Eco-Friendly Makeup Tips
Get green and look good
From The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen
Eyeliner
You can minimize waste by buying eyeliner pencils encased in wood instead of pencils or liquids contained within plastic. Wood shavings have the potential to biodegrade, whereas most plastics do not. If one in twenty eyeliner users switched from using plastic-encased pencils to wooden ones, nearly ten thousand pounds of plastic could be saved.
Eye Shadow
If you use pressed eye shadow, choose a brand that provides a reusable compact with slots for refills. Each time you buy a refill instead of an entirely new container, you’ll reduce your costs, the amount of energy used to produce and ship the hard plastic, glass, or chrome packaging (some of which come with mirrors), and the amount of waste you discard when it’s empty. If one in twenty-five women chose refillable eye shadow, more than 350,000 pounds of wasted cosmetics containers could be saved each year.
Foundation
Opt for foundation in a simple recyclable (or reusable) glass container over one sold in a non-recyclable plastic tube or bottle. The manufacturing energy saved by avoiding the plastic container could run the light bulb in your makeup mirror for more than seven hours. If one in twenty women chose glass over plastic packaging for her next foundation purchase, the energy conserved could fill a twenty-gallon gas tank once a week for twenty-four years.
Lipstick
Given that the average woman may inadvertently ingest more than four pounds of lipstick in her lifetime, you’ll want to look for lip color made from plant-derived ingredients instead of from synthetic oils, paraffin waxes, and toxic coal tar dyes (look for FD&C or D&C followed by a color and number). If one in five lipstick wearers began demanding plant-based options, total petroleum product consumption would decrease by more than 825,000 pounds per year.
Mascara
Your best choice for mascara is one that is made from plants and minerals instead of from petroleum products. However, if this is not a viable option for you, avoid varieties that come in plastic bubble packs on cardboard backings.
Excerpted from The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen Copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen. Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, in partnership with Random House of Canada Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.