If you’re new to blue beauty or you still think it’s just a thing that impacts dolphins and turtles, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, starting with some not-so-fun facts that you (and everyone else) need to know.
Do you know, only 9 percent of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled?
About 12 percent has been incinerated, while the rest—80 percent—has accumulated in landfills, dumps, or the natural environment.
At the same time, at least 98 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year.
To put that in perspective, you could round up a group of 3 million humpback whales, and they’d still weigh less than all the plastic in the ocean in a single year.
And we hope you already know this very well known fact that the plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound by 2050, some experts estimate.
These stats are alarming, and there’s no denying the beauty community has played a major role in creating them.
“Each year, the beauty industry makes over 100 billion cosmetic packages — compacts, jars, bottles, etc.— and about 22 billion single-use sachets too. “The vast majority of these are made of virgin plastic and cannot be recycled either”.
In fact, even seemingly safe, eco-friendly cardboard packaging will often contain hidden plastic in the form of laminations and adhesives, while product formulas themselves can contain small levels of plastic that eventually make their way to the ocean. Click HERE to read about identifying Microplastics in your beauty and personal care products.
The beauty industry is responsible for the huge amounts of microplastics found in formulations that run down our drains and into our waterways.
Thankfully, there’s a silver lining to this plastic crisis, and that’s Blue Beauty.
The growing movement focuses on the relationship between the beauty industry, plastic waste, and the health of our planet’s streams, rivers, bays, and, of course, oceans. “Calling it ‘blue’ basically signal that a product is not harmful to waterways and/or is inspired by the ocean”. Think of it as a subsection of the green beauty movement with a hyper-focus on water and marine life.
But to us its way more than that when it comes to creating a real sustainable solution.
Is blue beauty only limited to ocean-safe and waterless products?
At Beauty Cleanse Skincare, we never encourage anyone to rely on one buzzword alone to make their purchase decisions. Although, blue beauty is certainly a great ocean-friendly movement that tackles a lot of climate issues, we believe that blue beauty means our entire range is safe for the environment – which includes being ocean safe as well as sustainably sourced, waterless formulas, utilising by-products of other industries that often end up in landfills etc. – but also looking at ways to avoid releasing carbon dioxide into the environment that is associated with creating huge product offerings.
Creating waterless formulas and plastic-free packaging is a good start, but until you factor in the excessive consumption patterns of our earth’s finite resources, we think it is really hard to be completely ocean-friendly.
Unfortunately, when it comes to sustainability and blue beauty, not many companies talk about the water that is being used to create bottles, jars and packaging which all contributes to the exact same problem, i-e either water scarcity or ocean-pollution.
That is why, we are on a mission to create minimalist, waterless skincare products that not only reduces water consumption by completely avoiding water inside the formulas, but also avoid excessive packaging waste associated with large product offerings which also keep customers in the never-ending consumption cycle – something that again links back to some of the reasons behind ocean-pollution.
‘’By creating a capsule range of fewer multipurpose products, we are helping to keep oceans clean before even causing a problem’’.
Click HERE to access our entire range of waterless, natural and plastic-free products.
Our Commitment to Ocean-Friendly & Sustainable Skincare
We always strive to find ways that doesn’t harm the marine environment, whether it’s in a form of certifying our entire range as ‘zero-plastic inside’ (free from microplastics) or by formulating 100% waterless formulations that often combines nature with advanced technology to create products that are ocean-friendly. For example, we utilise biotechnology in one of our antiaging products ‘Carrot Algae Marine Drops Facial Serum’ because it helps preserve marine environment.
BIGGER PICTURE
Overall, it all comes down to addressing a bigger picture to determine how your products are contributing towards the climate crisis.
For us, the most sustainable product is the one that’s not been produced in the first place. Not only this avoids the hassle of layering multiple products on the skin, but it also prevents huge environmental costs linked with the entire product lifecycle which cannot be reversed very easily. Such as, consumption of virgin raw materials, water & energy usage, packaging waste, transportation & shipping costs, and a lot more. This is one of the main reasons we started a new sustainability initiative – Beauty Cleanse Minimalism Chats, which is a part our brand’s hashtag #RefuseRevolution. It educates consumers on the repercussions of excessive consumerism and encourages them to reduce overflowing shelfies by only using fewer high-quality products that are good for their skin and good for the planet.
TAKEAWAY
So, what is the takeaway from this blog? Let’s all try to adopt a blue beauty approach along with slowing down our consumption to keep both our skin and the planet happy. If you would like to adopt a minimalist & conscious approach to beauty and skincare, head over to our Beauty Cleanse Minimalism Chat series and become an expert in making informed purchase decisions.
Share your Minimalist Shelfies using #RefuseRevolution and tagging us @BeautyCleanseSkincare on Instagram and Facebook.