For the last year, I had my beauty buying in check. I had lists. I had favourites. I knew what I wanted, and I (mainly) didn’t make any missteps: I bough a product, I used it, I liked it. All was well. But right now, I’ve set myself a goal: quitting fast beauty.
2020 happened, and I found myself sitting in my apartment craving beauty like I hadn’t craved new products for a long, long time. Because my stash didn’t cut it anymore: it had to be the excitement of a new thing. And so, shiny things ended up in my stash, but after a while, I started to think again. And vowed to go back to my 2019 buying habits.
Fast beauty, what’s that?
It’s on-trend beauty products, produced and launched quicker and quicker. It’s your impulse buy, your pick-me-up, the product you saw this morning on Insta, the new eyeshadow palette (who can still keep track) and the affordable skincare brands launching products by the dozen: the endless cycle of new collections rolled out every other week.
Or, in the words, of trade magazine cosmeticsbusiness:
‘The beauty industry (developed) a new model, based on accelerated product cycles, enabling brands to capitalise on the latest trends and produce limited runs as quickly as possible, at accessible price points.’
Cosmeticsbusiness
Who we’re hurting
A lipstick here, a serum there: no harm in that, right?! But remember BBC’s documentary Beauty Laid Bare? Well, they showed the less-than-minimum wage workers at ColourPop, and the workers in third world countries sourcing ingredients in harmful conditions. Mica, for example, is often sourced by child workers in India.
And then there’s the waste we’re producing. Plastic packaging often can’t be recycled. Products get often chucked out before used up, contributing further to the problem.
Vogue Business on the topic:
‘When you piece together the entire picture, it makes for the sobering realisation that even before being sold from store racks, a vast majority of beauty products have an impending date with landfills.’
Vogue Business
This paints a rather bleak picture, but mindfulness when buying could help with that. Think before you buy, and use the following strategies not to fall into the fast beauty trap.
The way out: quitting fast beauty
Organise!
- Have a regular audit of what you have – it’s not exactly joyful to rummage through overflowing, dirty drawers. So clean out and organise your stash in a way that’s helpful to you. The most sustainable product is the one you own already, but for that, you must first remember that you own it in the first place, and find it easily.
- Makeup ennui? Have a fun session trying out styles, techniques and combinations. Have a look at YouTube tutorials, look at social media for inspo: and have fun with your stash. There’s a number floating around in the fashion business: usually, people wear 20% of clothes they own 80% of the time. Don’t make the same mistake with your beauty stash.
- Order! If you forget what you own, it’s very easy to repeatedly buy the same blush colour again and again. Oops! (Also, sign up for the Twindly app – it’ll help you with that!) Invest in an organisation system in which you can find easily what you own already.
- Broken compact hinges and lippies that won’t unscrew? Depot! There’re thousands of YouTube vids out there for that.
Shop your stash!
- How many times have you used the items in your makeup drawer? If it’s in the single digits, ask yourself why. Why did you buy it, then? Identify shopping triggers: is it anxiety? Boredom? Were you sad about something when you filled that online shopping cart? Beauty shopping can be all kinds of things (a fun outing!), but therapy, it’s not.
- Wear your faves repeatedly. They’re your faves! They’re great! You love them! Don’t let them gather dust somewhere – enjoy that compact or lippie!
- Sustainable fashion influencers came up with the #30wears rule – aim for 30 wears of anything you buy. I’ll adopt that!
- Swap, don’t shop! Noooo, I don’t mean to swap used makeup! But me and a group of friends have a nice system going on where we swap (unused) samples and minis that we accumulated and don’t use ourselves. That’s especially great for all those samples you get unasked when you order online.
- Remove temptation: all those sale emails cluttering your inbox and influencers harking wares on IG? Declutter. Also, IG is much more fun when it’s not only a sales pitch, but a creative outlet and source of baby animal pictures.
- Shop ethical: it’s difficult, I know. Brands greenwash regularly, and that sustainable brand whose ethos you genuinely admire only releases products that your skin hate. But: an informed customer absolutely can hold brands reliable for what they do. Inform yourself, and DEMAND sustainable, ethically produced beauty products. Because we deserve that.
