The alarms go off and everyone starts their day bright and early in the morning. An impending rush hour as everyone is trying to get to their destination, be it children going to school, teenagers getting themselves home from the clubs, or the working class getting to their workplaces. With large amounts of people attempting to get from one place to another simultaneously, private and public transportation contributes to rush hour pollution. But, did you know that your morning beauty routine may be contributing to as much pollution? Whether you are lathering on lotion, applying your makeup, spraying dry shampoo or perfume in the morning, these products are sources of pollution. Research by the University of Colorado at Boulder showed that emissions from beauty products now account for a large portion of air pollution in urban areas, especially during the morning rush hours (Coggon et al., 2018).

For example, decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5 Siloxane) belongs to the class of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Siloxane is a common ingredient found in shampoos and lotions to give a smooth and silky texture. During morning rush hour, the levels of D5 Siloxane were recorded to be highest where people first leave their homes after applying their beauty products. Levels were then recorded to be lower in the evenings as they would have evaporated throughout the day. These changes in the level of D5 Siloxane are depicted in Figure 1 below. Consequently, the large amounts of D5 Siloxane in the atmosphere, catalysed by UV radiation, react with nitrogen oxides and other compounds to form ozone and particulate matter (Liu et al., 2021).

Personally, this study came off as a surprise to me which have never occurred to me before. Similar to the pollution of plastic straws which we are familiar with, our beauty routines have a collective impact as well. While these beauty products may look beautiful on our faces and bodies, they look ugly in our environment. As consumers of these products, we do have a personal choice and reconsidering the choice of product we want to use is certainly an area of consideration.

 

References

Coggon, M. M., McDonald, B. C., Vlasenko, A., Veres, P. R., Bernard, F., Koss, A. R., Yuan, B., Gilman, J. B., Peischl, J., Aikin, K. C., DuRant, J., Warneke, C., Li, S.-M., & de Gouw, J. A. (2018). Diurnal variability and emission pattern of decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) from the application of personal care products in two north american cities. Environmental Science & Technology, 52(10), 5610–5618. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b00506

Liu, N., Li, X., Ren, W., Li, L., Su, C., & Wang, C. (2021). Concentration characteristics and photochemical reactivities of vocs in shenyang, china. Atmosphere, 12(10), 1240. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12101240