When I am not watching a show from the quarantine watch list, I will watch celebrity skin care routine videos on YouTube. I am nosy, and I am happy to know who put on sunscreen and who doesn’t.
But usually, these videos confuse me. I have noticed that many celebrities seem to have good skin, despite using too many exfoliating products in one procedure. However, when I said aloud “um” to the empty apartment, what really troubled me was the number of celebrities who still use makeup wipes to remove makeup—including generation Z and millennials.
Makeup wipes should be a quick way to remove makeup. However, based on my personal experience of using wet wipes and watching celebrities using them in their videos, they actually take longer to use. Usually, you need to wipe the wet wipes on your face several times to really feel that you have removed all the foundation, and you really have to rub your eyes to remove every drop of mascara and eyeliner-especially if they are waterproof of.
Dr. Shereene Idriss is a dermatologist certified by the New York City Council. She said that in addition to the abrasive effect of wipes on the skin, the ingredients they soak are not very good.
“Some people have more irritating ingredients than others,” she told Genting. “I think the wet wipes themselves are very irritating and can cause micro tears because they are not so soft. They are not equivalent to the cotton pads you soak in the makeup remover. And these micro tears may age in the long run.”
Yes, make-up wipes are very convenient when traveling. Yes, throwing them away is more convenient than washing a lot of reusable face pads and washing cloths, but they do more than just hurt your skin. Like many other disposable products (such as plastic straws and plastic bags), wet wipes have a negative impact on the environment, whether you realize it or not.
According to the FDA, cleaning wipes are made of materials such as polyester, polypropylene, cotton, wood pulp, or man-made fibers, many of which are not biodegradable. Although some brands use materials that will eventually decompose to make wet wipes, most wipes end up in a landfill for many years — and never really disappear.
Think of it as a few weeks after dropping a glass, you keep finding small glass shards on your floor.
“Research on microplastics-such as those found in sea salt and sand-has clearly shown that it has not really disappeared, it just becomes smaller and smaller particles, and will never become soil or organic material,” Sony Ya said Lunder, senior poison consultant for the Sierra Club’s Gender, Equity and Environment Project. “They just wander in these very small pieces.”
Flushing wet wipes down the toilet is not much better-so don’t do it. “They clog the system and do not decompose, so they pass through the entire wastewater system intact and put more plastic into the wastewater,” Lunder added.
In recent years, some brands have introduced biodegradable wipes to be more environmentally friendly, but whether these wipes decompose as quickly as they advertise is very complicated.
“If we prepare a direct cotton cloth for your face, such as a cotton ball, if you have municipal compost or compost in your house, you can usually compost them,” said Ashlee Piper, an eco-lifestyle expert and author of Give A, hush*t 
o good things. Live better. Save the earth. “But makeup wipes are usually a mixture of some kind of plastic or synthetic fibers, and if it feels generous, they may be mixed with a little cotton. Normally, they cannot be composted.”
Wet wipes made from natural plant fibers and/or pulp can be biodegradable, but under suitable conditions. “If someone doesn’t have compost in their home or city service, so they put the biodegradable wipes in the trash can, it won’t be biodegraded,” Piper explained. “The landfill is notoriously dry. You need oxygen and a few other things to carry out this process.”
There is also a solution for soaking wet wipes. Depending on the ingredients used, they may not be compostable, which means they will add more chemicals to landfills and wastewater systems if they flush into the toilet.
It is also important to note that terms such as “clean beauty”, “organic” and “natural” and “compostable” are not regulated terms. This is not to say that all brands claiming that their wipes are biodegradable are bleached-they are in perfect condition.
In addition to the actual wet wipes, the soft plastic bags they come with have also caused an astonishing amount of packaging waste in the beauty industry. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency, normally, this type of plastic cannot be recycled and is part of the 14.5 million tons of plastic container and packaging waste generated in 2018.
Since 1960, the amount of plastic packaging used on American products (not just personal care products) has increased by more than 120 times, and nearly 70% of the waste has accumulated in landfills.
“The packaging on the outside of the wipes is usually soft, crushable plastic, which basically cannot be recycled in any city,” Piper said. “There are some exceptions. There may be some companies that are making interesting new soft plastics, which may be more recyclable, but urban recycling is not actually set up to deal with this type of plastic.”
It is easy to think that as a person, your personal habits do not really affect the entire environment. But in reality, everything helps-especially if everyone makes small adjustments to their daily lives to make their lifestyle more sustainable.
In addition to helping eliminate unnecessary landfill waste, massaging cleansers, oils, and even creamy cleansers feels much better than rubbing a rough wipe on the face — and it removes all makeup better . It is believed that it is still satisfactory to see all the cosmetic residues on one of the many reusable cotton circles.
That being said, whenever you say goodbye to disposable makeup wipes, make sure to dispose of them properly.
“You don’t want to put traditional rags in the compost, because it is made of plastic, because you will contaminate the compost supply,” Lunder said. “The worst thing to do is to add something that is actually not compostable or recyclable to compost or recycle to make yourself feel better. This puts the entire system at risk.”
From non-toxic cosmetics and skin care products to sustainable development practices, Clean Slate is an exploration of everything in the field of green beauty.
Post time: Sep-14-2021