When weighing up the cost of makeup, what if the real cost isn’t actually the price tag? Perhaps we should also be paying closer attention to the environmental impact of the beauty brands we choose.

• Cosmetic packaging can take hundreds of years to break down in landfill. Toxic chemicals in cosmetics washed down drains ends up in oceans damaging the ecosystem and causing death to aquatic species. Livestock affected by toxins that end up in soil can suffer reproductive, genetic, and developmental changes as well as many types of cancer. Brands adding one or two natural ingredients masking other toxic ingredients are rapidly depleting natural resources.

• "In case you need convincing how important it is to stop using palm oil, it’s chilling to realise that the equivalent of up to 300 football fields an hour are being cleared to make room for palm plantations. Apart from anything else, clearing a hectare of forest can release around 6000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” - excerpt from Slow Magazine.

• Cosmetics with Palm Oil are contributing to rapid deforestation and climate change. Beauty brands jumping on the natural bandwagon by just adding a few natural ingredients to cosmetics that contain a myriad of other toxic ingredients, are not only duping customers but are also damaging the environment with the eradication of natural resources and unsustainable farming practices. With the increase of these companies seeking out natural ingredients to fool customers into thinking they are buying natural cosmetics, the demand for natural ingredients has increased. Big beauty brands without an eco-conscious want these natural ingredients in large quantities- and they also want it cheap and quickly regardless of the impact to the environment. This results in more pesticides in soil and also depletes non-renewable natural resources with unsustainable farming practices. The chemicals in many cosmetics don’t break down and build up in our ecosystems. These toxins can then end up in our oceans, lakes, streams, rivers, and water supply. However, it’s not just our sea life that suffers. When water evaporates into the atmosphere, it re-accumulates into clouds, then re-liquefies and returns to the earth as rain- contaminating our soils with toxic chemicals. Not only do 70% of cosmetics end up in landfill unfinished, many discarded plastics are ending up in our oceans. Not only can this cause death and harm to sea life, but micro bacteria attach to plastic and create their own ecosystems. The plastic then travels with this bacteria and can end up on the other side of the world, contaminating other countries with disease.