Beauty Inside and Out: Catalyzing Safer Beauty Products Marketed to People of Color

The Safer Chemistry Impact Fund (SCI Fund) has awarded one of its first grants to a collaboration of environmental health groups for a project to catalyze safer beauty and personal care products by engaging with brands marketed to communities of color. We learned a lot from this proposal and asked Danielle Mangabat, Environmental Health Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, to share some of the insights that make this initiative so compelling. This is an edited summary of our conversation.

Bill Walsh, SCI Fund: WE ACT is one of the oldest and most respected environmental justice groups in the country. Makeup is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of environmental justice. Why is this a priority for you?

Danielle Mangabat: WE ACT has been working on this issue since 2019 through our Beauty Inside Out campaign. There are many dangerous chemicals in cosmetics; generally, regulation is increasing, and we see more and more companies starting to respond to consumer concerns about exposure to these chemicals of concern. The recent report that the SCI Fund published with ChemFORWARD made clear that there are significant chemical hazards that need to be addressed to protect the health of all people who use cosmetics. For people of color, data shows the health risks associated with using personal care products and cosmetics are disproportionately greater than White consumer counterparts.

Our work started with surveys about beauty and personal care product use within our local communities in Northern Manhattan. We surveyed women and femme-identifying individuals in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx and found that achieving a certain standard of beauty was the top reported reason why respondents used skin lighteners and chemical hair straighteners. Women and femme-identifying individuals who believed others saw lighter skin as more beautiful or youthful were more likely to use skin lighteners, while those who believed others saw straight hair as a sign of wealth or professionalism were more likely to use chemical straighteners. These products often contain toxic chemicals—skin lighteners may have mercury, a neurotoxin, while chemical straighteners can include formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.  Black consumers spend $9.4 billion on beauty products annually, more per capita than any other demographic. This means there is a higher per-capita exposure to the chemicals of concern in these products in a demographic already exposed to disproportionate amounts of toxic chemicals and environmental hazards from multiple other sources. 

Toxic beauty products marketed towards people of color pose a dual harm: they are associated with various physical health risks while also reinforcing Eurocentric beauty standards that impact self-esteem and perpetuate social and psychological oppression. WE ACT has worked to address these injustices through cross-sectoral collaboration within the beauty justice movement. In 2022, we helped pass the New York State Mercury Out of Cosmetics law, which banned the sale – both in-store and online – of cosmetics and other personal care products that contain mercury and then contributed to the effort that achieved a global ban that goes into effect this year.  Currently, we are working to pass the New York State Beauty Justice Act (S.4265/A.6969), also known as the Safe Personal Care and Cosmetics Act, which would ban the most dangerous toxic chemicals from the majority of personal care and cosmetic products sold in the state.

Bill: Are there any companies or industry initiatives that you think are making real progress? Is the whole beauty industry falling short on ingredient safety and transparency, or is it mainly brands marketed to people of color?

Danielle:  There are encouraging indicators of progress.  Over the last 10 years, the Retailer Report Card has tracked steady progress among some of the largest retailers in North America who are present in our communities. National chains like Target, Walmart, CVS Health, and Rite Aid have all adopted corporate chemical policies to restrict high-hazard chemicals, particularly in beauty and personal care products. In 2020, we helped update the criteria for the Retailer Report Card to include beauty justice criteria, and since then, some retailers, including Target, Sephora, and Ulta Beauty, have begun to progress in addressing beauty products marketed to people of color. That’s why we are partnering with ToxicFree Future in this project, the organization that issues the Retailer Report Card. 

Also, cosmetics retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty have achieved good grades on their Report Card and made important commitments to reduce hazards as part of the new Know Better Do Better Collaborative. That collaboration really demonstrates the impact that collective action can have in addressing data gaps that need to be filled and where safer alternatives are available today. We really think it provides a model that could be successful for brands and other retailers marketing products to people of color.

Bill: At the SCI Fund we were really interested in your proposal because it centered on equity and solutions, as if you are saying to the brands, let us help you get an “A” on the next report card.  What does success look like to you?

Danielle:

We hope that retailers and manufacturers can identify and switch to safer alternatives, identify where their data gaps are, and focus on ingredient transparency. Health disparities among people of color persist due to data gaps, particularly regarding product use and the prevalence of toxic ingredients in products marketed toward women of color, and we believe that working to support brands in identifying these data gaps through this project will lead to a successful collaboration.

On top of chemical management, clear and accessible labeling is essential to ensuring that our communities of color - major consumers in the beauty industry - are well-informed about the potential health impacts of certain products.  Black and women-owned beauty brands and businesses must be at the forefront of the conversation regarding moving the industry toward safer and more transparent products and truly achieving what we call ‘beauty justice.’ This project will help us gather and understand ingredient data for products marketed to people of color and then use this customer base to build support for brands on their journey to safer chemistry. We look forward to publishing our results this fall.

Danielle Mangabat, Environmental Health Coordinator at WE ACT

Bill Walsh, Director Safer Chemistry Impact Fund