Last week I was able to participate in 6 meetings with members of Congress & their staff to advocate for more health-protective legislation.
It’s was such an empowering event & I couldn’t be more honored to be alongside of the women (& a few men) fighting for change in this important health & environmental justice issue.
Here’s the background: It’s widely accepted that the personal care and cosmetics industry is currently incredibly underregulated.
As a result, harmful and questionable ingredients are allowed to be used in everyday beauty products. This harms consumers. We deserve to know what is in the products we use and have access to safe personal products that are free of toxic chemicals.
Enter Beautycounter.
We know that Beautycounter alone can’t solve the problem. The lack of transparency in the supply chain can make it hard for companies like ours to truly formulate “clean”products. That’s why we need Congress to pass bills that require ingredient and manufacturing transparency and ban the use of harmful chemicals in the products that we all use every day.
We do this in order to create a future where all beauty is clean beauty, we must advocate to ensure that ALL personal care products are safe.
I still have A LOT of processing to do from our week, but wanted to share a few takeaways ASAP:
- 1. Use your voice– every text, letter, email, & phone call on an issue you care about REALLY DOES MOVE THE NEEDLE! So find out who your reps are & talk to them about what issues you think are important!!
- 2. This work MATTERS– This is not just a women’s issue. This is a human & global health issue. The medical community already has published hundreds of peer reviewed studies on the negative health implications of these toxins that we are being exposed to everyday in our personal care products.
- 3. NEVER underestimate the power of the collective voice-10 years ago no one was talking about “clean beauty” until Gregg Renfrew and @beautycounter disrupted the industry and harnessed the power of 50,000 brand advocates to share this information and use their voice to share with friends and family. And progress has been made, we now see “clean beauty” in Sephora, target, and other major retailers.
- 4. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET– consumers have the power to influence the market by demanding that companies value ingredient & supply chain transparency as well as ban the use of harmful chemicals in their products.
But there is MUCH work to do.
- 👉🏼Many people assume that the personal products on the shelf are adequately regulated by the FDA.
- 👉🏼Many people still don’t know that many of the products that we are using in our homes & on our bodies are harmful to not only our current health, but also the health of future generations.
- 👉🏼Many people think that if a personal care product is found to have harmful health implications or toxins- the FDA can pull it from the shelves (NEWSFLASH, it cannot!)
- 👉🏼Bipartisan legislation must be passed in order to make ALL personal care products safe for consumer.
We will not stop until ALL beauty is clean beauty, not just a niche in the market.
Other Takeaways:
In almost every meeting, we were told that when constituents call, text, email or write a letter to their representative it really does help move the needle on that issue.
As someone who OFTEN emails or joins a text campaign to talk to my reps about climate, clean beauty, women’s health and other issues, I found this to be incredibly heartening.
Prior to these meeting I always figured my email or text most likely didn’t do much. But I am SO glad to be wrong 😜
Moral of the story is, find your voice, use your voice, and let your reps know what is important to you. They are there to work for YOU.
Most of the bills we were advocating for, people ALREADY assume are in place. People (including staffers) were SHOCKED to learn about the amount of toxic chemicals in widely used products.
The Bills We Were Advocating For At a Glance:
At the end of the day, the conversation about clean beauty goes beyond personal care products. Our advocacy is about our health and the environment, and protecting those we love from the effects of harmful chemicals.
Our company’s mission is to get safer products into the hands of everyone.
We do so in three important ways:
1. Educating consumers so they can make safe and healthy choices for the products that they use every day;
2. Offering direct to consumer clean beauty solutions through our product line; and
3. Advocating for new laws to boost transparency in the cosmetics industry and get closer to ensuring that all personal care products are safe and free from harmful chemicals.
Beautycounter seeks to be a solution to this problem both by creating safer, transparent, and high-performing products and by bringing a leading business voice to cosmetic safety reform advocacy.
Check out more of our advocacy efforts HERE