You've heard the notion “less is more” on several different occasions of your life; however, have you heard it in relation to skincare? Well, skinimalism is the practice of adapting a simplified, natural skincare routine in order to achieve the best outcome possible! Have you tried it yet?
In this blog post, we will identify why it is important to keep your skincare routine at a minimum from a cosmetic and sustainable perspective. In doing so, you will be able to come to your own conclusions regarding skinimalism and whether you will choose to practice it on a regular basis.
Skinimalism Benefits From A Cosmetic Perspective
Using more products or more ingredients does not equal better results, you might actually be compromising the integrity of your skin. Let's use the daily vitamin A intake to exemplify this point. If you are a healthy adult woman and your RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) should be 700 mcg[1] then, why would you take a supplement every day that provides 5,000 mcg of retinol in just one capsule? Doing so will undoubtedly produce toxicity symptoms in your system such as cracked lips, dry/rough skin, headaches, partial hair loss, rashes, and even liver damage[2].
The same can be said about skincare. Routines that call for several formulas could potentially damage your complexion by overly cleansing, exfoliating, and stimulating it. This could alter the functions of the delicate skin barrier and lead to an inflammatory response that manifests itself as dryness, breakouts, irritation, itching, peeling, uneven skin tone, and premature aging signs. This is especially true for skin regimes that include products from different brands and/or that contain a very long list of actives. All those excess products/ingredients might be interacting with each other, thus canceling out their benefits or exerting a very intense response that will cause more harm than good.
The current trend of overusing cosmetic products is believed to be responsible for the 20-30% increase in product-induced irritations[6]. In terms of resources, you will be wasting a lot of time, effort, and money on complex skincare protocols that will not perform as expected (quite the opposite). As a matter of fact, you can achieve much better results by focusing on just a few products that are wisely formulated with truly functional ingredients.
Skinimalism Benefits From A Sustainable Perspective
The ever-growing beauty industry heavily relies on plastic[3]. One of the main ways that it damages the environment is via single-use plastic packaging[4]. Just a teeny-weeny percentage of these containers is recycled (up to 9% to be more precise), 12% is incinerated and the rest ends up in landfills, lakes, rivers, and the oceans[4][5]. The more beauty products we use, the more we will contribute to the plastic garbage buildup[4]. Actually, during the past 50 years, there has been a 70% increase in the amount of waste generated[4].
Plastic packaging is also one of the main culprits of microbeads bioaccumulation. Did you know that 1 cream jar contains approximately 1.48 polyethylene particles?[5]. Unlike other types of plastic, microbeads can´t be recycled because it is practically impossible to collect them [6].
It is estimated that the cosmetics industry produces 120 billion units of packaging annually, which brings about the destruction of 18 million acres of forest per year[7]. Just to give you an idea of how we aggravate this plastic disaster, a survey found that women use on average at least 16 skincare products on their faces [8]. If we add this to the number of containers of all the personal care products that we use in 10 years, the amount of plastic can reach a whopping amount of 500 units[8].
To make things worse, the beauty industry is also generating an equally destructive quantity of paper, cellophane and cardboard waste[9]. These unnecessary materials are part of the cosmetic packaging and besides making the products more costly, they also rise CO2 emissions, deforestation rate as well as water consumption[9].
As you can imagine, recycling cosmetic packaging can become a pretty tedious task considering it is made of paper fabric or metal fused with plastic[8]. Going back to the bioaccumulation issue, 700 marine species have been negatively impacted by the tons of plastic that they have eaten or become entangled in[10]. Plastic pollution accounts for the deaths of more than 1 million marine animals yearly[11]. This is not strange because more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic are currently drifting at sea[10]. If we are lucky, all that detrimental plastic will take around 450 years to decompose (because it is possible it will never decompose)[10]. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “there could be more plastic than fish (by weight) in the ocean by 2050”[12].
To conclude, skinimalism is a practice that is beneficial from several perspectives, specifically from a cosmetic and sustainable one. We, at Rosafa, strive to improve the quality of the communities we serve by reducing our environmental impact and formulating responsibly; hence, we highly support skinimalism in all its shapes and forms. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest to learn more.
References
[1] https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminA-HealthProfessional/
[2] https://www.msdmanuals.com/home/disorders-of-nutrition/vitamins/vitamin-a-excess
[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/beauty-personal-care-industry-plastic
[4] https://www.green-sail.com/blog/how-the-beauty-industry-is-harming-our-seas-and-oceans
[5] https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/plastic-free-beauty-the-new-normal/
