The High Price of Beauty

The global cosmetics market made up of skincare, haircare, make-up, fragrances and toiletries — is growing rapidly, with a projected growth of USD $115.6 billion between 2022-2027. The growing use of the term ‘cruelty free’ is used to confirm that a product was not tested on animals.

However, this term does not necessarily mean that a brand’s supply chain is free from human rights abuses such as child labour.

Millions of children are losing out on a safe and healthy childhood to work in dangerous or exploitive conditions, farming and mining essential ingredients for common cosmetics.

Worldwide, nearly 1 in 10 children, or 160 million children aged five to 17, are in child labour.

High Price of Beauty Report

Key Messages

We need to improve traceability and cut out middlemen

We need improved traceability and cut out middlemen

- it is the only way to know for sure that supply chains don't include child labour.

Cutting out middlemen also has the added benefit of increasing direct income for families, reducing the poverty that pushes them to use their children over hired workers in the first place.

When looking at brands, direct trade/sourced ingredients are some of the 'safest', as those ingredients are supplied by companies who know exactly where the ingredients come from and those who produce them.

Natural doesn’t necessarily mean better

*If* it’s ethically sourced, it could be helping support the livelihoods of poor agricultural farmers around the world.

However, if supply chains lack transparency, it could also mean that ingredients in your beauty product could have come from the sweat, fears and stolen childhoods of children working in farms and mines in developing countries around the world.

Boycotting ingredients doesn’t help the children producing them

Boycotting ingredients doesn’t help the children working to produce risky ingredients. Their parents need better pay, and the kids need access to free, good quality education.

Two of the major contributing factors to child labour are family poverty and access to viable alternatives (free, good quality local schools, and/or jobs that allow parents to send their children away to school if there aren’t any locally). Boycotting an ingredient like cocoa or mica will further reduce the income of a family that is already struggling to make ends meet. The best thing to do is engage in the system – encourage companies to pay a fair wage and vet their supply chains, and ask governments to provide education and social safety nets

Products that are called cruelty free are not free from human rights abuse

It's not 'cruelty-free' if it was made with #ChildLabour. Our research shows that six ingredients are at high risk of using child labour: palm oil (and its derivatives); cocoa; vanilla; shea; mica and copper.

Instead of going to school, children help grow, harvest, mine, protect and transport these ingredients. They work in dangerous places where they are at of risk for injury, heatstroke, disease and even death. They could work for 12 hours and earn just $2 a day. Still think that's 'cruelty-free'?