Let Suzy eat safe salmon by avoiding the following toxin, please © The Face Shop
PSA for pescetarians: Your facial scrub is killing Nemo.
An insidious ingredient in facial scrubs lining beauty aisles everywhere has been shown to be slowly but surely sickening the sardines, salmon and such most of us are probably supping on right this instant.
Here’s how we beauty buffs have set skincare and seafood on this alarming collision course. You’re probably aware that most exfoliating cleansers contain tiny particles meant to purge your pores of gunk. These beads are more often than not made of so-called microplastics, which are essentially plastic in pellet form.
This is when things get dicey. Keep in mind that these tiny beads are too small to be sieved out at traditional sewage plants. Translation? When you flush these microplastics off your face and down your shower drain, they eventually end up in oceans the world over.
That’s bad news unto itself, but it gets more dire. Studies have shown that these microplastics are inherently “sticky” – good for grabbing onto dead skin cells, very bad for the environment, as non-degradable chemical compounds like DDT and PCBs piggyback on said “sticky” microplastics into the open sea … and into the gaping maws of unsuspecting marine creatures.
When we in turn polish off a plate of shrimp and scampi, the DDT and PCBs are passed down into our system, which is very, very bad indeed – they’ve been fingered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention as causing cancer, brain damage and disruptive hormonal changes in humans.
The body of evidence connecting microplastics and plastic pollution may have reached a tipping point; just this week, the U.S. state of Illinois announced that it would ban all cosmetics containing microbeads. Beauty giants are feeling the heat as well: Unilever has pledged to phase out all microbeads by 2015, with L’Oreal and Johnson & Johnson widely expected to follow suit.
The Face Shop Smart Peeling Honey Black Sugar Scrub
All very reassuring indeed, but our faces can’t wait until 2015 for the next good pat-down. The solution is elegantly simple: For starters, opt for “natural” products the next time you’re perusing the pharmacy. We’re in love with The Face Shop’s very purse-friendly Smart Peeling Honey Black Sugar Scrub, which, as its monicker suggests, makes use of black sugar and honey to expel blackheads and debris.
Or concoct your own custom blend. Here’s an embarrassingly easy recipe I like: Whip up one part extra virgin olive oil to two parts brown sugar in a mixing bowl; slather on face; kick up your kitten heels and relax for five minutes; rinse off to reveal surpassingly supple skin.
Finally, be a beauty brainiac by doing your research and arming yourself with a comprehensive overview of the “good” and “bad” brands on the market. There’s a ton of advocacy groups and sites out there, so it’s really just a click and bookmark away to your virtual beauty manual.
I like browsing the Environmental Working Group’s searchable cosmetics database whenever I need an unbiased, blow-by-blow breakdown of a particular product’s ingredients. Another nifty source of info comes by way of an incredibly cool Apple- and Android-enabled app by the Plastic Soup Foundation. Scan the barcode with your smartphone’s camera and it’ll tell you if the product in question contains plastic microbeads.
Bottom line? Be conscious of what you’re scouring your face with, if only because you want to continue savouring your sashimi without wondering if you’re poisoning yourself in the process. Food for thought, eh!
The Face Shop Smart Peeling Honey Black Sugar Scrub, $16.90, is available at all The Face Shop stores. For more information, visit www.thefaceshop.com.sg. You can follow The Face Shop Singapore on Facebook.