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The five brands with the highest percentages of products with plastic ingredients were, in order: Lush, Maybelline, Deborah, Sephora and Wycon. Laboratory analyzes, aimed at verifying the presence of microplastics in 14 products, revealed the presence of small particles smaller than 5 millimeters such as polyethylene, polymethylmethacrylate, nylon and polyethylene terephthalate.
Only the products of the Purobio company were found to be free of plastic ingredients. Greenpeace, before publishing the survey data, contacted all the companies examined in order to provide a comprehensive picture that also took their point of view into consideration.
Only one answered the questionnaire.
Greenpeace reveals how some make-up brands pollute with microplastics
Make-up products that come into contact with eyes and mouth contain plastic ingredients. According to Greenpeace analysis, the presence of these materials was found in the makeup of 11 brands: Bionike, Deborah, Kiko, Lancôme, Lush, Maybelline, Nyx, Pupa, Purobio, Sephora and Wycon.
79% of the 672 products verified online featured plastics, and 38% of these were solid particles known as microplastics. Mascaras were found to be the products in which plastic ingredients were most frequent, followed by lipsticks and lip glosses and foundation.
Microplastics pose a serious threat for our Planet. Especially to small marine living beings, which tend to feed on them by mistaking them for plankton. These minor organisms are in turn inserted into the food chain and being ingested by larger living beings and their predators.
The chain can continue until it reaches our tables. Controlling the release of these plastics into the environment therefore means safeguarding marine fauna. Many marine animals such as seagulls or seals have ingested microplastics, affecting health.
Microplastics have been found to persist in the environment in large quantities, especially in marine and aquatic ecosystems. This is because plastic deforms but does not break over many years, can be ingested and accumulated in the body and in the tissues of many organisms.
The entire cycle and movement of microplastics in the environment has not yet been studied in depth mainly due to the difficulty of analyzing a mixture of various types of more or less inert plastics. 77% of the blood of people tested by researchers at the Vrije University of Amsterdam in 2022 was found to contain microplastics as they can travel in the body and deposit in organs.
