Greenwashing: Volume 1- Lush Cosmetics
With the average consumer becoming more and more aware of hot topics such as Global Warming, rainforest destruction for palm oil, organic food, environmentally friendly cleaning products, BPA, aluminum, mercury etc., it isn't any wonder that companies across the globe would step up to try and decrease their footprint on our planet while increasing the safety and health benefits of their products. Companies like Lush, Burt's Bees, Honest Company, Aveeno and on and on are setting the new standard in what consumers expect from a company trying to better our planet. Or are they? Greenwashing is a term given to companies, campaigns, or products intended to give the consumer the perception that a company or a product is more green, global, or health friendly than a competitor's product. Wikipedia defines it as follows: Greenwashing (a compound word modelled on "whitewash"), or "green sheen,"[1][2] is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization's products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.[3] Evidence that an organization is greenwashing often comes from pointing out the spending differences: when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being "green" (that is, operating with consideration for the environment), than is actually spent on environmentally sound practices.[4] Greenwashing efforts can range from changing the name or label of a product to evoke the natural environment on a product that contains harmful chemicals to multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns portraying highly polluting energy companies as eco-friendly.[5][6] In an academic paper Greenwashing has been defined as "co-creation of an external accusation toward an organization with regard to presenting a misleading green message",[7] indicating that an accusation is necessary to speak of Greenwashing. Essentially, it's fraud. Maybe not by current legal standard in all cases, but it is in fact an effort to make the end consumer more likely to buy a "green" product by targeting those who might find the cause to be important BELIEVE that the product is green, or greenER than other alternatives. For the purpose of this blog entry, I'll be discussing Lush Cosmetics first. I have very intimate knowledge of their practices from working for the company as well as having a deeper understanding of the bath product industry from making my own line of products and years of studying various chemicals and their use in the cosmetics industry. Lush, from the second you set foot in the door, does an exceptional job of convincing the customer of the raw, unrefined, and "natural" feel of their products. Let's go down the list: -Farmstand inspired displays- open tables with product open and unpackaged, stacked in a manner similar to a cheese display. -Soaps are displayed in full loaves with slices cut and measured to the customer's desired weight. -Product is wrapped in branded butcher paper and labeled with price similar to what you'd find at a butcher shop or deli- implying "fresh". -Wooden baskets add to the display and farmstand, or organic market feel. Bath bombs are piled up in baskets, wagons, and bins that have an exceptionally rustic and handmade feel. -Pricing is printed on chalkboard finished signs in white, chalk-like paint, in handwritten looking script. -The sale flyer is done in the form of a newspaper or a sale ad from your local grocery market. As brilliantly and meticulously as the whole concept comes together, it's just rough enough to really drive the illusion of a small mom and pop, made to order, deli counter, or farmstand all the way home- after it stops and cleans your pocketbook out first. Which is another point. More expensive is associated with natural, organic, free range, and the like.
Having intimate knowledge of the cost of the majority of their ingredients- even from the small production scale of my shop- i could create a bath bomb for example- with identical ingredients for 1/8 the price that they charge. Their markup is astronomical. Normally, you'd assume that markup covers the brilliant ad campaigns, packaging, and the like- with Lush, none of that is a factor. The big cost with Lush comes from the exorbitant amount of waste. Soap shrinks- especially glycerin based soaps. Bath bombs crumble and go stale. The longer a bomb sits out, the more water it absorbs from the air, and the less fizz the bomb will produce when it finally hits your tub. That's why Lush will occasionally liquidate most of its inventory- to get rid of the old and bring in the new. Broken bombs get sampled out to a prospective customer under the mentality of once you try it, you'll buy it. And you will- because if all of this amazing trickery doesn't rope you in, the sheer novelty of a giant fragrant ball fizzing your bathtub up with glitter and color will. Brilliant. But what about that makes this company green, exactly? Besides the obvious reduction in packaging, they encourage the little plastic that they do use for things like scrubs and lotions be brought back in for their recycling program. They offer the customer a discount incentive for bringing these packages back in for 'recycling'. If they wash, sterilize, or just plain old recycle is unclear, but the black plastic that they use for the tubbed products is not only extremely expensive to purchase, but almost impossible to recycle. Many facilities simply can not process that type of plastic. You may stick that tub into your recycling bin with all the best intentions in the world, but the reality is that if your recycling facility can't reuse it- it ends up in the landfill near you anyway. That is just one aspect of "better" they pitch. If the consumer wasn't poised to blow copious amounts of hard earned loot on this product line already- there's no way they can ignore the part about the products being better for you too. This is where I start to get really cranky. It's at the point where whenever I see a Lush product, the little voice in my head starts in with a chant- "Truth in marketing, truth in marketing, truth in marketing!" Let's be honest here. The average consumer only needs to read "natural" or "no harmful chemicals" to jump on the Lush bandwagon. The average customer is not a chemist. The average customer can not pronounce half the crap that is in a bar of store-bought soap- NOR SHOULD THEY HAVE TO. So let's just slap a tree on the label under the word "natural" and pied-pipe the ignorant right off a cliff. Cliffs are natural, aren't they? For the sake of making this article a relatively readable length, I won't dissect every single item on their "menu" of goods. But I will pick a single one to drive my point home. Hopefully this will prompt my faithful Lush lovers to pick up the bottle, read the label, and google yourself into a knowledge fueled cosmetic epiphany to use as a crutch for your future commitment to not buying into the overblown green hype- just because a label tells you to. I've selected Ocean Salt.
I picked Ocean Salt because it is one of my favorite products from Lush, and probably one of the simplest to make yourself- at home. Naturally. Extremely inexpensively. Ok, so let's go through the ingredients: Salt. Hand harvested sea salt? (Hand harvested? How do you hand harvest sea salt?) Grapefruit infusion (infused with what??? How??) Silken tofu (Tofu is curdled soy milk- but there are other compounds added to the soy milk to make it curdle. For example, gypsum or calcium sulfate, glucono-delta lactone, citric acid, or amino acid enzymes derived from microorganisms. Not that any of this isn't natural- but it would be nice to know what's IN the tofu for health/allergy reasons, and frankly- wouldn't some vegans take issue with microorganisms in their body scrub?) Glycerin (plant or animal derivative not specified) Japan wax (a byproduct of the lacquer industry extracted by the use of solvents... sounds great for skin, doesn't it?) sodium cocoamphoacetate (a coconut oil derived surfactant use to increase slip, dirt removal, and foaming property. This product is relatively natural.) Fresh, organic lime extracted in vodka (What kind of vodka? Bar rail swill, or 8 times distilled? Corn? Wheat? Is it certified organic as well? Because why do I care if my limes are organic if my vodka isn't?) Mango butter (Is it fair trade? Last I checked, it is not but I could be mistaken now.) Extra virgin coconut oil (simple enough, though, where are these sourced?) Avocado butter (Fair trade? Organic?) Lime oil (What kind of oil? Essential oil, or oil from the peel? How is it attained?) Here's my favorite: Seaweed absolute and violet absolute. What the hell is that? It sounds fancy, and important, right? Nah. Not so much. In the perfume industry, fragrances can be derived from cold pressing leaves, flowers, buds, (This is the most effective and the most expensive) hot processing (can damage delicate flowers and herbs, this method yields cheaper, lower quality result) and extraction by way of solvent. Making... you guessed it- an absolute. Acceptable solvents in the perfume industry are for example: perfumer's alcohol and/or ether. Ether. Why do I want ether on my body for any reason? Essentially, the seaweed or violets are soaked in a brine of chemical solvent to suck the oils and fragrance out of the stems, leaves, buds, etc, and the leftover product is strained, and the leftover product is your absolute. It's the super cheap way to add fragrance and essential oils to a product. Last on the ingredient list is: Limonene, linalool (both are terpene alcohols that occur naturally) fragrance (what fragrance, from where? Is this another absolute?) And last, Blue 1. I'll just leave this here: (Taken from HERE) HIGH concerns: Persistence and bioaccumulation; Other MODERATE concerns: Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)About FD&C BLUE 1: FD&C Blue 1 is a synthetic dye produced from petroleum; this dye is FDA-approved for use in food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.This ingredient may be derived from animals. From PETA's Caring Consumer: Pigments from animal, plant, and synthetic sources used to color foods, cosmetics, and other products. Cochineal is from insects. Widely used FD&C and D&C colors are coaltar (bituminous coal) derivatives that are continuously tested on animals due to their carcinogenic properties. Alternatives: grapes, beets, turmeric, saffron, carrots, chlorophyll, annatto, alkanet. Nice, huh? Looking at the Lush page for Ocean Salt, I notice the addition of these three new ingredients: Triethanolamine: A synthetic emulsifier. The following information on safety taken from Wikipedia: Safety and regulation: Allergic reactions: A 1996 study found that triethanolamine (TEA) occasionally causes contact allergy.[9] A 2001 study found TEA in a sunscreen caused an allergic contact dermatitis.[10] A 2007 study found TEA in ear drops caused a contact allergy.[11] Systemic and respiratory tract (RT) toxicity was analyzed for 28 days in a nose specific inhalation 2008 study in Wistar rats; TEA seems to be less potent in regard to systemic toxicity and RT irritancy than diethanolamine (DEA). Exposure to TEA resulted in focal inflammation, starting in single male animals from 20 mg/m3 concentrations.[12]A 2009 study stated that patch test reactions reveal a slight irritant potential instead of a true allergic response in several cases, and also indicated the risk of skin sensitization to TEA seems to be very low.[13] Tumors:
Reports indicated that TEA causes an increased incidence of tumor growth in the liver in female B6C3F1 mice, but not in male mice or in Fischer 344 rats.[14] A 2004 study concluded "TEA may cause liver tumors in mice via a choline-depletion mode of action and that this effect is likely caused by the inhibition of choline uptake by cells."[14] Environmental toxicity: A 2009 study found that TEA has potential acute, sub-chronic and chronic toxicity properties in respect to aquatic species.[15] Regulation:
TEA is listed under Schedule 3, part B of the Chemical Weapons Convention as it can be used in the manufacture of nitrogen mustards, particularly HN3. Methylparaben: Preservative Methylparaben is in the paraben family of preservatives used by the food, pharmaceutical, and personal care product industries. Parabens mimic estrogen and can act as potential hormone (endocrine) system disruptors. Propylparaben: Preservative Propylparaben is in the paraben family of preservatives used by the food, pharmaceutical, and personal care product industries. Parabens mimic estrogen and can act as potential hormone (endocrine) system disruptors. (Please note it is listed on ewg.org as a 7/10 for potential hazard) Just a bit of food for thought. Your skin is the largest organ in your body. I hope that as I continue to publish greenwash debunking articles, you will learn that these chemicals are absorbed into your body through your skin. The last bit of information I'm going to leave you with is an excerpt from the Lush.com page on Propylparaben. It is the last few sentences in the last paragraph on the page: "The parabens are still the safest and mildest we can find. We constantly review and investigate cosmetic preservatives, and we consider any sound scientific evidence. They are safe to handle during manufacture and guarantee the quality and safety of the products we want our customers to enjoy." A 7/10 on a hazardous chemical scale is the safest preservative they could find? I'll leave you with that.