sulphate, Sodium Lauryl Sulphates, Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate, Glyceryl Stearate and Stearic Acid. Palm oil can be used in crude oil form or – more commonly in cosmetics –refined into various components through fractionation, a process which separates the oil into a liquid (palm olein) or a solid (palm stearin). Cosmetics companies who have tried to remove palm oil from their formulations often struggle to do so entirely due to the high number of derivatives.

Cocoa

Behind the sweet taste and healing properties of cocoa lies a bitter story: child labor has been linked to cocoa production for decades. The world’s leading producer of cocoa is Côte D’Ivoire, a small country on the western coast of Africa that produced 2 million tonnes of cocoa in 2017–2018, followed by Ghana (900,000 tonnes). An estimated 2.1 million children work on cocoa farms in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana alone, and during COVID-19 lock downs, researchers saw a 21% increase in child labor in Cote d’Ivoire. More than half of all cocoa farmers in some areas of Ghana are engaged in child labor.

An estimated 16,000 children (aged 10 to 17) in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana have been forced into this work by someone other than their parents; some of these children may have been trafficked. Children are also forced to work in cocoa farms in Benin, Cameroon, and Togo.

Cocoa is exported in three primary forms: as cocoa beans, as cocoa paste, or as cocoa butter. Demand for cocoa paste and cocoa butter have been growing in recent years, driven partially by the increased demand for natural beauty as cosmetics companies reformulate their products to replace synthetic compounds with natural ones. About 90% of the global cocoa crop ends up in chocolate confectionery products, but cocoa is also increasingly used in skincare and cosmetics for its healing and skin-softening properties.

Vanilla

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, yet the farmers who grow it – and their children – are often trapped in an endless cycle of poverty. The vast majority of the world’s vanilla is grown in Madagascar on small, family-owned farms; it is also grown in Uganda, Indonesia, Mauritius, and Papua New Guinea. In addition to its culinary uses, vanilla is widely used in cosmetics and skincare products for its antioxidant properties and fragrance.

Children as young as 10 can be found helping their parents on the vanilla fields instead of attending
school, and farmers reported that child labor had been increasing in a 2020 assessment in Uganda. The vanilla plant is native to Mexico, where it is pollinated by native bees. In East Africa, however, the absence of these bees means that each single vanilla orchid must be pollinated by hand, making vanilla a time-intensive product to grow. Children spend six to seven hours a day in the tedious work of pollinating every orchid in the field instead of going to school; they also help with the triage and drying process for vanilla pods. This work cannot be done after school; it must to be done in late morning to be successful. This leads to high levels of truancy during the pollination period.

Mica

In recent years, the link between mica used in cosmetics and the particularly dangerous forms of child labor behind its production have become widely known. Mica is a common ingredient for a diverse range of cosmetics products, as it adds sparkle to highlighter and blush, eye shadows, lipsticks, and nail polishes. Any product that shimmers likely contains mica, which can be either natural (mined) or synthetic. In addition to shine, mica also serves as an anti-caking agent in powdered cosmetics, such as foundation and blush. Beyond cosmetics, it is widely used in household products such as ink, paint, and electronics.

Mica is mined in various countries, including Brazil, Canada, China, Madagascar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United States. However, 25% of the total mica in use around the world is sourced from just two states in India: Jharkhand and Bihar. Mica from these states is considered higher grade and perfect for providing the pearly sheen in cosmetics products. In these two states, more than 22,000 children, some as young as five years old, work in small mines with their family members, who often have no other source of income.

Mica mining is incredibly dangerous for children; the risks they face include broken bones and severe injuries in accidents, death from exhaustion and heatstroke, and a type of lung disease known as silicosis, which is caused by inhaling quartz or silica dust that causes lung inflammation and scarring. Many children work in mine shafts up to 300 meters deep. These shafts are known to collapse; a 2016 investigation found that seven children had died in just two months from working in unsafe mines that collapsed. In June of that same year, a local child protection agency in India reported that 20 children had died in a single month in different accidents and mine shaft collapses.

Does the beauty industry have a negative impact on the environment?

The beauty industry impacts our environment in several ways. Current practices can deplete natural resources, damage oceans, hurt wildlife, and produce harmful microplastics. But the biggest challenge the beauty world faces is packaging waste. The beauty industry produces at least 120 billion pieces of packaging each year. Given that 95% of cosmetic packaging is thrown away, you can see the scope of environmental challenges this presents.

Beauty brands commonly use plastic for packaging because it’s easily made and more affordable than other options. However, the environmental fallout of plastic packaging waste is huge. The British Beauty Council pointed out that just 14% of plastic waste is sent to recycling and only 9% gets recycled. On top of that, synthetic ingredients also contribute to the plastic dilemma. Plastic Soup researchers analyzed the ingredients of over 7,000 beauty products and found that only 13% were free from microplastics.

Wildlife is impacted by both the production and disposal of cosmetic products. A lot of plastic packaging waste eventually ends up in our rivers and oceans, posing a serious threat to marine species. According to the Environmental Investigations Agency, at least 633 marine species are affected by microplastics in the water.  

Experts have found that around 70% of beauty products contain some element of palm oil. Seen as a skin-friendly emulsifier, this natural ingredient is often sourced from palm oil plantations around Southeast Asia.

The farming of palm oil contributes to staggering deforestation around our planet. Some experts estimate that an area the size of 300 football fields is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil farms. This also jeopardizes the habitats of endangered wildlife, such as the Sumatran tiger.

Many beauty brands still test their products on animals. One study found that a whopping 88% of major cosmetic brands are not cruelty-free, meaning they test cosmetic products on the skin of animals to check for irritation or harmful effects. According to the Humane Society, around 500,000 animals suffer and die as a result of the cosmetic industry.

Even though many beauty products are toxic, others pose greater environmental risks. This is usually attributed to the higher percentage of non-biodegradable ingredients and hazardous chemical compounds in its composition.

• Makeup removal wipes. Removing makeup after an eventful and busy day sure feels therapeutic. But, it doesn’t feel so for the environment. The makeup removal wipes, designed for a single time use are made of polypropylene. These are non-recyclable and can even clog drains. Thus, they pose a great threat to the environment and waterways.
• Exfoliating scrubs with micro-beads. These scrubs make your skin feel softer and remove all the dead cells. But these are extremely dangerous. These exfoliating scrubs contain plastic micro-beads that don’t get removed or destroyed when being washed down. These micro-beads are extremely dangerous because they end up in the aquatic and marine environments and get ingested by the aquatic animals, and wildlife.
• Face sheet masks. While those beloved facial sheet masks can hydrate and leave your skin with a dewy glow, they aren’t so beneficial to the environment. For one thing, the face sheet masks produce a lot of waste products: there’s a plastic pouch, the mask itself, and even a plastic sheet wrapped around the mask, none of which is easily recyclable or compostable. As a result, more waste will end up in landfills.
• Skin-whitening creams. The entire market of skin-whitening creams screams our unhealthy obsession with fair and white skin. These whitening creams have silicone, which not only are harmful to you but the environment. Just like the micro-beads, the silicone gets washed down into marine and aquatic environments. Thus, harming marine life.
• Sprays and mists. Many of the spray-on beauty products are hazardous to the environment. They pollute the atmosphere in addition to the fact that they will end up in landfills. They may also contribute to the ozone layer’s depletion. This is due to the aerosol and hydrocarbons contained in them.