Controversial statement, right? Let me explain what I see as the problems with sustainable beauty products.
Conscious consumption is a flawed concept
Consumerism (even of sustainable products) with its never-ending cycle of buying and discarding stuff has a huge imact on the environment.
‘70% of GDP in the US is based on household consumption. So all the systems, the market, the institutions, everything is calibrated to maximize consumption.’
(QZ.com)
That’s not exactly new. But it doesn’t even matter when consumers concentrate solely on ‘green’ products.
A 2012 study found that there’s actually no measurable difference between the eco-conscious and regular customer when it comes to your eco footprint (QZ.com). Buying ‘better’, buying different may be a signifier that you’re doing the right thing, but is mostly a means to just signal that. It won’t have a meaningful impact on climate change. And more: it usually leaves people content and with a good conscience, thinking that they’re ‘doing their part’.
Of course you absolutely should think about the footprint your consuming habits leave in the world (most of us have to consume to function in the modern world), but mostly it’s not an easy or clear-cut decision.
Examples are ‘green’ cotton that takes much more water to produce, or cotton totes instead of plastic ones, or buying almond milk instead of cow milk. All of those examples are initially a really good attempt to curb something that’s bad for the environment: pesticides in cotton production, plastic waste and animal farming, but all of those examples come with serious downsides. Pushing products as a better alternative to a conventional product that you absolutely SHOULD buy isn’t new, though.
Marketing and virtue signaling
In the 1990s and early 2000s, charity affixed to products became a big thing. Recently, it’s been ‘support insert-minority-here’. Again, it’s absolutely commendable to support minorities, but it’s also an easy feel-good move that doesn’t address deeper laying issues.
Values are appropriated in selling us things. Remember that Dior T-Shirt with its ‘Feminist’ print that retailed for $450 a few years ago? Media called that ‘radical’, ‘empowering’, ‘cool’. (Some also called it stupid, so.)
Consider this:
‘This kind of virtue signaling, in tandem with a lack of real progress, is part and parcel of the pink-tinted economy. The railroad barons of the Gilded Age would never had said, ‘We’re building cross-country lines to make connections and bring like-minded people together.’ But now (…) their contemporary heirs make these kinds of faux-philanthropic statements as a matter of course.’
(Veronique Hyland, Dress Code)
Take an established concept people feel strongly about, dress it in branding and sell it. You’ve got a hit on your hands. (Also filed under sunscreen, clean, or beauty, non-toxic.) Sustainable beauty products?! Flying off the shelves. Every brand does it. Sephora has a category for it. And what’s more: every new brand HAS to claim the term, unless it’s seen as non-sustainable.
Sustainability is complicated
The resulting problem is that we’re actually thinking we’re choosing a better lifestyle. We do buy the sustainable option! We’re using only clean products! Whenever you hear brands talk like this, run for the hills – because nothing, absolutely nothing in this day and age is simple. Figuring out the carbon footprint of the things you buy and use is a pain, and often very complicated. There’re no clear-cut options, at least not for a simple consumer. Do you think it’s hard to figure out what’s the best milk to buy, when this poses questions of animal welfare, CO2 emissions, plastic waste, and then the recycling ins and outs of your city?! I do too! And milk’s relatively simple still.
Now imagine posing the same questions for, let’s say, an eyeshadow palette with its millions of individual compounds and regard the questions of ingredient sourcing, shipping, sustainable glitters and other ingredients, and, given the unlikely possibility of you actually emptying the whole thing, recycling the outer packaging.
NOW the incredible audaciousness of so-called green brands to call their products sustainable because they employ bio-degradable glitter is absolutely mind-boggling to me.
Again, that doesn’t take away from the actual need to find plastic alternatives. But there’s much more to sustainable products than that.
Problems with sustainable beauty products
And here’s my own, private conclusion to that: Using up my effing stuff. If non-consumerism, or using what you have, or shopping your stash or whatever you call it seems the answer, I’ll go one step further: buy things you’ll actually use (up). Do not buy something because it’s so-called sustainable, and then after a year, concede it’s rubbish and throw it away. Use your effing Tupperware instead of getting rid of it and buy sustainable glass containers! Use the mascara you have, and don’t throw away all your backups of your fave because it’s ‘not-clean’.
On the other hand: we can’t stop consuming.
Where does that lead? I simply do not know. What I do know is that there’s value in realising where a problem truly is. I mean – look, I’m just a person on the internet, but the answer can’t be ‘buy the better thing’. Be aware of marketing tactics.
Suggested further reading
Fashionista – Sustainable fashion inluencers?!
Theecowell (IG)
