Why I’m thankful for new safety efforts from mass-market personal care manufacturers—and ludicrous conventional cosmetic marketing ploys.
Why I’m thankful for new safety efforts from mass-market personal care manufacturers—and ludicrous conventional cosmetic marketing ploys.
This Thanksgiving, in addition to health, happiness, family and friends, I’m thankful for new safety efforts from mass-market personal care manufacturers—and, conversely, for the following ludicrous cosmetic marketing ploys—both of which, in their own ways, make my job to help educate people about safe, nontoxic alternatives a lot easier.
Recent research has found that many women are still in the dark about their cosmetics. But many other in-the-know shoppers are speaking out about egregious personal care ingredients. Guess what? It’s working (for example, take the recent Johnson & Johnson announcement to reformulate, resulting from consumer demand.)
Consumers are smart. The following videos are dumb.
Example A: This video from the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), which the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ Stacy Malkan brought to my attention, “explains” why transparency simply isn’t an option for big fragrance houses. Innocent people’s jobs will be on the line! They’ll be relegated to the streets! You don’t want to be responsible for that, especially around the holidays, do you?
Riggghhhhhtt. The lack of transparency isn’t actually about fragrances containing a plethora of chemicals you’d barely want anywhere near you, let alone on your body, now is it? Not to mention these fragrances are in our children’s products, not just in high-end scents. Hey, IFRA, if even Johnson & Johnson is starting to discuss fragrance disclosure…
Example B: Now, on a less regulatory note, for some more comic relief check out this Occupy Wall Street-inspired Maybelline lipstick ad, where models proudly proclaim they want lipstick they believe in.
I take this as a good sign: mass market must be getting desperate.
