Episode 244 - Beauty Supplements, MLMs and more answers about the Cosmetic Industry

Perry (0:00)

Hi, I'm Perry, and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

Hello and welcome to The Beauty Brains, a very special Beauty Brains. Since it's Thanksgiving this week, Valerie and I decided to take a break and run a Best of Show today. Instead of just rerunning a show, though, I thought it would be helpful to kind of pick a theme and then play answers to questions all related to that same theme. So, the theme on today's show is the cosmetic industry. We're answering questions about how things work in this cosmetic industry, including things about advertising, distribution, labeling, and much, much more. These were all questions sent in by listeners, and most of them are audio questions. If you want to submit an audio question, feel free to record it on your smartphone and then email it to thebeautybrainsatgmail.com.

I hope you enjoy the show and have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We'll be back next week, answering all new questions. Enjoy.

Valerie (1:10)

Well, let's get to some beauty questions. I think our first question is an audio question.

Perry (1:19)

All right, let me cue that up. This comes from Rachel.

Rachel (1:22)

Hi, Beauty Brains. This is Rachel from Hawaii. I love your show. Thank you so much for all the work you put into it so we can be more informed consumers.

Anyways, my question is, what are your thoughts on microplastics in cosmetic formulations?

The FDA website says that they are saying they are safe for human use, but what about the environment? So far, they've only banned them for rinse-off products, and I will admit the idea of eating plastic from my lipstick is a little bit concerning. But my gut says that the plastics are probably no more harmful to the environment than the plastics from the product's packaging. And thanks to your show, I know that if they were unsafe for humans, they wouldn't be in our products. So any thoughts on microplastics would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.

Valerie (2:04)

Wow, Rachel, great question. And I think there's some really important stuff we need to probably talk about before we answer the exact question that you have.

Perry (2:14)

Yeah, I'll say upfront, before getting into microplastics.

My general thought is that the cosmetic industry as a whole is unfairly maligned when it comes to the impact on the environment. I mean, for example, an article published in Nature suggested that personal care products contribute 4% of VOC pollution, and yet there's so much more regulations about VOC regulations for cosmetics than they are for, say, like industry or car emissions. And there's also movements to restrict the use of certain sunscreen ingredients that might have an impact on coral reefs when the reality is the major contributor to the damage of coral reefs is the acidification of the oceans. It's not sunscreen. So people are always, whenever there's some environmental issue, one of the first places they go is the cosmetic industry. I think it might be because the cosmetic industry is looked at as kind of this frivolous thing, right? It's a product that you don't really need, I guess.

I just think it's kind of, let me just say it's unfair.

Valerie (3:30)

Well, if you said driving your car is causing environmental concern, you would be like, yeah, duh, of course I know that.

If somebody said to you, did you know your face wash is causing environmental damage?

It's a little bit like, what? I never thought about that. So I think part of it has to do with the little sensationalism and something that people use every day. Everyone uses cosmetics every day or personal care products, whether it's toothpaste or lipstick. And so to say that that's causing some harm, you would think, oh, well, if it's something I'm using and I'm putting it on me, it's bad for the environment. I think that causes more of a headline than saying steel factories cause environmental pollution. It's kind of... Yeah, I think it's just how it attracts the news.

Perry (4:22)

It does make for better headlines, I'd say. Now, so as far as microplastics go, in 2015, the US passed a law banning microplastic beads in cosmetics. And in that law, they defined the term plastic microbead as any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters in size and is intended to be used to exfoliate or cleanse the human body or any part thereof. So this primarily refers to polyethylene beads. And as far as safety goes, the CIR determined that the use of polyethylene in cosmetics is safe for use at the levels that we typically use. So as far as safety goes, you don't really have to worry about the kind of harm in using products with microbeads in them.