Fashion, Beauty and Overconsumption

We live in a time when fashion/beauty hauls and unboxings, viral trends and 'must-have' new product releases are thrown in our faces in every which way. Some sort of brand is tagged or mentioned in nearly every post I see on my Instagram feed, so that we can shop the look for ourselves, and ads are fed to us like the future of the Earth depends on it.

When you look at it like this, it's easy to see how so many fall victim to overconsumption when it comes to fashion and beauty, myself included. Defined as "The action or fact of consuming something to excess", overconsumption is something we're all guilty of in some form.

"The action or fact of consuming something to excess."

I was brought up and taught from a young age not to buy unnecessarily, to only purchase something new if you absolutely need it and so I've never been one to buy hugely over my means. However, when it comes to fashion and beauty it's difficult not to fall victim to feeling the need to buy and try that viral lipstick for yourself (looking at you Clinique Black Honey) or giving into the persistent Black Friday sale advertising, for example, and nabbing a few pieces before you 'miss out'.

Fashion microtrends are further fueling overconsumption by causing the trend cycle to become shorter and shorter. This article by Izzy Copestake for Vice highlights the danger of buying into micro trends. It's opening line reads:

"Sure, buy those Adidas Sambas, but know that the acceleration of the trend cycle just means that more clothes are destined for landfill."

Low rise jeans, bug-eye/sporty sunglasses, micro bags, Barbiecore, Birkenstock bostons, the list of micro-trends in 2022 is a long one. As the article above discusses, the constant changing of trends means that more new items are purchased by consumers trying to keep up with whats trending and therefore, more of the 'old' is thrown out.

Although many beauty brands now offer more sustainable packaging options to try and combat waste, the beauty industry is not innocent when it comes to overconsumption. This article for Refinery29 details how TikTok beauty trends result in huge amounts of waste being produced and points out some hard truths with regard to the effect of viral trends on overconsumption and our environment. I recommend you have a read of the article yourself as it includes some really valuable insights into the topic.

There are endless articles floating around discussing the detrimental effects of overconsumption on our environment and sustainability efforts, particularly when it comes to the fashion industry. However, in contrast, I found an article by Eric Mack for Forbes in my research when planning this blog post and it puts a different perspective on the issue. In short, it goes into detail on how overconsumption is the least of our worries when it comes to climate change and environmental degradation and that we should focus our sustainability efforts elsewhere. Although I can appreciate and understand this reasoning, I'm of the mindset that anything we can do as individuals to help support sustainability is good. Given that cutting back on how much we purchase is fairly simple for each of us to achieve, why shouldn't we? Something is better than nothing, right? Have a read here and tell me what you think.

After reading and understanding what contributes most to overconsumption I've decided that in 2023 I'm going to try to ignore all the microtrend and sponsored post noise and make a conscious effort to buy less. Who knows, it might be easier than I expect. If you have any good tips on minimising your own consumption when it comes to fashion and beauty let me know in the comments!

I feel like I could write forever on this topic, but I'm no expert myself, so I'll leave you with some of the other interesting reads I found in my research should you wish to read more:

• Is Resale Fueling Overconsumption?: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sustainability/pretty-little-thing-secondhand-resale-boohoo-sustainability-waste-overconsumption-fast-fashion/

• I think it’s time we stopped glamourising beauty hauls, don’t you?: https://fashionjournal.com.au/beauty/i-think-its-time-we-stopped-glamourising-beauty-hauls-dont-you/

• The State Of Sustainability In The Fashion Industry (And What It Means For Brands): https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2023/01/02/the-state-of-sustainability-in-the-fashion-industry-and-what-it-means-for-brands/?sh=204b73361c82

• Overconsumption and the environment: should we all stop shopping?: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/may/30/should-we-all-stop-shopping-how-to-end-overconsumption

Until next time,

- Sarah