Vain?

Talk about overpackaging. There's not even any products in this shot, only the boxes that they came in and paper inserts.

A large generator of packaging seems to be cosmetics and skincare. Companies, in a bid to attract customers in a  crowded marketplace, seem to be trying to outdo themselves with more and more fancy, "pretty," and bulky packaging. Overpackaging now seems to be the norm.

These are just papers and boxes that came with products, not the products themselves.

Are we vain for buying cosmetics and skincare at an ever increasing rate? Or is our society becoming increasingly shallow, making us feel increasing pressure to appear attractive? Is it a little of both? Are companies vain for using increasingly showy packaging or are they just bowing to pressure from consumers who want more and more luxe looking items?

There are other problems with living in a time and place of abundance. We might try a new product and find out that we hate it or that it looks awful or causes a skin reaction. Then we might buy something else instead and end up with a pile of items that we no longer use. Then there's those fancy companies who put only enough of a product in one package for a tiny mouse to use it three times. Then you have to buy another one with all of that packaging that comes with it. Or perhaps you don't wear makeup often and it always has some arbitrary expiry date on it. It might be six months, twelve months, or perhaps two years, but eventually, you'll feel like it's probably not safe to use anymore and you'll be buying more and throwing out the old stuff with all of it's packaging. And the samples! Sometimes you get more samples with a product than you do of the product that you wanted in the first place itself. Then you have the packaging from the product you bought and the packaging of all of the often single use samples (and perhaps even a makeup bag which you might never use because you already have one or two or twenty from other samples).

Some of the "free" (we all know there's a premium we're paying somewhere in the price of the product if we're getting all this "free" stuff with it) makeup bags I've received over the past few years.

The problem with a lot of makeup packaging is that it is made with mixed materials, so it's hard to recycle (I know I'm not the only one who receives angry little stickers on her recycling box for trying to recycle items that refuse to fit into just one category). For instance, take a makeup compact. It is usually made from metal, plastic, and glass (because they usually have a mirror.) All of these component parts are glued together usually very sturdily (unlike the old days where a compact was reused over and over again, the makeup part of it just popped in and out of the compact). Then if there is a brush or sponge included in the compact, there is the addition of whatever material it is made from to the mix of existing materials.

A selection of some compacts. Some free, some purchased.

Many different materials make up compacts.

Overpackaging seems to be increasing, instead of decreasing with more and more environmental awareness in our society. This is a strange phenomenon. If we have more information about the impact of our consumerism on the environment, then why are we consuming more and more and more? The cosmetics industry seems to be using packaging as a way of trying to attract or keep customers who are overwhelmed in a crowded marketplace (wouldn't a reduction in price or an improvement in quality or quantity of the product work better- judging from reviews by some people online over "ugly" packaging, maybe not).

My sister and I love to get the mascara sampler pack, Lash Stash, at Sephora around the holidays each year. The sampler is housed in a giant shiny and highly coloured box. Inside the box, is a plastic insert to hold the mascaras (and sometimes an eyelash curler, false eyelashes, or an eyeliner). Sometimes there's also a paper insert. Then there's all of the tubes of sample sized mascara (and sometimes an eyelash curler, false eyelashes, or an eyeliner). Each of these products (excluding the eyelash curler) is housed in some sort of packaging (plastic usually). And all of this Lash Stash packaging is replicated tens of thousands of times, purchased by tens of thousands of people (sometimes year after year). Imagine how much waste one person would generate if they bought Lash Stash ten years in a row? Some of the packaging is recyclable, but some of it isn't. And even if it's recyclable, why can't the mascaras and whatever else is included that year, be put in one very small box or a Ziploc bag? I've read comments on the Sephora website that certain products aren't packaged in a pretty enough manner. Really?! What's going to happen when we no longer have the resources to produce all of this elaborate and massive packaging (let alone the products themselves)? Surely there must be a balance between producing a package that will protect and preserve the product and not look ugly and a package that is housed in another package with more than one insert and requires massive resources to produce.

The year before last's mascara sampler, Lash Stash, from Sephora.

The inside of this more than foot long box.

Last year's sampler was even more elaborate.

Multiple layers of shiny, highly coloured packaging.

Inside the gold box, a paper insert over the products.

Under the paper insert, a plastic insert to house the mascaras, eyeliner, and eyelash curler.

To their credit, MAC Cosmetics has had an incentive based recycling program for its cosmetics containers since the 90s when I first started buying items there (back in the day, three containers equaled one eyeshadow or lipstick). Currently, the program is bring in six MAC containers and they will give you a free lipstick (and presumably they recycle the containers that might not otherwise be so easy to recycle given their mixed nature). No doubt this saves a lot from the landfill and probably encourages some customer loyalty. Why don't more companies do this? If they do, I'm not aware of which companies do.

What will it take for us to stop wasting precious resources on packaging or at the very least stop overpackaging items like cosmetics and skincare (a container, within a box, with a paper insert, and perhaps plastic over the box, etc.)? Should companies be following MAC's lead and be trying to entice customers to bring back containers with the promise of something free? Should more companies be making refillable compacts and lipsticks? Should companies be "encouraged" by governments to use less packaging through taxes or regulations that require packaging that is easier to recycle or not unnecessary and duplicative? Or is it up to us, the consumers, to try to halt this tide of waste? I don't know the answer.