Your personal care routine is important. It helps to keep your hair and skin healthy and can be a real boost to your self-confidence. Yet, there are ways it can have a negative impact. Unfortunately, there are serious problems with how the actions of the beauty industry are affecting the environment.
The good news is that you're not entirely powerless here. There's a growing trend of adopting sustainable personal care products into everyday routines. This isn't just a great way to help you minimize your individual carbon footprint but it can also make for a healthier way of life.
Prioritizing the Natural Over the Chemical
One of the great things about sustainable beauty is you have the opportunity to benefit from natural ingredients rather than synthetics. This is usually because personal care brands that prioritize sustainability recognize that the fewer unnatural processes and components involved, the less damaging the products tend to be for the environment and consumers.
This isn't just about the potential wellness advantages you can gain from applying primarily natural products to your skin and hair, either. It's also about minimizing the potential wellness and environmental risks from often overlooked behaviour in relation to beauty products.
For instance, when you apply potentially unhealthy chemical products to your body, these can also find their way into the water system when you shower. This introduces more chemicals and microplastics to the environment, perpetuating the damage these do to the health of people, animals, and natural spaces.
Remember, though, to maximize the health benefits of green products you need to pay attention to how you use them. For instance, aloe vera is an agile natural ingredient that can be used in products that hydrate your skin, treat sunburns, and tackle breakouts. Yet, different people's skin responds differently to it.
It's vital to adopt new ingredients slowly and carefully, performing patch tests first to understand your compatibility with them. You can then adopt gentle routines for hydrating in the morning or application after time in the sun. Avoiding overuse, even when ingredients are natural, lets you maintain your wellness while minimizing pressure on the sources of these items.
Reducing the Production Impact on the Environment
Another reason to incorporate sustainable beauty brands into your life is that these brands may have a more ethical approach to production. Firstly this makes your routine more holistically positive. You can rest assured that you can enjoy the benefits of products without subscribing to problematic processes. There are also indirect health benefits as production causes less damage to the planet, which provides healthy spaces to live in.
Some of the key ways green beauty manufacturers help you make a positive impact include:
Fewer emissions
Traditional beauty production processes produce a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Thirty to 50% of these emissions are released in sourcing raw materials for use in products. Green cosmetics manufacturers that commit to net zero targets take steps to reduce these releases in production. As a result, there are fewer toxic pollutants affecting the environment.
Reduced industrial waste
Industrial manufacturing generates waste in a variety of ways. Often, cosmetics made from chemicals produce vast amounts of wastewater that then has to be treated or—in worst-case scenarios—is simply reintroduced to natural waterways. Green brands tend to take steps to mitigate waste. For instance, cosmetic brands like Susteau and Everist are making water-free products to reduce water contamination and wastage.
That said, it's important to make in-store choices that support healthier manufacturing principles. One of the primary ways brands contribute to environmental damage is through plastic pollution as a result of their packaging. Even when products have otherwise been made with sustainable practices, prioritizing those with minimal or recycled materials both boosts your impact and sends a message to manufacturers about consumer priorities.
Identifying the Right Products for Your Needs
Knowing how green choices in personal care can make a positive difference is good. However, it's not always clear how you can approach adopting these into your life effectively. What do you need to consider when making decisions?
Check the ingredients
When choosing personal care products for your family, it's important to pay close attention to the ingredients. This helps you to identify what is safe—both from a minimal chemical perspective and for potential allergies—and what is likely to be green.
For instance, checking hand soap ingredients can allow you to steer clear of harmful elements, like triclosan. When buying lotion, avoid synthetic fragrances that can be irritants and prioritize natural items, such as shea butter and green tea extract.
Research brands' holistic sustainability
If you want to adopt green personal care choices into your life, it's important to look at a brand's whole process. They might have recyclable packaging but use harmful synthetic ingredients. You can usually check this out by visiting the company's website and looking for content about their green values. You can look for what sustainable production systems they use, their ingredients, and even their approach to green shipping methods. This can help assure you that each purchase is having the most positive impact.
Look for reviews
Consumers are often more savvy about green standards than they were even a few years ago. It's worth looking at reviews of products both on review sites and social media. This can help you to see whether people have raised concerns about green practices that might not be on the company's website. They can also be great sources of recommendations for other sustainable personal care brands.
Being sustainably beautiful is definitely achievable, but it can take a little extra effort. You'll need to pay closer attention to the ingredients in your products and prioritize engaging with brands that are committed to positive activities.
Beyond this, you might also find it useful to start making your own care products from natural materials. Engaging with green brands can be a great stepping stone between the traditional and a more self-sufficient, healthy, and sustainable life.
Guest blog written by Ainsley Lawrence
Ainsley Lawrence is a freelance writer who lives in the Northwest region of the United States. She has a particular interest in covering topics related to good health, balanced life, and better living through technology. When not writing, her free time is spent reading and researching to learn more about her cultural and environmental surroundings.
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