Welcome To The Dark Side: The Hidden Truth About The Beauty Industry
The beauty industry rakes in over a billion dollar per year. With expendable budgets and promises, these beauty companies spend millions of dollars in advertising as a means to create loyal, life-long customers. With the promise of making you, your best self and give you a forever youthful glow, you start to wonder what the catch is. Every industry has it’s darkside and the beauty industry is no outlier.
Say hello to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one of the federal government agencies responsible for regulating the beauty industry. The FDA defines cosmetics as "articles intended to be applied to the human body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness or altering the appearance without affecting the body's structure or functions." However, a lot slips under their radar when it comes to safety of beauty products. Did you know the FDA doesn’t review cosmetics before they hit the market? Oh, even more astonishing... the FDA has banned only about 12 products…ever. Considering thousands of new chemicals have been presented to the FDA since the enactment of the Cosmetic Act in the 1980s, 12 products is an alarmingly low number. According to Dr. Steve Xu of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago: “"Here is a $400 billion industry with millions of products and multiple controversies, but we only had about 5,000 adverse events over the course of 12 years," Xu said. "That's very, very underreported."
So what is an example of a potentially harmful beauty product you could come into contact with? Well, 1-in-5 products on the market contain traces of formaldehyde, which is known as a human carcinogen. Some signs to be aware of that could contain formaldehyde are that you notice watery eyes, burning of the nose and throat, coughing or skin irritation. This is your sign to stop using these products, immediately. Your body's telling you it is not feeling great with these products around.
How about the environment? Aerosol sprays where you at?! The wrong answer would be anywhere besides the trash. Just take a moment to think about the last time you went to the store and how many aerosol cans you saw stacked on the shelves. This is not a good thing. Aerosol cans contain hydrocarbons that can contribute to global warming. And don’t think this harm starts and stops with aerosol cans. Fingernail polish, mouthwash, perfumes and roll on deodorants also have the potential to release hydrocarbons into the environment. Yikes, keep your arms down sis, you’re literally going to kill us.
Remember when Elle Woods went to Washington to fight for Bruiser’s Bill? This is kind of the same sort of thing, but less chic. While the FDA does not require that animals be tested to deem the product as safe, but many companies do it, anyway. Some of the tests on animals include: skin and eye irritation tests, forced feeding tests to see if the beauty product has health or cancer effects, and “lethal dose” tests to see how much of a dose causes a lethal reaction. Where you put your money is essentially an affirmative vote to keep testing and producing. Choosing vegan and cruelty free products will show beauty companies the market wants products that do not cause harm to animals.
via Huda Beauty
So, how do we combat these issues and change the standard? Make sure to research the products you are using. Make sure these companies do not test on animals, read the label to make sure none of the ingredients are cancer causing and, try to opt out of using aerosol products. There are companies out there who make a great effort to create products that cause as little harm as possible. With companies like 100% Pure, Juice Beauty, Wander Beauty and Atomic Makeup, we are steps closer to making this industry safer for ourselves. With a little research, you can be on your way to choosing products that you can feel good about using everyday.
Sources:
2. CBS News
Cover image via Nora Gouma
