Uninfluenced: Current beauty obsession on social media is promoting overconsumption

As I blended the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter foundation in, my heart sank in disappointment.I wanted to cry over my lost money.  The bottle was way smaller than I expected, my skin barely glowed as I was told it would and I suffered a loss of $46, plus shipping.

This was  just one of many products that I’ve seen promoted to me over and over again. One scroll on TikTok and you’ll see someone who just got back from the store, filming a haul after buying six bottles of the Drunk Elephant D-bronzi drops so she doesn’t “run out”— each 1 oz. bottle priced at $36 alone. 

Fast forward two months and the influencer will be throwing the product into the trash, confessing it made their skin breakout. Another scroll and you will see someone filming a “Get ready with me” video trying to decide which rare beauty blush to use that day since they bought all 11 of the different shades. 

Influencers seem to have the say on the best and most popular products, convincing people to spend their money. People worship these public figures— blindly following whatever they say. Feelings of high demand and the need to get a product before it runs out results in consumers purchasing 10 instead of just one — completely wasting their money and the product itself. It’s sad that so many people are influenced so easily to the point where it causes this amount of overconsumption.

Just last week I bought into the urge — spending all my money on products that I saw someone on my feed using. After all, maybe if I got the same products, my life would be just as put together as hers. Maybe a new [insert product] would also make my skin glow. But after after buying a few of the products reality struck

Influencers do what they do best — influence. Brands take notice, PR packages are shipped and the next week, it’s all over my TikTok For You page. When it comes to posting promotions It’s all the same for hundreds of influencers like Alix Early, Darcy Mcqueeny and Ashley Sims, each with their  videos each getting millions of views. This might be remarkable for a brand, but horrible sustainability wise. 

Just in the U.S, 7.9 billion units of rigid plastic were created for the cosmetic industry. If the levels of consumption continue at its current rate, there will be 12 billion tons of plastic in landfills, which is equivalent to 35,000 Empire State Buildings according to zerraco.com. 

Not only is this actively hurting the environment and is extremely wasteful, but it’s also hurting the consumer. More than likely, the product will be a “microtrend” and only stay popular for a couple months at most. An example of this is spending $40 on the Dior blush. The trend was short lived once consumers quickly moved on to other brands like Rare Beauty and NARS.

We have a responsibility as individuals to try to live a sustainable lifestyle — meaning not giving into the overconsumption culture all over social media and not buying every new product you see on your For You page. Consumers should learn to resist the urge of following popular creators and short-lived trends.