In recent years, the cosmetic industry has employed the use of “chemical free” marketing, which is a term for a marketing strategy that implies a product is free from synthetic ingredients, irritants, and is generally safe for humans and the environment. Trendy marketing buzzwords like “chemical free,” “all natural,” “detoxifying,” “natural extracts,” and the like, are exhaustively used in the cosmetic industry and while these terms seem well meaning, they are actually misleading and harmful. How does this marketing effect consumer perspective on products and does this marketing lead to consumer chemophobia (fear of chemicals) in regards to the ingredients used in cosmetic industry? Is chemophobia in the cosmetic industry justified?
I argue that chemophobic marketing strategies lead to a big problem. Companies are able to tout products that claim to be “chemical free” (which is impossible) and tend promote ingredients with outrageous claims that have little to no scientific backing. From this, consumers are led to believe that chemicals are inherently bad and that only “naturally derived” ingredients are truly safe to use. This is considered chemophobia, which is a growing fear among Americans. The misinformation that “miracle natural extracts” are better than “harsh chemicals” creates an atmosphere of simultaneous trust and distrust of science. Both companies that promote themselves as “all natural” and companies that promote themselves as heavily “science based” are guilty of chemophobia marketing.
My research will focus on surveying consumers in an attempt to understand the chemophobia phenomenon in relation to cosmetic products. I will be analyzing articles, blogs, and various products and company websites. As a student of chemistry, I will further turn to peer-reviewed scientific studies to compare various alternative “natural” ingredients in “chemical free” marketed cosmetics to scientifically proven ingredients in an attempt to demystify the chemistry of cosmetics.
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