More than ever, the beauty and fashion industries are beginning to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and are taking strides to become more sustainable and environmentally conscious. We often focus on the production and manufacturing chains, but it’s also important to take a look at the packaging products come in. For many beauty products, especially, the packaging is often excessive and unnecessary.
Beauty vloggers are famous for their unboxing videos, where they open up packages and talk about the products that were sent to them by different brands. It’s exciting to watch them unwrap intricately-designed boxes packed with everything from glitter and confetti to swaths of satin and gifts. Some beauty vloggers, however, have started to speak out against the wasteful packaging.
Samantha Ravndahl, an established beauty vlogger with more than 910,000 followers on YouTube, made a statement on her channel about excessive PR packaging and swore off all PR videos where she would be given products (often packaged with gifts, TV screens and other promotional items) to unbox. She told WWD that packaging doesn’t affect the way products work: “Brands have said that they feel they need to do something eye-catching because they think if it’s over-the-top enough, people will post it on their Instagram or Snapchat, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m receiving products in massive packages that don’t make the product anymore interesting to me.”
Jackie “Jackie Jackie Jackie” Aina, who has 2.3 million subscribers, agrees that brands need to learn how to tone down the extravagance, telling WWD, “A beautiful presentation is still important, but it just needs to be done smarter and with more awareness.”
According to Dazed, makeup brands and PR companies have been rethinking the way their products are sent to vloggers as they are starting to see people get frustrated with outrageous packaging. One such company is Benefit, who has given some U.S. influencers a “Brow Now” button, which notifies them when they need a refill on certain products — an innovative way of marketing to vloggers that takes less of a toll on the environment.
It will be interesting to see how many influencers join the “anti-PR packaging” movement, and how many brands listen.
[ Next: The Mother Earth-Approved Beauty Products You Need for a Zero-Waste Routine ]
