The Environmental Injustice of Beauty Products: Toward Clean and Equitable Beauty

The environmental injustice of beauty is a conceptual framework linking intersectional systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, and classism) to racialized beauty practices, unequal chemical exposures, and adverse health outcomes.^1,2 This intersectional framework has been applied to multiple categories of personal care products (PCPs), including skin lighteners, hair straighteners, and fragranced menstrual and intimate care products. Although the framework originally focused on unequal chemical burdens among Black and Latina women, recent work has extended the framework to other minoritized populations.³ New literature has also offered more robust links to adverse health outcomes^4,5 and greater characterization of harmful chemicals in products marketed to communities of color.⁶

In parallel, environmental health sciences have moved beyond a focus on the acute effects of single chemical pollutants to an emphasis on chronic exposures of complex mixtures across the life course. Exposure to potentially harmful chemicals through the use of PCPs presents a formidable challenge to the scientific community. Women report using a median of eight products daily (with some reporting up to 30 products daily),⁷ providing a daily dose of a collection of chemicals that interact synergistically or antagonistically. Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive harm, and neurodevelopmental delays in children. Moreover, the effects of chemical exposures are likely magnified during critical windows.⁸ For example, prenatal chemical exposures and childhood use of some hair products are associated with an earlier age at puberty—a key risk factor for breast cancer.^9,10 Thus, even before adulthood, a girl’s breast cancer risk trajectory is altered by chemicals found in PCPs.

Given that the federal government vastly underregulates ingredients in PCPs, how do we secure the environmental justice of beauty for our most vulnerable communities, ensure that none are forgotten, and intervene for the betterment of communities of color?

THE NEXT 80 YEARS

In 1938, Ella Fitzgerald and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act hit the stage. Fitzgerald’s A Tisket a Tasket was number one on the music charts in 1938, and with beautifully coiffed hair she sang the hit song from the back of a bus on Abbott and Costello’s 1942 movie Ride ‘Em Cowboy. The year 1938 also marked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was crafted to protect consumers from deceptively labeled or misbranded food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices, with far more regulation of medical devices than the other things. More than 80 years later, although Fitzgerald is an icon, the regulation of PCPs remains unchanged. Whether coiffed or all natural, Black women’s hair is a priority, people of color continue the fight for “seats” at the front of the bus, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act has barely changed. However, with greater awareness of the injustice of beauty comes greater attention to the policies that affect our social norms and our health.

The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act of 2020 (CROWN Act) states that persons shall not be deprived of equal rights under the law and shall not be subjected to prohibited practices based on their hair texture or hairstyle.¹¹ The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah provided a comical (and profound) history of Black hair in which comedian Dulce Sloan highlighted the amount of chemicals Black women needed to conform to White beauty standards as well as the importance of the CROWN Act movement breaking down the stigma of Black hair in its natural state. Social media also promotes beauty culture in a targeted way via influencers. By doing so, social media platforms offer opportunities for collective organizing and changes in policies related to beauty.

The injustice of beauty is apparent in legislation, with several states enacting safer cosmetics policies. Coordinated efforts among advocacy and policy groups have led to the Safer Beauty Bill Package. The suite of four bills introduced in Congress proposes a national mandate on fragrance ingredient disclosure, a ban on 11 chemicals banned by the European Union plus the class of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals, stricter regulation of the cosmetic supply chain, and greater cosmetic safety protections for women of color and salon workers.¹² Policy changes are key to beauty justice, as they are one of the only tools available to ensure equitable outcomes.

OVERLOOKED COMMUNITIES

Health inequities—defined as “differences in health that are not only unnecessary and avoidable but, in addition, are unfair and unjust”—are closely related to historical and ongoing social, economic, and environmental disadvantage.¹³ Although the clean beauty movement aims to mitigate environmental inequities, key populations cannot be left behind.

LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/-sexual, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and all subsects) and gender nonconforming populations and their movements have traditionally struggled to gain access and recognition on critical public health issues. Let us not add “beauty injustice” to this list. Exposure to toxic products manifests differently by gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and other facets of identity that factor into product selection and research on sexual and gender minorities. Although variation among sexual and gender minority individuals is becoming recognized by mainstream cultures, nonbinary gender identities have flown under the radar of marketing teams, retailers, and other producers who craft products for populations that identify solely as “male” and “female.” The assumption is that cis-women are the only users of PCPs marketed to cis-women. Research must be inclusive and consider how sexual and gender minority populations are affected by toxic products, how gender expression intersects with product usage, and if and when there is heightened vulnerability to exposure. We must ensure that sexual and gender minority communities are not overly exposed to toxins, considering the burden carried by their cis-counterparts and limited health care access.

The US multiracial population is growing. However, multiracial individuals are also often overlooked in research on toxic exposures from PCPs, and preliminary analyses suggest that their exposure patterns differ from those of individuals who adopt a monoracial identity.⁷ Race is a fluid, social construct, and multiracial populations may shift their identity and self-reported racial classification over time. Moreover, youths and men of color are often removed from the conversation as well. From youths’ beauty products to mustache and beard care products, the exposures, the body burden, and the possible health effects of children and adolescents and male-identifying populations are underexplored.

RESEARCH TRANSLATION

The preponderance of the evidence suggests that interventions are needed to reduce chemical exposures during critical windows when individuals are most vulnerable. Intervention studies in adolescent Latinas suggest it is possible to reduce chemical exposures by switching to “cleaner products.”¹⁴ The next generation of intervention studies should promote broader knowledge about toxic chemicals, improve decision making on the selection of less toxic products, address access and affordability to more desirable products, and, most importantly, implement evidence-based strategies for sustainable change. Given that barbershop behavioral interventions have proven effective in communities of color,¹⁵ salon-based interventions are warranted. Future research studies should also aim to implement community-based participatory approaches, such as those being used in the Taking Stock Study (http://takingstockstudy.org) and the Beauty Inside Out project (https://www.weact.org/campaigns/beauty-inside-out).

THE FUTURE OF CLEAN BEAUTY

Manufacturers and retailers are increasingly aware of the potential harms of toxic chemicals to consumers. This is true in part because of the rise of consumer advocacy and the clean beauty movement, which has highlighted a need for PCPs made using safer, cleaner ingredients (excluding toxic chemicals that adversely affect human health) and transparent labeling (excluding the umbrella term “fragrance,” which can contain a variety of harmful, unregulated chemicals and misleading labels with words such as “natural,” “organic,” “eco”). To aid consumers, some retailers, including Sephora and others, have begun marketing and distinguishing certain branded products as being clean or environmentally sustainable or planet positive.

However, the onus of achieving environmental equity should not rely solely on consumers’ ability to identify toxic ingredients in PCPs. Thus, as the clean beauty movement catches on, we cannot neglect the fact that beauty has a cost—one that is unaffordable for some. As PCPs sold in the clean beauty space are costlier than their toxic counterparts (e.g., lip gloss from clean beauty brands average $14–$25, whereas brands in dollar stores are sold for $1), there might be unintended consequences, including a widening gap in inequitable chemical exposures. Such unintended consequences might be worse among the most vulnerable users (e.g., youths). This foreseeable trend will require monetary investment from manufacturers to ensure equitable access to clean products at every price point. Long-term considerations are the impact of clean beauty on corporate revenues and commitment to increasing accessibility to clean products. Furthermore, it will be important to evaluate how increasing accessibility to less toxic products affect long-term health outcomes, particularly among groups who have historically borne an unequal burden of toxic exposures. In short, there is a need to determine whether shifting patterns to the use of cleaner beauty products across population subgroups positively affects health inequities.

For many of us—irrespective of how we identify—our appearance and how we wear our hair is connected to society’s hierarchy, cultural belonging, and spiritual identity. The trend of conforming to Eurocentric forms of beauty in schools, workplaces, and social settings is changing. As the natural state of the hair and bodies of people of color is increasingly embraced, beauty companies must take notice and cater to clean beauty. With environmental justice comes health equity.