Health Researcher Scrutinizes “Environmental Injustice of Beauty”
Health Researcher Scrutinizes “Environmental Injustice of Beauty” Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In a way, when environmental researcher Ami Zota looks at data about patterns of cosmetics use by women of color in 2023, she’s gazing back in time. There were the fledgling days of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s, when activists began placing a name on the discriminatory ecological practices that adversely affect communities of color. There was the lax regulation of beauty products, guidelines that were first brought under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration in the 1930s and that critics say have undergone too few updates in the decades since. And, looking back even further, there was the antebellum period when racializ...