Dear Humans,

I am Nature, Mother Nature. I have been on this Earth for more than 4.5 billion years. There was a time where the skies and waters were clear and I thrived. However, as we entered the Anthropocene and Capitalocene, I have been suffering. I am speaking now, and this time you’d better listen. My trees have been brutally chopped down, my icebergs have melted drastically and my animals have been losing their homes.

Despite this, I have to admit that there have been efforts and initiatives by you all to promote a more sustainable relationship between us. The Sustainable Development Goals have been a starting point to ‘Save the Planet’. However, you humans have been incredibly focused on the big ideas like protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems and halting biodiversity loss. To save me from your poison,  you have to first review your everyday actions and lifestyles. Look at issues you have been neglecting. Look at the problems you are pretending not to see. Look at the mess your beauty industry has caused me.

Your beauty products have the ability to make one feel confident, smell good and look beautiful. Well, I’ll  show you the ‘ugly’ side of beauty. That is, the price I, Mother Nature, have to pay at every stage of the life cycle of your beauty products. It spans from the production, consumption and end-of-life. Now, I beseech you to see how a seemingly small and harmless product can ruin all the beauty I have created and bring out so much ugliness of the world. To save yourself and I, change starts today.

Stormy and distressed vibes,

Mother Nature 

(Disclaimer: We are Crystal & Rexanne, NUS GE3246 students embarking on our Environmental Pollution Blog with a focus on the pollution of Beauty Products. We would like to utilise this opportunity to raise awareness of this largely overlooked topic so that people can do their part in their daily usage of these products. We were inspired by the ‘Nature is Speaking’ campaign for this blog post. Thank you Prof David Taylor and Wei Ting for your help and guidance.)