“Every dollar you spend is casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” Anna Lappe
To me, this sums up perfectly what being a conscious consumer means. Essentially anytime you purchase a product you are basically funding and supporting that business to keep doing what they are doing. In my opinion, as conscious consumers we should be digging a bit deeper than just a product label or what ingredients a product has in it.
There are so many amazing businesses and entrepreneurs out there that are using ethical sourcing practices, implementing green initiatives like recycling etc, reducing packaging requirements and supporting charitable causes and of course there are businesses that are not. These initiatives are critical in creating more sustainable businesses.
No judgement on those companies not doing any of this, but for me personally I would rather spend my dollars to support those companies and entreprenueurs that are. There are plenty of big faceless corporations that you can buy your products from but why would we want to buy something without caring who or how it was made.
Sometimes I think consumers under estimate the role we play in how we can influence better practices. We often think, my one purchase won’t make a difference so why worry. Well we hold the power in how we spend our money. We have the ability and the right to make choices, so lets start choosing really really carefully. Lets throw our support and our money behind businesses that are taking intentional action to positively impact not only their own business, but our health with pure transparent ingredients, the health of our planet with ethical and sustainable sourcing practices, the health of our oceans by reducing plastic and excess packaging, and our animals by absolutely no animal testing, not only on their own products, but by not purchasing ingredients from suppliers that test on animals and by not selling products in mainland china which requires animal testing! That’s a whole other blog! And while we’re at it, lets make it simple to be able to do all that, for companies to be transparent and honest about the things we care about.
Every woman that makes the switch to clean, ethical beauty is making a better choice for not just her own health, but the health of her family and the health of our planet. Beauty should not come at the cost of our health, the environment or our furry friends. Wouldn't it be nice if "clean" beauty just became beauty.