You may have seen in the news this week disturbing reports about child workers in Africa being use to mine mica – an ingredient that is widely used as a base for powder formulations and gives your makeup that awesome color and sparkle (think eye shadows, highlighters, blushes, etc) – in unsafe and completely unethical conditions.
How absolutely alarming and horrible, right?!
When I read that, my heart broke for those children and also provided an unfortunate reminder of the lack of regulation within the beauty industry.
At Beautycounter, we realize that the mica industry has some serious transparency and accountability issues, so we decided to do something about it. We’ve partnered with the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, named after the Nobel Prize winner for his work in eradicating child labor, to encourage mica suppliers towards responsible sourcing practices and traceability.
This year, our logistics team has been on the road to personally conduct on-the-ground audits of our entire mica supply chain and by next year, we will have audited all of our mine locations.
Why?
We will only give our business to the most transparent and responsible mica suppliers. So much so that we are on track to be the first beauty brand to take our mica supply chain to the next level of transparency!
Now more than ever, it’s so important it is to vote with your dollar for companies whose products and practices align with your own values.
I am not only proud to work for such a game-changing, accountable and certified B corporation but also feel comfortable using our safer, high-performing makeup on myself and daughter, as well as sharing with family and friends, knowing everything that goes into our ingredient selection process and high safety standards.
Living Cleaner, Easier & Safer 