Is your Christmas beauty Advent calendar damaging the environment?

Over the past decade, the beauty industry has created some truly spectacular Christmas Advent calendars which have gained a cult following as consumers rush to purchase them. 

But! With sustainability a growing key trend driving our purchasing decisions, how sustainable are these products which often have layers of excess packaging and no responsible instructions or advice for disposal?

With only 61 days until Christmas, the search term "Beauty Advent Calendars 2022" is  up by 170% on Google Trends over the last 30 days. 

Sustainable accreditation organisation and consumer shopping guide app ethy is looking at the importance of ‘clean beauty’ and sharing how customers can make better choices when it comes to their beauty Advent calendars this year. 

So, what should customers be looking out for when purchasing beauty-based Advent calendars?  

ethy’s Co-Founder Kaisa points out: "Customers should look for calendars from verified sustainable and responsible brands because they're more likely to have considered the impact of the product on the planet and taken steps to make it as sustainable as possible. 

"Look for Advent calendars made from sustainable, recycled, or recyclable materials. Avoid plastic where you possibly can. As an ideal, advent calendars will display plastic-free or reduced plastic labels. 

" Or alternatively, why not make your own 12-day Advent calendar with products from verified sustainable and clean beauty and vegan brands to be sure the products and packaging will be kinder to the skin as well as the environment?"

What is clean beauty? 

Kaisa explains: "Clean beauty is all about acknowledging there are ingredients in our everyday beauty products that we may perceive to be harmless. But we're seeing that some of these are actually problematic and for consumers, it's really quite hard to always know the difference. 

"Like with the whole topic of sustainability, the beauty industry is complex and even the sheer amount of info and ingredients can be bewildering and confusing to anyone who doesn't work with it on a daily basis.

"We wanted to get brands and consumers to define clean beauty products and to be able to buy with confidence. Yes. it is complicated, but we're doing our very best to keep really high standards on the ingredients."

We at That's Christmas have noticed that on some products the ingredients list is so long and complicated that the print is so tiny that we often need to reach for a magnifying glass to try and see what the manufacturer wants us to put on our skin! 

How can a brand be accredited with the Clean Beauty Standard by ethy? 

It mustn't use aggressive ingredients, synthetic scents or fragrances, or colourants (and this includes animal-derived dyes) in any of its products. 

To learn more about ethy and to start using it to help you make your purchasing decisions, please visit them here https://ethy.co.uk.