Throughout the past few weeks, I have covered extensively on the fast fashion industry, diving deep into understanding its environmental impacts, production and consumption behaviours. Moving forward, we will be looking at another industry that often comes hand in hand with fashion — beauty products!
Used interchangeably with the ‘cosmetics industry’, a common misconception is that the beauty industry only encompasses make-up. According to Abidemi et al. (2018), the applications of the beauty industry actually extends to include personal care products like shampoos, sunscreens and even toothpastes and insect repellants. As such, whether you use makeup or not, it is likely that you consume much more beauty products than you think! The role of the beauty industry in the day to day lives of humans is therefore not to be under-emphasized.
(Source: https://www.ft.com/content/98e8ab63-0676-4c87-9ae3-071486773dea)
As of 2019, the beauty industry is worth over $500 billion and is estimated to trend upwards to $820 million by 2023. Additionally, the Euromonitor International Study also tells us that this industry plays crucial economic roles for many countries, with $14 billion in India and $62 billion in China for beauty and personal care sales, for example. With such a substantial amount of influence, the scale of this industry has caused impacts to be ever more amplified.
While fashion has been on the center stage for its negative environmental impacts, pollution for the beauty industry remains relatively less contemplated. Apart from the apparent forms of pollution such as extensive plastic waste generated for packaging of beauty products, more insidious forms of pollution such as microplastics and chemical pollution of our oceans are also extremely prevalent for the industry. Additionally, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) commonly found in many aerosol products have also contributed extensively to air pollution and smog (Rogula-Kopiec et al., 2019).
Indirectly, rising demand for the industry has also driven high production of ingredients such as palm oil, which is found in 70% of cosmetics. This has led to extensive deforestation. Together, these forms of plastic, water, air pollution and detrimental practices to the environment have led to the increasing attention paid to regulate the effects of the industry. For example, The 2020 British Beauty Council report has placed the beauty industry as one of the main priorities that requires urgent change.
Like many other industries, environmental pollution does not only stop at production stages. Rather, consumption and usage of such personal care products continues its pollution cycles. For example, as consumers use shampoos and conditions, a common ingredient known as phthalates often gets washed into our drainage systems and ends up in our aquatic habitats altogether.
Coming Up
I hope that the above has been a useful introduction to the environmental impacts of the beauty industry! In the next few weeks, I will be covering in more detail how each of this pollution is caused and the impacts they result.
Stay tuned and stay concerned,
Hui Jie
References
Abidemi, B. L., James, O. A., Oluwatosin, A. T., Akinropo, O. J., Oraeloka, U. D., & Racheal, A. E. (2018). Treatment technologies for wastewater from the cosmetic industry—A review. Int J Chem Biomol S, 4(4), 69-80.
Euromonitor International. (2021, April). Beauty and Personal Care in India. Retrieved from https://www.euromonitor.com/beauty-and-personal-care-in-india/report.
Scott, M. (2022, January 10). Cosmetics Brands Join Forces To Lift Leverage On Palm Oil Producers. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2022/01/10/cosmetics-brands-join-forces-to-lift-leverage-on-palm-oil-producers/?sh=1600993f1b6d.
The British Beauty Council. (2021, January 13). British Beauty Council Annual Report 2020. Retrieved from
Rogula-Kopiec, P., Rogula-Kozłowska, W., Pastuszka, J. S., & Mathews, B. (2019). Air pollution of beauty salons by cosmetics from the analysis of suspensed particulate matter. Environmental Chemistry Letters, 17(1), 551-558.
Rai, V. (2019). Unseen 2019: The ugly side of beauty waste. Mint Lounge. Retrieved from https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/talking-point/unseen-2019-the-ugly-side-of-beauty-waste-111641647029636.html.
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