If you’re on the path of making your beauty routine more sustainable, chances are that you’ve already ditched the makeup wipes, plastic q-tips and single use razors. However, there’s always more you can do. Just like the green beauty movement became uber popular a few years ago, the blue beauty movement has now got everyone talking.
So, let’s take a deep dive into what it’s all about.
What’s The Difference Between Green Beauty And Blue Beauty?
The green beauty movement stemmed from eco-friendly shifts in our lifestlye like recycling, composting etc and focusses on environmental protection. Blue beauty, on the other hand, centers around how the beauty industry affects the ocean’s ecosystem with their plastic packaging and harmful ingredients.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, one dump full of plastic waste enters our ocean every minute whicch amounts to about 8 million tonnes of plastic every year. Hence, blue beauty brands aim to minimise their carbon footprints and use sustainably sourced ingredients that are ocean safe.
The idea behind it is to focus on products with refillable packaging and brands that allow the consumer to return the packaging for recycling purposes and completely avoid chemicals that are negatively impacting the oceans like sunscreens.
What Effect Does The Beauty Industry Have On Our Oceans?
Accorrding to environmentalist, Ellen MacArthur by 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish and this means we need a drastic change. Which is why refilling our products when it is available is what is required of all of us. Even upcycling old packaging is a great idea like turning serum bottles into tiny vases or your mask containers into planters.
How Can You Be A Conscious Consumer:
- Ask yourself every time you’re buying a new product if you really need it. Curtailing cunsumption is the first step.
- Find brands that have reusable and refillable packaging and support them. This can reduce the overall carbon footprint of the beauty industry. Understand the brand’s sourcing, packaging and ingredient list. Brands like MAC, Aveda, L’Occitane and Paula’s Choice etc allow customers to return empty containers to reuse them.
- Look for clean, non-toxic products that read ‘paraben free’ and ‘silicone free’. These when used in our shampoos and other products run down the drain and end up in our water bodies, causing sever damage to aquatic life.
- Say no to microplastics that can accumulate and be extremely harmful to fish. Glitter is a big part of this catergory. Birds and fish think of this as plankton and eat glitter in large quantites. This can cause glitter to accumlate in their bodies and cause cuts and death due to starvation.
- Bid farewell to microbeads which are basically used for scrubbing and exfoliating. These enter the oceans through drains and sewers and are detremental to fish.
- Adapt a zero waste life where you recycle and upcycle products.
- Look out for ingredients like oxybenzone and octinoxate in your chemical sunscreens as they harm the oceans. Switching to reef-safe sunscreens is essential.
At the end of the day, it is our shared responsibilty to look after the planet. Humans are at the top of the food chain so, even if fish are taking in plastics and microplastics, it is still ending up in some ways into our systems as well. So, not only are we hampering the aquatic ecosystem, we are causing emmense issues for our future generations.
Let’s make sure we are consious beauty consumers and keep brands in check to also move forward with the blue beauty movement.
Featured Image: Pexels
