Ethical Fashion & Beauty

Okay, so I know my first couple of posts have just involved me ranting about how terrible the fashion industry has been perceived in the media over the past year relating to ethical issues. However, I thought for today’s blog I would speak about some of the ethical fashion and beauty brands that I have found and also some that I personally love and trust.

The first product that I absolutely love is the Magnaminty face mask from Lush. I bought this product about 8 months ago and have had another since then! It leaves your skin feeling refreshed and so smooth. I tend to wash my face beforehand, apply a generous amount all over my face and neck and leave on for around 20 minutes, then simply wash off with warm water. It’s such a life saver and stops any spots creeping up on you! It’s important to note that Lush are renowned for their ethical sourcing and I’ll pop the link for their ethical buying policy below along with the link for the amazing Magnaminty face mask!

https://uk.lush.com/article/ethical-buying-policy

https://uk.lush.com/products/masks/mask-magnaminty

With a lot of companies stating that they are ethical, it’s hard to believe them with the amount of media that we see surrounding the unethical fashion houses. Even brands such as Marks and Spencer and Next have been hit with major unethical news surrounding them, so I made sure that I found a brand who’s ethical trading is true the whole way through the supply chain. The fashion brand I found with excellent ethical views is called ‘People Tree’ I’ve never personally used them myself, but a friend of mine has. 

People Tree are a UK based, selling both Women’s and Men’s clothing (for all the ethical men out there reading) and their website speaks a lot about their story, fair trade fashion and their mission to be 100% fair trade throughout their supply chain. In 2010 Emma Watson even launched a summer collection with the fashion brand to help promote the fair trade message and get people thinking more about where their clothing is coming from! Here are some styles that I found on the website that I loved! Who knew ethical trading could be so fashionable?

http://www.peopletree.co.uk

Christie xx

Fur & Fashion

One issue in the fashion industry that I always struggle to understand, is the use of fur. At least once a week PETA pops up in my email box and all I see are these shocking photos of poor animals being used so we can look good. It’s so easy for me to just delete the email, pretend it’s not happening and forget about it as I’m sure like most other people you don’t want to see the severity of what’s going on. However, going into a new year I think it’s important that unethical issues like this need to the addressed, after all the population of certain species aren’t rising they are only dropping. Looking through the PETA website, some of the photos are truly heart breaking. I think it’s important to share some of the facts that I found out on the website and get your take on the subject. 

The first fact that I couldn’t believe was that in China there is no penalties for people who abuse animals on fur farms (I can’t even understand how ‘fur farms’ can be an actual thing) and with China being the world’s largest fur exporter. With this being said it doesn’t even bare thinking about how they treat the animals that they are making garments out of, after all with no penalty for their actions, there’s nothing stopping their barbaric behaviour. Why don’t China have the same laws as the UK? With the responsibility of being the world’s largest fur exporter they hold a large responsibility and something needs to be put into place! Otherwise, more than half of the USA is walking around with fur garments that have been unethically made. Now, I don’t to blame the whole of China for every unethical fur issue. However, wherever I look it seems that a lot of people are blaming them. It’s said that more than 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs are killed in awful ways. Often skinned alive or hung simple for their fur, no animals being killed like this is fair. But when I hear about the cats and dogs it’s so hard to imagine, the thought of someone doing that to my cat for his fur makes my blood boil! And in a lot of cases these are people’s pets, as they are unfortunately stolen from people’s homes for their fur. It’s so sickening. How can this happen?

 It’s said that electrocuting fur-bearing animals anally and genitally is used often to avoid damaging the fur, the only place this awful method has been made illegal is in New York. What? I can’t believe what I am reading. It’s 2017, how can these barbaric methods be legal anywhere? This needs to stop, I am all about faux fur and I don’t believe that these poor animals should suffer in these ways just so we can keep ourselves warm and fashionable. There are other ways to do so, I hope that in this year we can see an improvement and we can stop this!

I’m not going to post any photos in this blog, but I will post the PETA website below. So if you want to find out more and you want to see what they do have a look!

Christie xx

http://www.peta.org

Welcome to Fashion, Beauty and Ethics!

As 2016 is over, all of us are actively looking for our new year’s resolution. As a fashion student I couldn’t happen but wonder what our fashion brands new year’s resolutions are. During 2016 the fashion industry was seen in the public displaying an array of ethical issues, therefore I felt this should be reflected on, I will therefore look into the ethical issues within the fashion and beauty industry of 2016 that I believe have been the most shocking. I’ll also be finding out who are the most ethical brands to trust and hopefully you guys can help me in return as I’d love to hear about ethical brands you know and love!

At the beginning of the year the media saw top high street brands such as H&M and Next in the media. Now when I think of H&M and especially Next, I would presume they were ethical fashion brands, as many of us and even myself have shopped in them without a doubt in my mind. However, in February 2016 it was found that Turkey refugees were working within the factories. Shocking right? Well probably not that shocking as although their own CSR’s state they are extremely ethical brands, they don’t speak about their supply-chains. Within their supply chains it was found that Syrian refugee children were working in their very own supply chains. If we can’t trust brands such as Next (which to me is just as trustworthy as say, Marks and Spencers?) then who can we trust? I fear that this problem could be far worse as H&M and Next actually admitted to the child labour in the supplier factories which leaves me wondering how many fashion brands are out there in denial about this issue. In this day and age, I find it staggering how this can even continue? And with labels such as Topshop and Burberry also using supplier in Turkey I can’t help but wonder whether they are also selling ‘ethical traded goods’ to us when knowing this is not true. I actually bought a Burberry scarf for myself over Christmas, knowing they are a luxury ethical brand I would never have thought I was buying into a company with such unethical trading. I would be mortified if I knew some poor Syrian refugee was part of the making of my scarf. Surely we have the right to know where our clothing is coming from and should know what we are buying into.

So maybe next time we buy a pair of pjs from Next or a cheap pair of jeans from H&M, maybe we should be thinking twice about these so called ‘ethical fashion brands’ that we are buying into. Please let me know your thoughts on the matter below!

Christie xx