It is our responsibility to make sustainable choices in skincare.
Beauty products like face care, body care, hair care, and make-up are something we all enjoy a little (or a lot), we love the feeling of putting a refreshing and nice product on us. But perhaps it is also time for us to start thinking about the care for our nature? It might not be straightforward for us to see the link between beauty products and the environment, in the end, we are consuming these products instead of throwing them directly into the trash. The ugly truth is, the beauty industry contributes 120 billion units of packaging a year. Also, the aquatic pollution from chemicals in products like cleansers, body washes, shampoos, toothpaste is a hot topic these years, what exactly are we flushing down the drain to our ocean and how these chemicals are affecting the marine ecosystem? The answer is still unknown and there is continuous research conducting every year.
Here comes the question: what can we do to help?
There isn’t a very clear and strict international guideline for clean or sustainable beauty but the general ideas are the following: Cruelty-Free, Vegan, Palm Oil-Free, Toxic-Free, and Minimum-Waste to Zero-Waste Packaging.
CRUELTY-FREE
Products and the formulated ingredients have not been tested on animals at any stage in their development.
VEGAN
Products that don’t contain any animal-derived ingredients, examples like beeswax, tallow oil, lanolin, and many more. These ingredients are widely used in skincare but there are actually plenty of alternative ingredients to formulate the products.
PALM OIL-FREE
Products that don’t contain palm oil or any of its derivatives. The growth and harvesting of palm oil are directly responsible for the destruction of rain forests and the death and displacement of millions of species.
TOXIC-FREE
Products that don’t contain any GMOs, preservatives, parabens or any other ingredients are toxic to human, animal or nature. For examples, microbeads in scrubs are non-degradable and insoluble in water.
MINIMUM-WASTE to ZERO-WASTE PACKAGING
Products that don’t contain excessive packaging and packaging materials are compostable or recyclable. The use of plastic has been a serious issue around the world and the beauty industry shares the responsibility. Not only the products are packaged in plastic jars or bottles, in many cases, the products are also packed in plastic wraps or boxes.
There is always more we can do in every aspect to be eco-friendly, even in skincare! We shouldn't compromise the environment for making us beautiful. Here at the soft glow, we are working very hard to provide clean beauty to everyone and that is our ultimate goal. We don’t test on animals nor use any animal-derived ingredients in our products. We also exclude palm oil in all our bar soaps. We formula our products without parabens and replacing synthetic ingredients as much as we could with natural ones. We use minimal packaging with products and reduce as much plastic use as possible, bar soaps are packed only in paper boxes. Glass containers for other products, and we are constantly looking and searching for alternative options in skincare containers and packaging.
Hope you enjoy the GLOW!