Glitter make up is still trending and it doesn’t look like it is going to go away anytime soon. But as we strive to out-bling, out-dazzle and out-shimmer ourselves (and each other) questions need to be asked. Are we really putting plastic on our face and lips and consuming it, just for a trend? And is the glimmer of glitter in our makeup, actually really worth the costs?
Let’s face it sparkles conjure up images of fun times. But the sad reality is that traditional glitter is actually made from plastic sheets.
Environmental Concerns
With glitter being a micro-plastic, there are major concerns about what happens when glitter is washed down the drain. It was recently estimated that over five trillion pieces of plastic were floating in the world’s oceans, causing damage throughout the food chain.
Micro-plastics, which measure less than five millimeters in length, are found throughout the world’s oceans, from the surface to the deep sea floor. They are consumed by plankton, fish, shellfish, seabirds, and other marine life. Scientists have become increasingly concerned about the effects on fish and other marine life in addition to sea birds and humans, given that plastics have been collected in the stomachs and skin of fish and birds, causing them to die of starvation.
Natural mica
Instead of glitter, some organizations have turned to natural wet-ground mica to avoid plastic, known for centuries for its unique lustre. It is the reflective and refractive properties in mica that make it the perfect ingredient in blushes, eye liner, eye shadow, foundation, hair and body glitter, lipstick, lip gloss, mascara, moisturizing lotions and nail polish. Mica is also used to produce automobile paint and is added to various products including building materials, some brands of toothpaste and latex balloons to provide a glittery shimmer.
The largest known mica deposits in the world are in India. Twenty five years ago, horrific stories of child exploitation in mica mining highlighted how in India’s poor remote east mountains, a world of unrelenting, unprofitable and illegal labor was being used to mine mica.
In the low hills of Jharkhand, mica is easily accessible, high quality and is in demand from all corners of the globe. But the industry is highly dependent on an unskilled workforce where profits are made off the backs of children. Children risk snake and scorpion bites, cuts and skin infections as well as respiratory illnesses. and the hollowed-out caves they mine in, are often known to collapse.
On average, a child in these mountains will mine 10 kilograms of mica a day and will be paid around 25 dirhams. Depending on its quality and type, mica can fetch anywhere from several dirhams a kilogram to more than than 2,500 AED.
To make things worse, the funds each child makes mining mica is vital to his/her parent’s income, but usually doesn’t exist on record. India officially produces about 19,000 tonnes of crude and scrap mica, according to the Bureau of Mines, yet it exported more than 140,310 tonnes in 2014-15 - more than eight times the official production figure - most of which was sent to China.
Sadly for Indian children in Jkharkhand, mica still remains one of the key ingredients used in make-up put on faces and fingers every day. Known also as Glimmer, Kaliglimmer, Muskovit, or only as CI 77019, mica is used today by popular cosmetics brands as a primary ingredient in many of their products.
It's an ingredient used not only to add shine to make-up but to also absorb excess oils and give a consistent texture.
The concerns about child labor in mica are not new. In 2009, German pharmaceutical and chemicals company Merck KGaA, which supplies mica to cosmetics brands around the world was accused of using children to mine mica in India.
Two decades ago, in the face of environmental concerns and in an effort to better regulate the mica industry, the Indian government shut mines across the state. But the closures have driven child labour further, literally and metaphorically, underground.
“The industry is intentionally kept arcane,” says Gabbi Loedolff, Head of Raw Materials and Safe Synthetics at Lush Cosmetics.
“Those who work at the mine are unaware of where their product ultimately ends up, and those who buy the mica are wilfully blind to where it comes from.”
Lush Cosmetics attempted to visit Jkharkhand in order to ascertain transparency in their supply chain and to build relationships with suppliers, however was advised at the time that due to unrest, it wasn’t safe, and that they needed to be accompanied by security. Lush were also advised that they would only be able to visit specific areas and therefore would only be shown a curated version of what was really happening in the mountains of Jharkhand.
“It immediately felt wrong; we weren’t going to be given the freedom we needed to go and see for ourselves whether the concerns we had started to hear were in fact true and therefore it became obvious that there was something to hide,” Loedoff said.
India has strong child labour laws, which prohibit anyone under 18 working in mining, but enforcement is lax. The situation is made extremely complex by the fact that the Naxalites [a Maoist rebel army] control the jungle, where police are regularly killed, and government officials cannot go, so there is little if any controls.[1]
In the nearby town of Jhumri Telaiya, whole streets are dedicated to the mica trade, most of it is black market. Men in kurta pyjamas sit in front of enormous sacks full of mica flakes for export.
''India has high-quality mica, the quality for the cosmetics industry, so the demand is strong. Ninety per cent of the mica mined in Jharkhand goes overseas; electronics, paints, automobiles and cosmetics industries are the major buyers,’’ Loedoff says
Sadly most of the children know that the mica they mine and put their lives at risk for each day, ends up as decoration, particularly on the faces of women overseas.
LUSH - Removal of natural mica from cosmetic lines.
Lush Cosmetics replaced plastic glitter used in its products—made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) starting in 2011 and launched its colour cosmetics range called Emotional Brilliance made with natural mica lustres in 2012. Though Lush had focused on reducing its plastic packaging decades prior, the concept of glitter being a plastic hadn’t entered their minds, with Loedoff admitting that glitter being a PET had been a “blindspot” for Lush and in 2011 there was very little talk of there being an alternative.
Being aware of the human rights issues related to natural mica, Lush Cosmetics chose a supplier with transparency in their supply chain that was audited annually and independently verified by the non-government body Legrand. Lush Cosmetics felt certain that as a result there were no children involved in the natural mica that they were sourcing. However after a few years or so of purchasing natural mica, changes in the supply chain took place and Legrand were no longer able to verify the supply of the natural mica to Lush, or the strict rigor applied to the supply that it once could.
As a result Lush started looking to see what they could replace natural mica with. Enter Fluorophlogopite, the technical term for synthetic mica. Synthetic mica is a blended man-made material designed to replicate the shimmer effect of natural mica, and is made up of natural minerals. As such, it is biodegradable, with no concerns regarding landfill, or waterways. The beauty of synthetic mica isn’t just in its glimmer and environmental benefits however, synthetic mica is also proving to produce more vivid colors and is actually brighter than naturally occurring mica. An added bonus is that synthetic mica does not contain any sharp edges that may microscopically tear or damage the skin.
After coming across synthetic mica, Lush looked into what would be needed to transition away from natural mica to synthetic and realised that there was going to be quite a lot of difficulties, from having to reformulate products with a new material to having limited availability of synthetic based pigments, lusters and colors. Loedoff points out that the cosmetic industry was very new to synthetic mica when Lush first came across it and that the industry and suppliers hadn’t yet matured to the standards available today.
“As soon as you become aware that there is a problem, you have a responsibility - you don’t really have a choice - you must work to drive change and rectify it,” Loedoff says.
“Our first response to a challenge is not to walk away because if you are not part of the conversation, then it is very hard to drive change or influence it.”
To this end, Lush Cosmetics were ahead of the game when identifying an alternative to mining natural mica and were far along the process in terms of transitioning to synthetic mica, when the industry first started to undertake conversations about the concerns.
In fact, Lush had already started experimenting with synthetic mica with their manufacturers to ascertain what products could be made relatively easily. However, despite the fact that they had committed to changing over from natural mica, Lush had already ordered a large amount of it in for the launch of a new cosmetics range which was expected to do very well and were in the unfortunate position of having quite a large number of products made with the substance.
“We were forced into a position whereby we needed to ask ourselves whether we make a clean break away from natural mica or whether we utilise the products which had natural mica that already had been extracted in them, rather than just wasting them,” Loedoff said.
“And so for Lush, the decision was made whereby we would keep using what we had, because it aligned with our ethos to reduce our waste and as soon as the time came to replenish stocks, we would immediately replace it with synthetic mica based versions, which was extremely more complex than it sounds.”
Lush found that despite their decision making process, they were only using small amounts of natural mica in their products and years after committing to making the change, they still had significant amounts of products left made with natural mica. They were also shocked to later learn that one of their suppliers was still providing materials which contained a small percentage of natural mica in them, despite their decision to transition.
“This was extremely disheartening; we had been working so hard and were getting ourselves ready to completely transition over to synthetic mica but it was also a huge learning curve for us also, with lessons learnt on how we communicate with both our suppliers and to the public on such a sensitive issue,” Leodoff said.
“We reached a stage where we decided that we would use as much as the old formulations as possible and that it would be easier and better for Lush to have a clean cut off date where we would no longer provide any products with natural mica in them.”
Lush made public and delivered on its commitment to remove products with natural mica in them across their global operations by 1 Jan this year due to human rights issues with mining natural mica and the (ab)use of children.
The Power of People
Natural mica is one material in a world where so many ingredients come with their own hidden challenges and obstacles and though it is currently a focal point, it is one of a series of complex conversations that are needed when it comes to cosmetic manufacturing.
Cosmetic companies have their own set of priorities also, for some it may be sustainability and for others traceability, but for the majority it is about marketshare and profit. This is where consumers have a powerful voice.
“We underestimate as consumers the power of money, spend and our voice on social media,” Leodoff said.
“People are expecting manufacturers to do better and this is a huge driver for change in Lush. Questions from the public have seen us review our processes and see how we can be better.”
While concerns regarding products may have been hidden in a complaint letter sent to the company some years ago, social media has become a powerful tool and the easiest way for individuals to call people or companies out on a public forum. By raising awareness of an issue, individuals have been able to create a ripple effect, and when that ripple hits the bottom line, companies have no choice but to care.
The solution lies in how quickly companies can react to the concerns raised and how they communicate their decision making processes.
For Lush, it took four years for them to transition from natural mica to synthetic mica. A few human rights groups rightly questioned Lush in regards to their process during this time and whether Lush made the right decision to sell the products made with the natural mica that they had stockpiled prior to being aware of the ability to transition to synthetic mica.
“Lush debated the best way to handle these concerns constantly; there were never ending conversations on whether the time had come to make a clean cut, the concerns about waste, whether we could do anything more or make the change quicker,” Leodoff says.
“We embraced these concerns wherever we could as we shared the concerns of those raising the questions and they were absolutely right to raise them; people should be expecting better.”
As a result of being ahead of the game when it came to transitioning to synthetic mica, Lush were seen as the spokespeople on the issue and as a result were forced even further to explain their stance on the issue to the public via media reports.
“What we said, and what we continue to say is that we believe in what we are doing, we are not a perfect brand, we never will be perfect, we make mistakes along the way and we are learning, but what we can promise is that we will be transparent as our learning continues and that was the key thing, we weren’t afraid to share the mistakes that we made along the way,” Leodoff said.
This is what empowers Lush. Making mistakes is in fact part of Lush’s core beliefs: We believe…in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again. Perhaps more companies need to feel liberated enough to believe in the right to make mistakes along the way also.
“By sharing the mistakes we made, the learning and the challenges, we hope that other people and companies can make similar decisions and transitions much faster,” Leodoff says.
And I hope that she is right. The feedback so far since the transition has been extremely positive from customers and from staff. A cosmetic world full of synthetic mica, mineral glitter and starched based lusters without any damage to the environment or humans is much better than a world full of harmful shiny shimmer.
[1] Child Labour in Mica Mines of Koderma & Giridih District of Jharkhand
http://www.cini-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Jharkhand-Report.pdf - Child in Need Institute