Ever been asked is your beauty routine harming the planet? When it comes to beauty and fashion, it's probably fair to say that most people’s priority is a selfish one, focusing on what it takes to make you as an individual look and feel better. However, with a growing ethical and environmental consciousness across the entire world in the last generation, it’s not only yourself that you should be thinking of anymore when you go out shopping, and that includes for all of the different products that make up the extent of your beauty regime. In most cases, people don’t even know if they are making a bad decision or having a negative impact, but it never hurts to educate yourself. Is your beauty routine harming the planet? Here are 3 things that majorly contribute to environmental issues.
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1. MicroBeads
Although a worldwide ban on microbeads came into effect in January 2018, there are still products around containing them. If you use any kind of face wash or body wash product that contains exfoliating microbeads, you need to stop using it immediately. These little beads are one of the leading headaches for environmentalists because they are small and insignificant to us but can cause huge problems when they finally meet and congregate in places like the ocean. Try to seek alternatives like sand and ground nut husks for the same exfoliation features.
2. Cotton Buds (Q Tips)
You probably use plastic stemmed cotton buds when you are applying/removing your makeup, and these pesky things just travel through a wastewater treatment process and pass through filters designed to keep most of the bad stuff locked away. You might want to think about investing in something a little more biodegradable to do the job. Some companies like Johnson and Johnson now make their bud wads from tightly rolled paper instead of plastic.
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3. Wet Wipes
No matter how delicate and breakable they feel, wet wipes are one of the leading causes of sewage breakdown in the UK! Did you know that they are actually the cause of 93% of blockages in sewers? Isn’t that crazy? They also run the risk of adding oils and fats into the water treatment system, which is not a good thing.
4. What Can You do?
So, what can you actually do to try to rectify your past beauty routine sins? The first thing to do is commit to not flushing wet wipes; instead place them in the appropriate solid waste bins. Try to buy in large volume so that you aren’t left with hundreds of little plastic bottles, but instead just one or two industrial sized ones. When choosing what products to purchase, pay more attention to the manufacturing process and reputation of the company. There is some great ethical makeup out there, you just need to know what you are looking for.