Why Should We Care About Fashion and Cosmetics?

Perhaps we should trade the amount of time we spend picking out our outfit and doing our make up to consider the consequences our purchases had on the environment.

With advertisements and trends giving us all the glamour about fashion and beauty, it is rather contradictory and non-instinctive for us to think about the dirty and unethical practices behind these industries. In the next few weeks, we shall learn why all that glitters is not gold for the environment!

It is no secret that fashion and cosmetics are highly important for our society. Beyond aesthetics, they are highly intertwined with our cultures, identities and sense of belonging (Power, 2010). Then, in a more practical sense, these industries are also major drivers for the economy. In fact, Forbes reports that the global beauty industry is a whopping $535 billion business! Not losing behind, the fashion industry is valued at $3 trillion, contributing to about 2% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product as estimated by Fashion United. Needless to say, these sectors are significant and capable of generating large and long term consequences for our planet.

As these industries are projected to grow with many emerging markets from Western, Asian and European regions, the potential impacts they can have on the environment is exponential. Thus, it is especially important for us to be increasingly aware of the extent of pollution they are causing for our environment. From production, distribution and consumption of textiles and beauty products, our water, land and air suffer pollution from chemicals such as pesticides and greenhouse gases (Allary, 2021). This is an issue we need to address immediately before they become irreversible!

Although highly varied in terms of their methods of production and sale, the consumption behaviours of the fashion and cosmetic industries are highly linked (Junaid and Ahmed, 2013). Therefore, other than covering their individual contributions to environmental pollution, it is also worth examining what are the consumption habits that indirectly drive the two towards more environmental damage.

I hope that through this post, you are expose to why these industries are important topics of discussion for environmental pollution. Once again, stay tuned, we are getting to the juicy bits real soon!

Cheers,

Hui Jie

References

Allary, T. (2021). Future Fashion. Industrial Biotechnology, 17(4), 190-203.

Danziger, N. P. (2019, September 1). 6 Trends Shaping The Future Of The $532B Beauty Business. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2019/09/01/6-trends-shaping-the-future-of-the-532b-beauty-business/?sh=51495efb588d.

Junaid, A. B., & Ahmed, F. (2013). A study on the purchase behavior and cosmetic consumption pattern among young females in Delhi and NCR. Journal of Social and Development Sciences, 4(5), 205-211.

Power, C. (2010). Cosmetics, identity and consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17(7), 73.

General Post About Pollution Caused By These Industries

The Fashion United. (n.d.). Global fashion industry statistics - International apparel. Retrieved from

https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics/.

Statistica. (2021, December 3). Worldwide forecasted sales growth in the fashion industry in 2020, by region. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/802943/fashion-industry-sales-growth-worldwide-by-region/.

Image Source

[Workers In A Textile Factory]. (2013). iStock Photo. Retrieved from https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/textile-factory-gm460735677-32411212?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=srp_photos_top&utm_content=https%3A%2F%2Funsplash.com%2Fs%2Fphotos%2Ftextile-factory&utm_term=textile%20factory%3A%3A%3A.