Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/1481047
60 ASCP Skin Deep Autumn 2022 L LESS IS MORE WHEN IT comes to healthy skin. And, as you constantly remind your clients, overnight miracles are not to be expected. Well, the same can be said for a healthy planet. It took more than a minute to mess up Mother Earth, so it will take some time to green her up again. BEAUTY HAS A WASTE PROBLEM According to a report compiled by Precedence Research, the global cosmetics market was valued at just over $341 billion in 2020 and is expected to hit just shy of the $560 billion mark by 2030. 1 That's an increase of more than 64 percent in 10 years—and great news for estheticians! But along with the increased demand for beauty products and services comes a lot of packaging—over 120 billion units annually, according to Terracycle 2 —and most of this packaging is not recycled (or recyclable, for that matter). Also, North American salons collectively generate more than 877 pounds of beauty waste every minute, according to Shane Price, founder and CEO of Green Circle Salons (GCS). This equates to more than 1.2 million total pounds of beauty waste each day. One way to address that waste is to take on sustainable practices. WHAT EXACTLY IS SUSTAINABLE BEAUTY? Remember when "being green" was all you had to do to claim you were Earth-friendly? Reduce, reuse, recycle were the buzzwords back in the day . . . way before being stuck at home due to COVID-19 con rmed to us that we're still overconsumers. Today, sustainability is the new buzzword, "as 78 percent of global consumers feel that environmental sustainability is important." 3 Although beauty products are technically "cleaner" today than they've ever been, they still may not be ethically or sustainably sourced. But what comes to mind when we think of sustainable beauty? Most of us think of packaging, which has historically been larger than needed—or made of materials that are bad for the environment. But sustainable beauty is more than just packaging. Sustainable beauty encompasses everything : sourcing ingredients, manufacturing, packaging, and selling. After all, the way a product is distributed can create a huge carbon footprint—even if the product is made with clean, natural, and sustainable ingredients. SOURCING INGREDIENTS So, how do we choose sustainability over familiarity? First, we must understand that the term natural is meaningless. A product can be natural and still destroy our planet. For example, palm oil and mica are natural ingredients, but they may not be sustainable if sourced from plantations where rain forests were clear-cut. Plus, Mother Earth has nite resources, and the exploitation of those resources—without considering conservation or new research and development—is anything but green. Transparent Beauty: What Does It Look Like? With the rise of social media beauty in uencers, transparent beauty has taken on a whole new meaning. No longer are companies allowed the privilege to keep their ingredients a secret. Companies are now more inclined to transparency— about the ingredients they use and where those ingredients are sourced. And new demand is growing for manufacturing and delivery transparency too. Basically, consumers want to know everything about a product.