Speaker 1: Hi, CMOS girlies. Welcome back to another week of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that I sound like RFP Jr. right now.
Speaker 1: I lost my voice when traveling from London to Minnesota
Speaker 1: with my two cats. We made it here okay, except
Speaker 1: my voice is gone and I'm really exhausted. I'm recording
Speaker 1: this podcast from my parents' basement. So if you're watching
Speaker 1: on video and there's really fucked up lighting and it
Speaker 1: looks like I'm in a cave, I low-key am. I'm
Speaker 1: down here with my cats because if you didn't know,
Speaker 1: my mom also has two cats of her own. If
Speaker 1: you also didn't know, cats are very territorial. You can't
Speaker 1: just like throw some random cats together. They will hate
Speaker 1: each other. So my mom built a makeshift door in
Speaker 1: our house to kind of separate the cats for a
Speaker 1: few days so they get settled. Suki and Pinky made
Speaker 1: it out okay. I will not bore you with the
Speaker 1: details of that. The only interesting thing of it is
Speaker 1: that our flight got canceled. So we had to stay
Speaker 1: in a hotel one night. And being in a hotel
Speaker 1: with cats was just like so hilarious because I think
Speaker 1: they thought, you know, oh, we made it to the
Speaker 1: new apartment. And it's like, no, this is not where
Speaker 1: we're living. We're not living in the suburbs of Paris
Speaker 1: right now. I'm so excited to be back. I am
Speaker 1: spending a month in Minnesota. If you didn't know, my
Speaker 1: family lives here. This is where I'm from. My boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I are going to be moving to New York,
Speaker 1: hopefully October 1st and find a lease there. We both
Speaker 1: just wanted to spend some time with family after being
Speaker 1: away and being abroad and just, you know, the time
Speaker 1: change and everything being so fucking challenging. So I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm back in time to go to the Minnesota State Fair.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of doing a live CMOS release recording
Speaker 1: from the fair, but also it's not really health and
Speaker 1: wellness vibes at the state fair, if you've seen on
Speaker 1: my social before. But maybe that's all the reason to
Speaker 1: do it. I am really excited to go to a
Speaker 1: grocery store and just look at all the bullshit that's
Speaker 1: on the shelves. I have really missed the grocery stores.
Speaker 1: I feel like my options were so limited grocery-wise in
Speaker 1: the UK. And a lot of Brits did not love
Speaker 1: to hear that, which is fine, which is fine. But
Speaker 1: I had a dill pickle today, sipping on my Olipop,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to be back. I feel like I
Speaker 1: have a lot of things I need to do, logistically speaking.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a UK phone number. I need
Speaker 1: to cancel my bank account. I need to get my
Speaker 1: new number. I need to get a new phone. My
Speaker 1: phone's been broken for about six months. Went to go
Speaker 1: get contacts today. Turns out I needed to get I
Speaker 1: knew I needed to get an eye appointment. And my
Speaker 1: sister was with me. And she's like, Kate, you don't
Speaker 1: have health insurance. And that was the real reminder that
Speaker 1: I'm back in the US. I was like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: So what's this going to cost? Because I don't have
Speaker 1: health insurance anymore. Because I moved out of here when
Speaker 1: I was 26. So that was a real good shock
Speaker 1: to experience today. But I'm going to lay low. I'm
Speaker 1: not training for anything. I'm going to do some runs
Speaker 1: while I'm back. Hopefully get some sleep and figure out
Speaker 1: what I'm dealing with with this fucking cough that I
Speaker 1: got going on. I will be doing a podcast episode
Speaker 1: with my mom when I'm back. We're going to be
Speaker 1: doing one about Title IX because all of the transphobes
Speaker 1: in the world have really pissed me off. So I
Speaker 1: want to talk to my mom about her experience being
Speaker 1: an athlete, you know, growing up without the protections of
Speaker 1: Title IX, what it meant for her career, all the
Speaker 1: sexism that she's experienced that, of course, I've heard in
Speaker 1: stories over my life. So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 1: But do let me know any pods. You want to
Speaker 1: see in the future because I'll be recording from this
Speaker 1: basement for the next few weeks and hopefully New York
Speaker 1: by October 1st. Once again, I do apologize that my
Speaker 1: voice is like this. Without further ado, let's get into
Speaker 1: this week's episode of Seamoth's Girlie. So today we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about wellness buzzwords because I'm sure you
Speaker 1: see them all the time. You see the words clean, non-toxic, vegan, natural.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting that the wellness industry, all
Speaker 1: of these words offer a sense of safety in a
Speaker 1: very chaotic, unregulated, scary world where... There are a lot
Speaker 1: of pollutants. There are a lot of dangerous chemicals and
Speaker 1: things that you don't want to be putting in your
Speaker 1: body or giving to your kids. I also think it
Speaker 1: gives people a sense of identity. You know, I only
Speaker 1: buy clean beauty. I only get natural skincare or something
Speaker 1: like that. It almost creates social signifiers for people to
Speaker 1: have like a status attached to them, like this is
Speaker 1: a type of person that would buy organic eggs versus
Speaker 1: this is a person that doesn't. It kind of creates
Speaker 1: hierarchies here. All of these words, I think, are going
Speaker 1: off of a feeling that people have or a vibe
Speaker 1: that people have about the world and the state of
Speaker 1: health and well-being. There's so much pollution in our food system.
Speaker 1: I need to do something about it. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to go and buy these non-toxic cleaning pans. I'm going
Speaker 1: to really investigate, you know, all of the skincare that
Speaker 1: I buy and read the ingredients and become an expert
Speaker 1: in it. I think a lot of the companies in
Speaker 1: these spaces, not all of them, but some of them
Speaker 1: really are successful because they fearmonger ingredients and they fearmonger
Speaker 1: this vibe that everything is scary that we touch and
Speaker 1: put in our bodies. Like I see that on TikToks
Speaker 1: all the time when someone's like, oh yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: new recall in the US for whatever thing. Or turns
Speaker 1: out that leggings have microplastics and the comments will be like, wow,
Speaker 1: we can't do anything. Like I can't wear leggings. I
Speaker 1: can't use this. I can't do that. Is anything good
Speaker 1: in the world? And it gets people to this like
Speaker 1: conspiratorial level of thinking where like the answer to all
Speaker 1: of this is truly just like government doesn't regulate corporations enough.
Speaker 1: Capitalism rewards expansive growth. at the expense of your health.
Speaker 1: And companies are not going to go and meet those
Speaker 1: higher standards unless the government forces them to do so.
Speaker 1: And that I think really gets lost in the conversation
Speaker 1: about I don't know, buzzwords and this kind of safety
Speaker 1: that they can provide for people. Like we should be
Speaker 1: zooming out and looking at systems once again, but companies
Speaker 1: really are trying to like demonize other brands in their
Speaker 1: category and exploit people's fears and paranoia. They're playing on
Speaker 1: this paranoia in order to sell you something. Many of
Speaker 1: the strongest voices and especially like the clean beauty movements
Speaker 1: oftentimes will suggest avoiding ingredients, that have a theoretical risk
Speaker 1: of like endocrine disruption or cancer. Despite the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, the disease and the ingredients, there needs to
Speaker 1: be a certain concentration of the ingredients. There hasn't been
Speaker 1: any proof scientifically to say that this beauty product has
Speaker 1: this much of a carcinogen. We quite literally don't know
Speaker 1: what the level of a quote harmful or toxic ingredient
Speaker 1: is needed in a cosmetic product for you to get
Speaker 1: cancer from it. Like we do not have any scientific
Speaker 1: consensus on that. But all of these companies are really
Speaker 1: exploiting the vibe because it makes sense, right? Your skin
Speaker 1: is your largest organ. You don't want to be putting
Speaker 1: anything on your skin that could lead to cancer. So
Speaker 1: they're making people's brains like go there without having the
Speaker 1: research and science to like truly support it. I think
Speaker 1: there's also a difference between like what dermatologists know about
Speaker 1: skin and science versus what information consumers get. I think
Speaker 1: there's a huge gap there. I feel like consumers are
Speaker 1: just getting a lot of the fear mongering versus actually
Speaker 1: knowing how these things work. how regulations work, how chemicals
Speaker 1: actually get absorbed into the skin. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lack of education there on all this stuff. Why
Speaker 1: do people care about if their beauty is clean and
Speaker 1: their pans are non-toxic or something like that? I think
Speaker 1: Gen Z and millennials are the first generations to really
Speaker 1: care about what they're consuming. Are these companies good to
Speaker 1: the environment? Are they good to the LGBTQ plus community?
Speaker 1: Do they have inclusive hiring processes? You know, are they
Speaker 1: giving back to charity? This is what you would call,
Speaker 1: you know, ethical consumption. And that's a whole other thing
Speaker 1: that can be debated. Is any consumption ethical whatever ethics
Speaker 1: and sustainability claims really matter to millennials and gen z
Speaker 1: when they're purchasing items especially when it relates to like
Speaker 1: cosmetic purchases but i also at the same time as
Speaker 1: i'm saying this i think people are getting sick of
Speaker 1: all the buzzwords because i do think people know that
Speaker 1: ultimately there are microplastics in everything as much as you
Speaker 1: can try individually to avoid stuff if you try to
Speaker 1: avoid microplastics in mascara i they're probably going to come
Speaker 1: through in your cotton socks or something like that. And
Speaker 1: that's not to make you feel like you don't have
Speaker 1: any control over how you're spending your money and what
Speaker 1: companies you're supporting. But it is to say that I
Speaker 1: don't think it's worth your time really going label to label,
Speaker 1: spending hours and hours researching which products are doing what
Speaker 1: and how to shop in every aspect of your life.
Speaker 1: I think that can get to a point of feeling
Speaker 1: very intense and very very very daunting like you feel
Speaker 1: like there's so much that you have to do in
Speaker 1: order to quote like detoxify your lifestyle detox is a
Speaker 1: fake word as we all know but i feel like
Speaker 1: i see those videos you know okay i finally am
Speaker 1: like going through all of my clothes and i only
Speaker 1: want to start buying natural cotton workout clothes if you
Speaker 1: try to apply that to every category of your life
Speaker 1: power to you if you can But that is something
Speaker 1: that like I just personally don't have the mind space,
Speaker 1: time or energy to really commit to doing. I think
Speaker 1: it's challenging, too, because the government has failed to define
Speaker 1: what any of these terms mean, which leaves it oftentimes
Speaker 1: up to influencers and brands on social media to tell
Speaker 1: you about these products. to tell you what a clean
Speaker 1: mascara really means. Under the current law, the FDA has
Speaker 1: very little authority to review chemicals and cosmetics and other
Speaker 1: personal care products. Under US law, cosmetic products and ingredients
Speaker 1: other than additives do not need FDA approval before they
Speaker 1: go to market. This is similar to food products, as
Speaker 1: I said in the last episode, where like in Europe,
Speaker 1: they regulate These ingredients before they go to market in
Speaker 1: the U.S., we only do if there's something bad that
Speaker 1: comes out after people have consumed it. The FDA can
Speaker 1: take action against cosmetics on the market that do not
Speaker 1: comply with the law after they are being sold. And
Speaker 1: the FDA right now has only banned 11 ingredients in
Speaker 1: cosmetic products. which is extremely low compared to European countries.
Speaker 1: And with all these buzzwords being used just so nonchalantly,
Speaker 1: and there's no definition for them, you know, you could say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do X amount of research about these products.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to trust what influencers say. But I
Speaker 1: think people do really buy products for so many reasons.
Speaker 1: What does the packaging look like? What is the font?
Speaker 1: What's the founder story? How did I hear about the product?
Speaker 1: Are all my friends using the product? Did an influencer
Speaker 1: I know post about the product? Did the brand do
Speaker 1: some sort of targeted marketing on my Instagram? There are
Speaker 1: so many ways to discover brands. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where these buzzwords really come into play. Half of adults
Speaker 1: under 50 say that they get health information from social media,
Speaker 1: specifically like TikTok. And countless TikTokers are really playing into
Speaker 1: these themes of like the fear and the paranoia by saying,
Speaker 1: you know, our clothes are making us sick. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what these algorithms want to hear. It's these like sensationalist
Speaker 1: claims about something that kind of makes everyone drop and
Speaker 1: need to like get rid of something in their life.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a very complicated scientific issue that's
Speaker 1: just like flattened with these crazy claims on social media.
Speaker 1: It really erodes trust for people to have in like
Speaker 1: any sort of cosmetic products or food products. And it
Speaker 1: just drives people at the end of the day to
Speaker 1: like go and buy more things that they probably don't need.
Speaker 1: I do think it's good for consumers to have information.
Speaker 1: But I think right now there is such an information
Speaker 1: overload with like how to shop sustainably, how to shop clean,
Speaker 1: how to shop natural, whatever. If you don't know the
Speaker 1: influencer world, the FTC, which is supposed to regulate influencers,
Speaker 1: you know, if they don't disclose that something's a paid campaign,
Speaker 1: they are so bad at going after influencers. They very
Speaker 1: rarely go after influencers if they claim health benefits from
Speaker 1: a product they're showing you. So unfortunately, I'm not expecting
Speaker 1: too much of the U.S. government. To start things off
Speaker 1: with the word clean, I think this movement really started,
Speaker 1: the clean beauty movement started like 2017, 2018. The natural
Speaker 1: skincare market grew actually like 23% during this time period.
Speaker 1: I think this is thanks to platforms like Goop. everyone's
Speaker 1: favorite op. I've already done like posts about her. I
Speaker 1: might do a full pot about Gwyneth because she continues
Speaker 1: to drive me insane. I know she's a privileged white woman,
Speaker 1: but like I just am still so scared that so
Speaker 1: many people follow her. Okay, side tangent over. Whole Foods
Speaker 1: notoriously bans 400 ingredients from ever entering their store. So
Speaker 1: when people are applying to get their product on the shelves,
Speaker 1: There's like 400 ingredients that can't be there. Even if
Speaker 1: you go to Sephora, they have like a little like
Speaker 1: clean Sephora logo on products. So that tells consumers that
Speaker 1: this product is like safe for you. You see one
Speaker 1: product have a certification, the other one doesn't. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: am I going to go and take the one that
Speaker 1: quote is not clean? I think I've changed my view
Speaker 1: on this a ton with like more educational content I've consumed,
Speaker 1: especially from Charlotte Palomino, who I had on the podcast
Speaker 1: a few months ago, who's the founder of Do Skincare. Also,
Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of videos from like makeup artists
Speaker 1: being like, we need parabens in products, like in order
Speaker 1: for them to actually work, for them to last. like
Speaker 1: natural makeup is not going to last if you're a
Speaker 1: drag queen or like performing like in theater or something
Speaker 1: like that. I think similarly in clothing manufacturing, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of videos from people that actually know about
Speaker 1: textiles that know about building products that are like, look,
Speaker 1: We cannot have cotton activewear. We cannot have a cotton
Speaker 1: rain jacket. We cannot have cotton leggings because these things
Speaker 1: are not going to work. We can't have cotton hiking pants.
Speaker 1: There are certain benefits to polyester because of how the
Speaker 1: product actually works when you're working with it. If you're
Speaker 1: a designer and you're sewing shit, I really love hearing
Speaker 1: from people that work with these materials or different ingredients
Speaker 1: are able to defend them because they know the purpose
Speaker 1: of them. Versus an influencer making a video being like,
Speaker 1: parabens are bad, polyester is bad, without really understanding. One
Speaker 1: of my friends, Casey, who writes a newsletter on youth culture,
Speaker 1: so she's oftentimes exploring like what Gen Alpha is posting
Speaker 1: about on TikTok. She recently noticed that Gen Alpha is
Speaker 1: dissing their peers by calling them polyester life or something
Speaker 1: like that. insinuating that you are uncool, you are lame
Speaker 1: by using the word polyester, which is so interesting that
Speaker 1: polyester is on people's radar, which I do think is good.
Speaker 1: I'm happy that people have an awareness of single-use plastics
Speaker 1: and how they're bad for our environment, how they're bad
Speaker 1: for our health, everything like that. But I do worry
Speaker 1: with how vague these claims are and how they can
Speaker 1: just go everywhere quite quickly. Similar to clean eating and
Speaker 1: clean beauty, clean fashion is now becoming interesting to consumers
Speaker 1: because people are worried about environmental and personal health problems
Speaker 1: from plastic. Like, One reason that people are ditching polyester
Speaker 1: is that the clothes feel cheaper, they're made in worse quality,
Speaker 1: and they're not lasting as long. A second is that
Speaker 1: concern about microplastics being in anything. Next one could be
Speaker 1: like plastic is worth for our health or the environment.
Speaker 1: And in the past five years alone, Google searches for, quote,
Speaker 1: natural fibers has risen by 110%. I think it's good
Speaker 1: that people want to know more about the process. I
Speaker 1: think industrialization has made us really unaware of how food
Speaker 1: gets to our plate, how clothes get on our body.
Speaker 1: People are so used to being able to buy anything
Speaker 1: they want, get it overnight shipping on Amazon, that instant
Speaker 1: gratification has really killed people's understanding of labor practices and
Speaker 1: supply chains and stuff like that. People in the U.S.
Speaker 1: grew up thinking, I can get watermelon any time of
Speaker 1: year versus understanding which produce is in season. how you
Speaker 1: should be buying that. So many corporations hide their labor
Speaker 1: practices and it's really hard to figure out if they're
Speaker 1: manufacturing ethically or if chemicals in their product are good
Speaker 1: for you or not, like this podcast episode is about.
Speaker 1: This awareness of microplastic pollution has also increased over the
Speaker 1: past decade. About 45% of consumers globally now know what
Speaker 1: microplastics are. They're also able to correctly identify polyester, nylon,
Speaker 1: and spandex. It's interesting because this past year, Reformation, who
Speaker 1: I want to focus on a little bit, They released
Speaker 1: a recent summer campaign featuring a woman that was wearing
Speaker 1: a linen tunic at the beach, and the caption said,
Speaker 1: this and never wearing polyester again. Back to this idea
Speaker 1: that polyester is not the vibe, it's become culturally uncool,
Speaker 1: and it's leaning into that through this marketing. Even if
Speaker 1: people don't know necessarily how much polyester needs to be
Speaker 1: in a product for your skin to be able to
Speaker 1: absorb it to get X type of cancer, even if
Speaker 1: people don't even know what polyester is chemically, brands are
Speaker 1: really tapping into this natural fiber movement and what consumers want,
Speaker 1: which I do think comes from a good place. But
Speaker 1: I do think influencers really exploit this paranoia that people
Speaker 1: have about fabrics to places where you don't need to
Speaker 1: be concerned, right? Scientists, dermatologists, they will say time and
Speaker 1: time again, we don't have enough information to know if
Speaker 1: you wearing polyester leggings are will link you to going
Speaker 1: and getting a specific type of endocrine disruption or cancer.
Speaker 1: We don't know the quantity needed in the legging. We
Speaker 1: also don't know how much cancer you would get from
Speaker 1: a single use. So I think this whole idea makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, but I don't want people to
Speaker 1: throw away everything they own to go and buy natural fibers.
Speaker 1: I think that is also a problem of people just
Speaker 1: constantly going out and buying new things. If you go
Speaker 1: outside in New York City, you're experiencing pollution from the environment.
Speaker 1: You know, even if you try to wear your pollution-free
Speaker 1: skincare or whatever the hell Goop is selling these days,
Speaker 1: you only can do so much. And I don't want
Speaker 1: that to make people feel powerless. That's not the intention
Speaker 1: at all. But I don't want people to think that
Speaker 1: you need to go and change every single thing you
Speaker 1: purchase and read the ingredients for hours on end. When
Speaker 1: we think about the clothing that people were putting on
Speaker 1: in the 1800s, just the way they were living their lives,
Speaker 1: people had a long, you know, children were working in
Speaker 1: factories and coal mines. We have come a very far.
Speaker 1: We've come a very long way and we've learned a lot.
Speaker 1: And I do think it's frustrating where like, yes, if
Speaker 1: we invested more into the research about all of these
Speaker 1: quote toxins, we would be able to pass better policies.
Speaker 1: If we had more, you know, progressives in Congress, maybe
Speaker 1: we would have legislation about this. But back to reformation
Speaker 1: for a little bit. So they issued this ad that
Speaker 1: said this and never wearing polyester again, kind of saying
Speaker 1: that the vibe of polyester is lame. But when I
Speaker 1: first heard of reformation, probably like 10 years ago, which
Speaker 1: makes me sound shopped and unk, but when they were
Speaker 1: coming up in 2016, let's say, You know, their biggest
Speaker 1: slogan or statement that they had on all their websites
Speaker 1: and posters was being naked is the number one most
Speaker 1: sustainable option. We're number two. There was a huge buzz
Speaker 1: and interest in this kind of like fashion or maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, philanthropic capitalism back in 2016. A lot of
Speaker 1: companies like Everlane were posting about their supply chain and
Speaker 1: their carbon emissions. We had companies like Girlfriend Collective that
Speaker 1: was making their leggings out of recycled water bottles. I
Speaker 1: think it was really what the consumers wanted back in 2016.
Speaker 1: I also think people, too, are less concerned about supply
Speaker 1: chains and sustainability than they are personal health. I think
Speaker 1: reformation going from saying that we are the second most
Speaker 1: sustainable option when you go and buy clothes to now
Speaker 1: making it about a personal health claim of never wearing polyester,
Speaker 1: that just shows that the climate crisis is a faraway
Speaker 1: problem and health is immediate. sustainability is kind of buzzy moment,
Speaker 1: I think has faded away. I think shoppers are not
Speaker 1: moved by carbon emissions or recycling anymore. And I think
Speaker 1: people are interested in, you know, how a garment could
Speaker 1: affect their health. Is it going to give them cancer?
Speaker 1: Is it going to give them hormonal issues? So people
Speaker 1: are much more interested in material composition, microplastics and natural materials.
Speaker 1: Maybe this consumer demand for an alternative to polyester is
Speaker 1: will kind of lead to a new innovative fabric. I
Speaker 1: do enjoy seeing videos from people that work in the
Speaker 1: textile industry saying like, obviously plastic and single-use plastic is bad.
Speaker 1: We have far too much plastic and too much shit.
Speaker 1: There's kind of a growing bio-based alternative space to replace polyester,
Speaker 1: but the innovations are only at pilot stages. Like we
Speaker 1: don't have something that could replace all the polyester in
Speaker 1: our industry. fashion supply chain right now. Beyond just thinking
Speaker 1: about polyester and that being bad for us individually, there's
Speaker 1: so many more issues with fashion that I wish would
Speaker 1: also become as buzzy as polyester. Specifically thinking about emissions
Speaker 1: and labor conditions, specifically labor conditions. There are so many
Speaker 1: companies that are started by women that use factories in
Speaker 1: countries that do not pay women a fair wage. garment
Speaker 1: workers globally are the most exploited group of workers ever
Speaker 1: but like it is labor that people don't have to see.
Speaker 1: It's invisible. It's hidden away. Unless you are watch fashion,
Speaker 1: it's not something you see when the clothing gets to
Speaker 1: your doorstep. A lot of different groups are starting to
Speaker 1: care about it, including toxic men, which probably comes as
Speaker 1: no shock to the Seamoss Girlies with the Maha stuff
Speaker 1: and RFK Jr., The gym bros and health bros are
Speaker 1: becoming interested in polyester, specifically looking for alternatives to boxers
Speaker 1: that don't have polyester in them to improve their sperm
Speaker 1: count and their testosterone levels because men have this heightened
Speaker 1: insecurity about their fertility. With a male loneliness epidemic, a
Speaker 1: productive urologist who specializes in male fertility named Dr. Paul Turek,
Speaker 1: who said he's hearing so many worries about his patients
Speaker 1: about microplastics. He said it's constant. And he tells his
Speaker 1: patients that generally reducing your plastic exposure is good, but
Speaker 1: he hasn't seen enough research to validate the fears that
Speaker 1: specifically boxer shorts are the only thing harming you. There's
Speaker 1: this ad done by a company named Nero that was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, before the gym, men trained to survive. Ask
Speaker 1: any true hunter what he trusts in the wild. It's
Speaker 1: not polyester. It's merino wool. And so that's kind of
Speaker 1: within the same frame. They're telling men that, you know,
Speaker 1: these products are going to boost your testosterone. Once again,
Speaker 1: this is just a means to an end for this
Speaker 1: company to sell more and to get people to buy
Speaker 1: in and, you know, doing this fear mongering associated with
Speaker 1: their product, dissing their competitors for a health claim that
Speaker 1: isn't really substantive. I think getting people to buy less
Speaker 1: and buy better is probably a good approach to this,
Speaker 1: like buying vintage clothes. We already have so many things.
Speaker 1: And if it's made before the 2000s, it's probably going
Speaker 1: to be in better quality than 2026. Products across the map,
Speaker 1: whether it's technology or clothes or I don't know, or
Speaker 1: like televisions, everything is made worse and you feel like
Speaker 1: you constantly have to update it. So I think if
Speaker 1: people are able to buy better clothes and better products,
Speaker 1: then hopefully they don't have to go and like repurchase
Speaker 1: shit like all the time. And the fashion industry, especially
Speaker 1: its supply chain, is dependent on fossil fuels. The surging
Speaker 1: oil prices that are tied to the U.S.-Israel war in Iran.
Speaker 1: That is driving up the cost of polyester and probably
Speaker 1: going to make costs go up. I just think right now,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of brands that are specifically performance
Speaker 1: related would really struggle to move away from polyester because
Speaker 1: there aren't those replacements yet. One thing I want to
Speaker 1: say about what could be done, obviously my belief on
Speaker 1: most things is that I think the government needs to
Speaker 1: step in and take better care of us. Quite recently,
Speaker 1: as it relates to cosmetic products, there has been a
Speaker 1: new law passed. It's crazy to think that the last
Speaker 1: updated law on cosmetic products was in 1938. During the
Speaker 1: Biden administration, there was a new law passed called the
Speaker 1: Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act in 2022. MOCRA for short.
Speaker 1: It gives the FDA more tools to ensure the safety
Speaker 1: of cosmetics and protect public health, trying to bring back
Speaker 1: that consumer confidence in the products they use every single day.
Speaker 1: It requires manufacturers to maintain records of any health-related adverse events.
Speaker 1: They have to report these events to the FDA, which
Speaker 1: seems like that should already been a law. Kind of
Speaker 1: scary that it hasn't been up till this point. It
Speaker 1: also requires facilities that manufacture cosmetic products to register with
Speaker 1: the FDA. Once again, feels like that should have already existed.
Speaker 1: And it requires cosmetic manufacturers to list each product with
Speaker 1: the FDA, including ingredients and where it's manufactured. So I
Speaker 1: think that is great on a systemic level, forcing companies
Speaker 1: to meet this bar and or meet the standard of
Speaker 1: what you have to have on your product. Because if
Speaker 1: you are someone that does care about all these things
Speaker 1: that I've mentioned in the show, you now have the
Speaker 1: tools to go and find this stuff easily versus having
Speaker 1: to like do research in your own sense. And there's
Speaker 1: someone I follow on social where mutuals called sustainable fashion friend.
Speaker 1: She does this amazing research and sleuthing, especially into a
Speaker 1: lot of like influencer started brands about like where their
Speaker 1: factories are. I think a lot of times with cosmetic products,
Speaker 1: fashion products, anything in this space that's slapping on a
Speaker 1: label of like clean or natural or non-toxic, If most
Speaker 1: of these companies had to post photos from the factories
Speaker 1: where they make their products on their Instagram, first post
Speaker 1: on their grid, let's say, if they're starting a company,
Speaker 1: I don't think many of them would be in business.
Speaker 1: But it's because there are all these hidden costs within
Speaker 1: these industries to keep consumers buying more and more. So
Speaker 1: then all these companies can keep doing sales and new
Speaker 1: drops constantly. the pace of the fashion industry is such
Speaker 1: an issue. And just the fact that all of this
Speaker 1: is hidden is why like people, I don't think until recently,
Speaker 1: have really started to care about this stuff. Once again,
Speaker 1: of course, people are really only caring about plastic being
Speaker 1: bad for their health. They're not more invested in like
Speaker 1: the human rights abuses from the industries, which I wish
Speaker 1: would become more of an issue. There's no government regulatory
Speaker 1: body that controls what and what can and can't be
Speaker 1: marketed as a quote clean beauty product. Every single clean
Speaker 1: beauty brand has different internal standards of what means clean
Speaker 1: to them. Sometimes it means there's no carcinogens. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: means no allergens or endocrine disruptors. But there's no standardized
Speaker 1: definitions for this stuff. So you are just trusting what
Speaker 1: a brand is telling you. The government is not regulating
Speaker 1: those terms. A substance can be considered a carcinogen if
Speaker 1: it's been linked to cancer through cell-based molecular or population studies.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it universally causes cancer. And the
Speaker 1: clean beauty movement is actually really well known for demonizing
Speaker 1: sunscreen as quote being toxic. But we know that like
Speaker 1: skin cancer arguably like worse for you than wearing sunscreen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the solution is with the clean
Speaker 1: beauty stuff and all the greenwashing that can happen because
Speaker 1: these definitions are so lax. I mean, maybe the government
Speaker 1: needs to define what clean actually means because sometimes brands
Speaker 1: will use it to be about these products are not
Speaker 1: going to make you break out because they're quote clean
Speaker 1: and they're not going to be quote dirty for your pores.
Speaker 1: But also sometimes people mean the packaging is clean and
Speaker 1: it's not hurting the supply chain. or maybe the ingredients
Speaker 1: are clean and it's not going to give you cancer.
Speaker 1: Like when I see clean on a label, I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily know what the brand is saying. And as with
Speaker 1: most things consumer related, you know, the dose makes the poison.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure if you were rubbing, let's say foundation
Speaker 1: all over your entire body for every day of your
Speaker 1: life for 10 hours a day, maybe that would lead
Speaker 1: to something. But I don't think because you put a
Speaker 1: small amount of concealer on your eye that had parabens
Speaker 1: in it. I'm really for people having information and being
Speaker 1: knowledgeable on this stuff. But I do think social media
Speaker 1: is an information overload. And the information that crosses your
Speaker 1: For You page is not necessarily the best. Oftentimes, it
Speaker 1: is sensationalist. It is emotional claims from influencers about products.
Speaker 1: And it's not necessarily coming from a chemist, a scientist,
Speaker 1: a dermatologist, someone who's working at the FDA. Related to
Speaker 1: like chemical exposures or getting diseases from stuff we're putting
Speaker 1: on our bodies. I mean, it's not clear what risk
Speaker 1: clothing poses or cosmetics pose. Eating and drinking are probably
Speaker 1: like more important. Consumers deserve better, but we also need
Speaker 1: to empower the government to do more because a lot
Speaker 1: of people can't afford to buy better because the better
Speaker 1: things are going to be more expensive. You know, like
Speaker 1: if a company has to meet a certain certification, or
Speaker 1: they put higher quality ingredients in, that's automatically only going
Speaker 1: to be available to the affluent people, which is why
Speaker 1: the whole clean beauty movement when it first started was
Speaker 1: really being just celebrated or created by wealthy white women
Speaker 1: like Gwyneth Paltrow. So I do think there's an issue
Speaker 1: with clean beauty and this obsession with natural fibers. These
Speaker 1: are going to be more expensive things. I don't want
Speaker 1: it to be that way. I wish these things were
Speaker 1: more affordable. Yeah, I guess I think these movements are
Speaker 1: not too accessible, if that makes sense. But let me
Speaker 1: know your guys' thoughts on this. I think the clean
Speaker 1: beauty and kind of like clean lifestyle movement, I feel
Speaker 1: like they've reached peak saturation, but maybe not. I think
Speaker 1: people are becoming fed up with the inequality that we
Speaker 1: see in the world. And I think telling people that
Speaker 1: they need to just buy better is not really reaching
Speaker 1: people anymore because people can't even afford to buy, let's say,
Speaker 1: the most basic version of an item in the store.
Speaker 1: They can't afford to go buy a $ 10 more expensive item.
Speaker 1: We got to get Lena Kahn back in the government,
Speaker 1: you know, regulating the fuck out of these corporations, forcing
Speaker 1: them to make better shit for us so we don't
Speaker 1: have to like walk around the grocery store panicked. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to the grocery store now and look
Speaker 1: at all the bullshit products that exist. I don't want
Speaker 1: to bother you guys with my voice anymore. Hopefully it
Speaker 1: will be fixed by next week. But thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for listening to this week of Seamoss Girlies
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you in the next one. Thank you.