As a parent, we all must choose our battles. Make up is one that I have been losing for a long time. Last year, one of my friends at camp saw my 12 year old daughter come to lunch with what looked like raccoon eyes. She asked me how a mom who wears no makeup could have a daughter who uses black eyeliner. I pointed out to her that all of her bunk mates had similar heavy coatings on their eyelids, this was one battle I wasn’t going to win any time soon.
All three of my daughters use far more health and beauty products and wear much more makeup than I do. The only time I wear make up is when someone else paints it all on for a TV appearance, one of the reasons I love radio! I use some coconut oil from my kitchen as a moisturizer, I brush my teeth with all natural toothpowders made from baking soda. I guess you could say I’m a cheap date at Rite Aid.
Like the food industry, the beauty industry markets heavily to kids. Magazines, billboards and TV ads create the unrealistic images that many girls strive to emulate. Turning off the TV is one way to cut down on this propaganda, but it remains an uphill battle when everyone in your daughter’s peer group uses large quantities of unnecessary products.
Dove, part of the large conglomerate Unilever, started a worldwide marketing strategy in 2004, the Campaign for Real Beauty. Some of the ads and you tube videos they’ve created cause you to stop and think about these unrealistic images of women. The ads urge us to talk with our daughters.
While this video shows the issue of how our culture pressures young females to conform to an unrealistic standard of beauty, I’m not convinced that teens will change their behavior with this information. If these videos were used in school as part of a media literacy, critical thinking unit, that would be a start.
Greenpeace was inspired by Dove’s campaign to create a video of their own. Watching the two back to back should help our daughters wake up to the realities of the beauty industry.
This campaign helped to pressure Unilever, the biggest single buyer of palm oil, to agree to start sourcing sustainable palm oil for their products. Rainforest Action Network, another environmental group focusing on palm oil, feels the Unilever is simply greenwashing at this time.
When you watch the Dove Onslaughter video, don’t forget to think about Girl Scout Cookies. Their cookies are loaded with palm oil, negatively impacting personal and planetary health.
Please show both of these video clips to your daughters. Have a conversation about all the products that they use, are they really necessary? Read the ingredients on the labels, can you pronounce them or figure out where they come from? We all must consider the world wide impact of what we do to look good.
