10 THINGS BEAUTY BRANDS NEED TO STOP DOING IN 2020 || #RivetRant

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Image description: Rivet Licker logo on a white background with text above that reads "10 THINGS BEAUTY BRANDS NEED TO STOP DOING IN 2020"

I hope everybody had a wonderful end of year holiday season and are ready to rock in 2020! Since it's tradition to make new years resolutions, here are some that I'd love to see from beauty brands!

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Obligatory disclaimer: While I try to include all parts of the world in this story, it's hard to get out of the experiences of my own little bubble in Australian beauty, but you may find some of these to be relatable on some level. All opinions expressed are those of my own. I'm just one person, and your views may be different.

Trigger warnings in place, this post contains references to: systemic racism, misogyny, transphobia, cultural appropriation, ableism, pseudoscience, animal cruelty, body image, anatomic structures, swearing, flashy GIFs etc.

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1. Stop preaching that mineral sunscreens are better for you and the environment.

We will start with a very common occurrence in the beauty arena. Sunscreens... We have to wear them to protect our skin from ionizing radiation (namely, the UV spectrum). There are many UV filters on the market, including those that are mineral based or "physical", technically called inorganic compounds as they often contain transition metals such as zinc, and chemical based, which are technically organic compounds from being carbon based. It gets all confusing, so let's divide them up by mineral and organic.

Mineral sunscreens are generally formulated with zinc oxide, which is a very common ingredient. It's all safe to use, but it offers no better sun protection, it is no less toxic to humans, and it certainly isn't any more environmentally sound than its organic counterparts. In fact, all UV filters in Australia have to be rigorously tested in a process that may take upwards of 18 months before they are allowed to enter the market with an SPF rating. A mineral sunscreen usually only gets up to an SPF of 20, because of unwanted white cast that can occur at higher ratings.

Many brands will argue that oxybenzone, an organic UV filter, among others, have been linked to coral bleaching, citing legitimate sources, yet they do not interpret the data correctly. I don't expect many people in marketing to have access to these journals, just like I don't right now because I'm not currently enrolled in any classes at uni, but having read the abstract of this study, it clearly states that oxybenzone was implicated in coral bleaching, in a laboratory setting. This does not mean that the scientists studied the effects on an actual coral reef. Their findings of these UV filters and pharmaceuticals in marine life is concerning, but the direct effects have not been studied in detail.


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GIF description: Animated portrait of Bill Nye the Science Guy with molecules, planets, and a conical flask bouncing around with text that reads "PLEASE LISTEN TO SCIENCE".

Ksenia from @allmyshittymakeup called out a newer Australian brand that tried to pull off this claim in an IGTV video on fear based marketing, and the brand did not respond very professionally to the concerns raised by her. It was very disappointing to see a brand act that way.

As for mineral sunscreens... I personally hate them. They burn my eyes because I sweat a lot. I'll take my organic filters any day.

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2. Stop making detox and fear based marketing/greenwashing.

So you went all out over the holidays and drank too much, overindulged on sugar and fat, and also didn't do much exercise, suddenly, you have a breakout and thus you must be full of conveniently unnamed toxins. Time to break out the detox mask that will draw out all those toxins from you body, magically, via your skin.

Except they won't. They actually can't. You have these amazing little things called a liver and a kidney, and you get two of those kidneys! Unless you've got acute or chronic disease that results in the failure of those organs, you're not pumped full of toxins from overindulging, and that extra cake certainly didn't cause you to break out. The excess booze might take a while to get fully out of your system, especially if you didn't drink any other fluids, but it usually doesn't take longer than 24 hours to fully be free of the metabolites of alcohol.

I especially hate this claim when comes from beauty professionals who are expected to have knowledge of anatomy and physiology (although, grossly simplified). The skin and integumentary system are not responsible for detoxification, and certainly won't respond to any kinds of topical products.

Then there's this whole thing about products having toxins in them all because they're synthetic, and that their natural or organic counterparts offer a safer and better option for the consumer. Not always. Some brands will even go so far as to slap arbitrary marketing terms on their products to make them seem more eco-conscious when the products are just the same old formulas in the same old packaging, but now they have "CLEAN" written on them. That's greenwashing.


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GIF description: Lisa Simpson opening up a Malibu Stacy doll with a caption that reads "She's just a regular Malibu Stacy with a stupid, cheat hat."

Just wash your face at the end of everyday, and don't buy the fear.

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3. Stop using so much fragrance in facial skincare and makeup products.

Does this really need to be said? I don't need my face to smell like flowers or fruit juice when it just need to be clean.

A fragranced lip product is absolutely fine, but it kind of annoys me that whole eyeshadow palettes are being fragranced. Why? What benefit does a peach or chocolate scented colour powder offer over one that doesn't smell like anything? Or how about a skin cream that smells like a bouquet?


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GIF description: Scene from Matilda. Bruce Bogtrotter has chocolate frosting around his mouth and his eyes follow from the top left corner to the bottom, where a very large chocolate cake is placed in front of him.

Okay, I love my fragrance library for soaps, and I'm keen to get back into making things that smell nice, but overloading face product with fragrances at their maximum usage rate can be really irritating on delicate areas like the face, and when in such close proximity to the nose, can often cause sinus problems. Unless the particular fragrance is part of a compound that actually benefits the skin, such as pimple busting tea tree oil or soothing chamomile, they really don't belong on the face.

Save the fragrance for the body and perfumes.

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4. Stop bringing out limited edition products that nobody actually needs.

The holidays (and sometimes not holidays) are just absolute winners for creating FOMO based hype and driving sales of products that would probably wouldn't get a second glance on any other day.


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GIF description: Scene from South Park. Adults and children in a store loading holiday decorations into their trolleys, and a parent and child walking towards the viewer with angry looks on their faces with a caption that reads "BECAUSE CHRISTMAS NEEDS TO BE BOUGHT IN A STORE."

A new celebrity makeup collaboration seems to pop up every single week. Just seeing the same thing over and over again as just a variation on a theme, complete with plenty of issues with quality control in the mass produced nature, so a brand can move upwards of a million units. This is seriously getting out of hand - celebs getting ripped off, leaks by influencers who can't adhere to embargoes, and the sheer amount of waste created from these products that are going to be used twice, and probably forgotten in a month when the next product comes out.

These limited edition products cheapen the experience of so many brands that you may as well wait for the drugstore dupes* to come out - also, you probably don't need all of them because they all have those same three shades of brown you have in every single palette, it's just this one is in a prettier package.

*My opinion on dupes: I'm okay with drugstore brands duping major high end/non-CF brands and products as it makes those trends more accessible, but I'm not okay with big brands ripping off indie designs and ideas.

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5. Stop with the obnoxiously excessive packaging and unnecessarily wasteful single use products.

This is going to be a long one...

I can't believe that in an age of an outcry to reduce waste, consumer products are still being excessively packaged for no reason other than to look pretty on a shelf as a selling point. We don't need that much paper or plastic wasted to make a tiny product look appealing and larger than life. It is seriously a waste. All that common plastic packaging can only get recycled... ONCE. It goes on to end its life in form of textiles, not new packaging.

I received this product in a goodie bag, and while it looks beautiful, it's the biggest waste of packaging I have ever seen for 30 uses! The sealed cellophane goes to landfill, the cardboard outer can be recycled, but the plastic jar will end its life as more plastic textiles, and the cleansing cloths will be in the landfill with the cellophane. All for a tiny jar of face wash wipes that are simply convenient, and not necessary. (This thing also retails for $50...)

Image description: Jar of Hydra Glow Cleansing Cloths by Equal Beauty by Jessica Gomes inside its elaborate cube shaped outer cardboard packaging containing printed black and white photos of beach waves and a close up of Jessica's face on the side. The Rivet Licker logo is in the background.

Other single use products, such as sheet masks, are convenient to use on the go, and more sheets are being made from biodegradable materials, but hydrogel type lip and eye masks come in plastic trays, inside more plastic. An alternative to using sheet masks is to invest in a silicone face cover (Daiso sell them, but they can be found on eBay and Amazon, etc), and to use an intensive serum while wearing it. You'll get the same effect, I promise!

I just really need to stress this - single use and disposable products are so bloody important in terms of healthcare and infection control, and more importantly, accessibility for disabled fol/x, but for the abled, healthy masses, and corporations, you can all do better.

Many brands are looking to reduce waste, and Lush are the forerunners of naked cosmetics and 100% post-consumer recycled packaging, along with the handmade sector running on the solid product trends. Along side Lush, MAC Cosmetics are the only other brand I can think of off the top of my head that have a packaging return program where you can return X amount of containers for a free product. I want to see every single major retailer actually promote* point of sale packaging return programs.

Retailers also have to think about protecting their products from being open or stolen. A lot of retail packaging varies depending on whether the products are sold by a staffed beauty counter, a branded display in a pharmacy, or on a rack at a supermarket/variety store. This means a single product can be sold with varying degrees of packaging, particularly if it requires it be tamper proof.


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GIF description: Scene from Mean Girls. Janis Ian yelling out of a car "YOU'RE PLASTIC. COLD, SHINY, HARD PLASTIC."

I want Mecca, Sephora, Priceline, Myer, David Jones, all the major stores with rewards programs or whatnot, to actually INCENTIVISE the return of cosmetic packaging by the customer. Offer a free product when a customer returns it, I'm pretty sure these huge retailers can afford it. What we have is the burden of waste being left to the consumer, who can opt to use programs like Red Cycle if they so choose, but are responsible for organizing such individually. In my reality, cleaning my cosmetic and personal care packaging to send off on my own is not something I have the energy for. Retailers and brands need to be held responsible for the waste they create, NOT the consumer.

By all means, please send this article to your favourite brands and retailers. Petition this, I don't have the emotional energy, but I'll put my name towards it.

*Coles and Woolworths Supermarkets are partnered with RedCycle, however, this is not promoted anywhere, other than in store, with a tiny little bin in the corner that often goes unnoticed. These retailers aren't even participating to be a return point for bottles and cans under the recycling refund scheme in NSW. It's simply not accessible.

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6. Stop pretending that your brand caters to everyone, but show lack of diversity on social media.

I don't know how brands can claim to embrace diversity when it's always the conventionally beautiful, thin, white, blonde haired (sometimes brunette), able bodied female models gracing their advertising (and influencer) campaigns?

Where are all the:
Models of colour
Indigenous models (especially those with dark skin)
Disabled models (without the inspiration porn)
Models with visible facial/body differences
Fat models (this isn't up for debate)
Bald models
Queer and gender non-conforming models that aren't gay cis dudes
Alternative models
Hijabis and models who wear modest gear
Mature age models
Male models who aren't sculpted

Where are they except for when there's an outcry that people don't feel that you're making your products accessible?

Don't get me wrong, beauty can be found everywhere, including in the status quo, but we're really trying to see ourselves and relate to what we see on social media. Having a whole 50 shades of beige range of foundations with 3 dark shades, for the sake of claiming diversity, is just plain not okay for large brands that can afford to invest in access.


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GIF description: White woman with long blonde hair wearing denim shorts and a white tube top, spinning around in the Coachella Valley.

Brands can also stop with the influencer trips. I know many of my readers wanted this to be included.

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7. Stop with the abhorrent and asinine gendering of beauty and personal care products.

Are we ever going to move past the idea of two genders, even though science supports that both sex and gender exist on a spectrum, and are subject to change over time? Prior to European colonisation of most of the world, genders existed beyond the binary but were erased by the idea that you can only fit into one of two categories, based on your junk and the social expectations of said junk (okay, putting it that way just seems a little bit perverted...)

The forceful separation of femininity and masculinity make the approach of personal care and beauty, such as using skincare and wearing makeup, still seem overly feminine, and the mere mention of personal care for a straight, cisgender dude, automatically makes him a "metrosexual" (remember that rubbish from the mid 00s?) and thus, less of a man because he is invested in basic hygiene. In retrospect, any man expressing a remotely feminine trait still bares its burden upon women. That's the root of misogyny and that is what has gendered beauty and personal care in such a way that a man may be ashamed to grab a jar of face cream or shampoo that has been expressly marketed to women because advertisers are sure that he needs assurance in the form of a brute and manly packaging. I can assure you all that we aren't going to die if we use the same hand & body wash, the same shampoo & conditioner, the same razor, the same deodorant, the same skincare, the same makeup... And yes, masculine people wear makeup, does nobody watch film or television?


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GIF description: White man with brown hair in a locker room shower, lifting up a bar of soap, sniffing it, and then raising it to show the audience with a caption that reads "It's a really weird commercial for soap."

While binary thinking is a simple way to grasp complex concepts, gender isn't fixed to one of two extremes - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, bendy wendy stuff.

Just be respectful and use people's correct names and pronouns, and don't purposely deadname or misgender them.

(I'm a woman, I'm soft butch, and I use she/her pronouns.)

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8. Stop trying to balance chakras with crystal woo.

I can't really say anything outside of this trend aside from how appropriated it is from Eastern cultures, and also how absolutely inane it is in the age of science.

Crystals... They look pretty, they are great accessories, and they even make for really cool chemistry; but at the end of the day, they are rocks, from the ground, with no special powers (unless you play D&D or something). Can we just appreciate the beauty of rocks and preserved substances (Amber, Petrified Wood, etc) without launching into all these baseless claims that they can ward off bad energy and bring balance into your life all by drinking water from a bottle with a crystal in it, or sticking one up your vagina? Or how they resonate at specific EMFs and emit waves (somehow not particles) that can treat disease? No, don't go there, or at least if you do, state that it has no basis in reality outside of your own head.


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GIF description: Scene from Rick & Morty. Rick prying a death crystal out of Morty's forehead with a flathead screw driver.

Stop pandering your Goop pseudoscience to the masses and save those crystals for looking pretty on a shelf or tabletop RPG and LARP fantasies.

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9. Retailers! Stop trying to sell generic, private label products as high end products.

*COUGH* Morphe *COUGH* Sephora Collection *COUGH* et al *COUGH*

This makes me cringe so badly. Okay, some in house brands aren't as expensive as others, depending on the retailer, and some brands being sold in places where there is a level of quality expected are just downright not that of what you would expect from that kind of retailer.


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GIF description: Scene from Blackadder. Rowan Atkinson's character clapping his hands with the caption "UTTER CRAP."

This brings me to my thoughts on Mecca carrying Morphe... Morphe is a generic, private label brand that has paraded as being something really special. It's really not.

The owners have come under fire for their dodgy business practices.
They continue to work with problematic influencers and beauty gurus that will never be held accountable for their actions.
They're repackaged direct-from-factory, and it's highly doubtful that their claim to their own palette designs hold true.
They've been in hot water for really poor quality control on big releases.
They've said in the past that they don't want to be known as a cruelty free brand, and while their makeup has been deemed CF, they still use animal fur in their brushes.
They have a really bad customer service.
Over all, the brand is an absolute waste of time - no pro makeup artists have ever endorsed this brand's palettes as it is simply generic stuff that should probably be sold en masse at budget retailers, because in my experience, that's what it's worth.

Mecca just could've done better.

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10. Stop selling off to the Big 7.

This beauty monopoly is ridiculous. Every other week, a well known brand seems to be acquired by a large conglomerate. Before we know it, every brand that rakes in loads of customers will belong to one of these massive corporations.

I think the biggest drawback is the emotional rollercoaster that takes you for a ride when you find out a cruelty free brand may no longer be cruelty free because of such a takeover. More often than not, the brand does stay cruelty free, but now that brand is owned by a mega corporation that makes you feel gross every time you buy a product.


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GIF description: Scene from The Simpsons. Miss Hoover reaching beneath her desk to press a red button that reads "INDEPENDENT THOUGHT ALARM".

My challenge to brands in 2020 is to STAY INDEPENDENT.

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Wow... Finally done!

Congratulations for making it to the very end. I wish everybody all the best for 2020, have a happy and safe new year!

Feel free to follow me on the social! I promise that I'm not as cranky as I've made myself seem in this post.

Do you have anything you'd like to add to this story? Leave a comment below!

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This post is presented as an opinion piece. Acquisition of products and/or services stated alongside each item, my thoughts are honest.

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