I like to think of fast beauty and fast fashion as fast food: it’s quick, it’s easy, it feels good in the moment (especially when I’m hungover) but I usually regrets it later. Fast beauty is the sale of products produced quickly by mass retailers at low cost. This is often what you find in pharmacies, supermarkets and, more than ever, online. Fast beauty is why I think we need to slow down and make better consumer choices.

I launched my beauty brand Fluff in 2018. When we launched compacts and refillable skincare in 2019, few other brands were doing the same. The concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle” had not yet really appealed to beauty product consumers. Although this has become the mantra of countless brands offering cosmetic refills today, I would say that the message has not yet been fully understood. We’re still stuck on the first word: reduce. We always sell and buy so many things.

Fluff has been labeled as part of the slow beauty movement, and yet I feel like I can’t keep up. In 2023, one of our TikTok videos reached 21 million people and our US customer base doubled in just a few days. We ran out of product and had to rush to order more, while increasing our resources and hiring more staff to meet demand. If social media could do this in days, how fast could we grow in months or even years? Who really decides our pace?

The idea of ​​slow beauty may be more compelling (or marketable) than its reality, but its intentions remain important. Slow beauty generally denotes several things. First, a slow beauty brand’s message typically promotes a simplified, stripped-down routine that focuses on celebrating skin as it is. You won’t usually find 10-step skincare regimens filled with trendy ingredients. But at its core, slow beauty can promote vegan ingredients, ban animal testing and avoid polyethylene glycols or parabens.

Next comes packaging – ideally there will be a circular production approach, where little or no single-use plastic is used. This may be accompanied by a refill model, as well as compostable or paper packaging.

But this is where everything unravels. Where the business beauty intervenes. It’s the beauty industry’s job to illicit fomo, especially among women. (I should know – I was a copywriter before I became a beauty founder.) Have you noticed how many men simply wash their faces with soap and water? Yet so many women cling to scientific revelations and trends, promising us a glimpse into maintaining our youth just a little longer.

Additionally, sustainability is currently a trend. Brands are cashing in on the idea of ​​“green, clean and protective” products, even selling “no-makeup makeup” – but the use of these terms is unregulated and they lack solid definitions. Finally, when it comes to packaging, some will say that aluminum or glass is better than plastic, but which one uses more water to produce? What about emissions from returning refills to manufacturers? What about the fact that most compostable mail must be processed by an industrial facility?

Here’s the problem with slow beauty: everything is a compromise. But most brands don’t care. The most sustainable thing we can do is to slow down our consumption and this concerns both businesses and consumers. But I’m also trying to run a business that I think should exist. A company that recognizes that as consumers we want to consume, so when we do, we should try to do so with lightness and integrity.

Patagonia does it well. But when it comes to beauty, I don’t know. I love what Black family, Josh Rosebrook And Native Agent what the United States is doing. More locally, I turn to brands like Sansceuticals, MV skin therapy, SodashiAnd Organic Mukti.

As a consumer, you can look for beauty brands that aren’t fast-paced, with forward-looking communications and transparency about suppliers to begin with (often, brands don’t actually have access to this information). You can also look for standards, certificates and accreditations, but obtaining them requires a lot of resources.

So perhaps even more simply, you can consider the following questions: Is the brand telling you that your value is attributed to what you wear or buy? How many products does a beauty routine sell? Do you feel good or bad about yourself when you consume the group’s content? Can you understand or pronounce makeup or skincare content? Are there piles of plastic? It’s not rocket science. Or even cosmetic science. It’s just common sense.

If you want to learn more about the beauty industry, I will always recommend Jessica Defino who writes in detail about beauty culture and consumption. You can also find me writing about the overlap of work and life on my Substack @erikakgeraerts, or at Instagram.

Large format publishes a range of opinion articles written by independent contributors. The ideas and views expressed in these articles do not reflect those of Broadsheet or its staff.