MICA: The Dark Side of the Sparkle in your Makeup
For those of us who love to feel pretty, nothing adds a little sparkle and lustre to our look quite like Mica. The problem is that despite all of that shine and glow, mined mica comes with a very dark side. But before we get into that, let’s start at the beginning….
What is mica?
It is a naturally occurring group of silicate minerals that form into distinct layers or sheets (mainly mined in India) and flakes (mainly mined in the US), which can be crushed into sparkly dust and then used in all kinds of products, including isolators in electrical equipment, gauge “glass” windows in stoves, decorative panels in windows, the paint on cars, etc. But, for the purpose of this blog post, we will keep the focus on the cosmetic industry.
~ The cosmetics industry only accounts for about 18% of all of the mined mica but is likely the most important game player when it comes to making significant changes in the industry. Why? Because it literally has a face - your face and my face. ~
Is natural (mined) mica safe?
Mica, like any other mined mineral, comes with the possibility of contamination by other unwanted elements that are dangerous to our health, such as mercury, lead and arsenic. Fortunately, these impurities can be tested for and contaminated mica can be avoided in the production of cosmetics, though you may be surprised to learn that most cosmetic companies do not actually perform their own ingredient safety testing, they trust their suppliers to do it for them. This is a whole other issue of major concern but one better left for another post.
As stated by the FDA, “mica may be safely used in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice to colour dentifrices and externally applied drugs, including those for use in the area of the eye.” And “Certification of this colour additive is not necessary for the protection of the public health, and therefore batches thereof are exempt from the certification requirements of section 721(c) of the act.” (11)
As maintained by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, “Mica use in cosmetics is not a concern for consumers” and mica receives a score of 2 out of 10 on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database, which indicates that it is of low hazard according to the scientific data available.
So, according to these sources, mica is essentially considered safe (though not necessarily proven) in the minuscule amounts that are used in cosmetic products. What I have found through further research is that mica has been consistently used by people for about 4000 years but its earliest documented use was in cave paintings created during the Upper Palaeolithic period (40, 000 – 10, 000 BCE or before the common era). (10)
I guess with all of this information combined, it is pretty safe to say, at the very least, that mica has essentially been in use for thousands of years without any major complications as long as it is used in small amounts, externally and with proper ventilation.
~ The mica mining industry comes with some serious human rights issues and a very dark side. ~
So, what is the issue?
Well, safe for you, doesn’t mean that it is safe for everyone. The mica mining industry comes with some serious human rights issues and a very dark side.
First off, occupational exposure in mines and mills can result in respiratory irritation after prolonged exposure to mica dust, which does happen in mines and mills where proper industrial hygiene practices are not followed. (12) This can result in very unfortunate outcomes for workers who are employed in regions where industrial practices are not enforced as seriously as they are in North America. You might think that this would be a very small population of people and it likely would be if there was not such a huge industry for the illegal and unregulated mining of mica.
Who is most impacted by the mica industry?
The miners. The largest deposits of mica in the world are found in the impoverished state of Jharkhand, India, where mining of mica is actually illegal. The legislation was put forth in 1980 to stop deforestation when at the time, the state boasted 700 mines with over 20, 000 workers. By 2000, the mining of mica had completely come to a halt but this only led to the illegal scavenging of it (4) by local contractors who employ women, recruited for their smaller and more delicate hands and thousands of children as young as 4 years old to scavenge for mica deep underground in unsafe conditions, with little oxygen, because they are small enough to do so. Suffocation and drowning can result for these children as they work in confined and flooded retired mines. Tuberculosis is a major infliction for these workers, as they are constantly subjected to fine particulates created by sifting through the mica to find marketable flakes. Due to the illegal nature of these jobs, accidents and illnesses are not compensated for and often go unreported so that the workers do not have to miss time in the mines, which allows them to feed their families. These families are in a vulnerable position and they are taken advantage of through child labour, wage theft and forced labour, all of which are extreme human rights abuses.
~ Children as young as 4 years old are recruited to scavenge for mica deep underground, terrified in dark and unsafe conditions. ~
How do I know if the mica in my makeup is ethically and legally sourced?
The mica trail is an extremely difficult supply chain to follow. At this time, as I mentioned, mica mining is illegal in India, however, more mica than ever before is being exported presently under the guise that “stockpiled” mica is being sold by suppliers and producers. Illegal sources of mica are produced by hundreds of thousands of families who extract mica in order to sustain themselves. This illegally extracted mica is traded for cash and then co-mingled with legal sources through a complex web of collectors, brokers, distributors and processors, which makes it impossible for cosmetic companies and their consumers to understand where their mica has actually come from. This is the point. Keep it confusing and keep getting away with it, this is how companies clean up their mica supply chains.
Have you ever heard the expression “keeping secrets keeps us sick”? There could be no more accurate aphorism when it comes to the mica industry. In order for us to be sure that the mica used in the cosmetics that we know and love is ethical and sustainable, we must be able to trace it back to its source. The entire process needs to be transparent if we are going to be able to protect vulnerable populations and the environment.
There are a handful of cosmetics companies who are members of the Responsible Mica Initiative (RMI), an NGO founded in 2017 with a mission to “establish a responsible and sustainable mica supply chain in India that is free of child labour by 2022”. They intend to accomplish this with a holistic approach that will address the multiple and underlying factors that contribute to unsafe working conditions and child labour. The RMI has a 3-pillar approach to this issue:
1. Supply chain mapping and workplace standards
2. Community empowerment
3. Legal frameworks
The belief is that by implementing all 3 pillars simultaneously, long-lasting and sustainable change will result in the industry.
While this sounds like an incredible initiative to create a sustainable mica supply chain in India, the one thing that it is lacking is traceability, which the executive director of RMI, Fanny Frémont expresses is not a necessary part of the RMI’s requirements by its members.
Although the current global situation with mica is quite grim, there is one skincare and cosmetics company that is bringing light to the industry and making waves in mica supply chain traceability and this company is BeautyCounter, the leader in clean beauty and possibly the most transparent company that I have ever come across. BeautyCounter is not part of the Responsible Mica Initiative but is instead working at the grassroots level on creating traceability for the mica supply chain, directly at the source in Jharkhand, India.
In 2018, BeautyCounter set out to track its mica trail to be sure that it was completely ethical from mine to face. All of its suppliers were able to produce third-party certificates to verify that their mica had been sourced ethically. The validity of these certificates, however, was unclear and this did not sit right with Founder and CEO, Gregg Renfrew. In 2019, BeautyCounter director of sustainability, Sasha Calder joined forces with Leonardo Bonanni, Founder and CEO of Sourcemap, the experts in supply chain tracing. Together, they visited Jharkand in order to get to the bottom of the mica supply chain but they were unable to find clarity on the link between the mine and the exporter. Being on the ground, however, did allow them to better understand the immediate issues facing the local communities and how they may be able to address some of those, in order to ensure that their mica trail was a clean one.
BeautyCounter partnered with the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF), a nonprofit founded by and named after the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate who was awarded for advocating for children’s rights for more than three decades. The partnership was designed to address the child labour issue directly at the source, by allowing a better understanding of local politics and to create a plan for the legalization of mica mining; a necessary step in gaining supply chain transparency and traceability. BeautyCounter also committed to supporting the KSCF initiative Child-Friendly Villages, which is a sustainable and holistic intervention for child protection and development in urban slum communities so that every child is safe, free and educated.
Through these partnerships, and because of the visit to Jharkand, a proprietary blockchain-based traceability tool was put into place, where suppliers share their sourcing data with Sourcemap. This tool allows for the tracking of consistency in volume provided by the mica suppliers. Inconsistencies or lack of information alerts BeautyCounter of possible red flags about the production chain of their mica. And, because of the unchangeability of records produced by each transaction, it has the power to prevent illegal mica from being combined with and passed off as legal mica. (5)
"Traceability is the key to expose secrets and make sure that you can actually understand how people are treated when they're mining or farming the ingredients that you use," Lindsay Dahl, BeautyCounter’s senior vice president of social mission, explained in a recent interview. "And while we commend the work that has happened by some of the other traditional beauty players, we actually didn't see anyone that was taking what we felt was an adequate dive to really understand how to trace the mica supply chain." (4)
BeautyCounter uses the California Transparency Supply Chain Act as its “guiding light” and requires its partners to comply with all of the laws designed to protect workers from unjust working conditions, including child, forced and slave labour. This act also requires retailers and manufacturers to disclose their efforts in eradicating human trafficking from their supply chains.
Another way that BeautyCounter is ensuring ethical sourcing of its mica is by obtaining most of it locally from an open-pit mine in Hartwell, Georgia, where the industry must follow Federal guidelines to protect the environment as well as the miners, while also paying fair wages.
How can I make a difference?
As a consumer, you have the power to affect the way that companies behave because you have the choice in whether or not to support them. Every time you open your wallet, you are voting for what is important to you by way of spending your hard-earned dollars. If you want to be a part of the progress and make a difference in how mica is sourced and who is affected, make sure that you are doing your research and purchasing from companies that are sourcing their ingredients or materials ethically and sustainably (this actually goes for all of your purchases, you have the power to evoke change). If you can’t find the answers to these questions online, you have the right and the power to question these companies directly about how and where their ingredients, including mica, are sourced. Nothing promotes change within a company like pressure from the consumer to do better. An empowered consumer armed with information has the ability to change the world!
Other ways that you can promote change in the mica industry include the following:
You can use your voice by calling or sending a letter to your local MP asking them to put stricter laws on the ingredients used in beauty products and to hold companies accountable for importing only ethically sourced ingredients, including mica. You can start or sign petitions that circulate to protect vulnerable populations, especially the disenfranchised and women and children. You can volunteer with or donate to charitable foundations (such as the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation by clicking the link) that are doing the work to rescue children from trafficking and slavery and getting them back into the classroom, where they belong. If you are located in the US, text MICA to 52886 to ask your elected officials to stop the importation of products produced using forced labour.
So why not just go with synthetic mica and avoid all of this?
Firstly, synthetic mica is more expensive than naturally mined mica and therefore drives up the cost of cosmetics. Although this is a small price to pay when it comes to avoiding human rights infringements, it doesn’t solve the problem. Switching out for synthetic does not get to the root of the issue, it simply redirects a company from the problems associated with naturally mined mica. BeautyCounter is leaning into the problem and trying to make the world a better place. In fact, according to the locals, it is the first company to show up to audit these mines in over 40 years! (8) Gregg describes the company as being “built for people, by people” and expresses that “at the end of the day, as the leader of a company, I can’t sleep at night knowing that there are children in mines providing us with ingredients that are putting them in harm’s way.” (8)
In Jkarkand, India, where 45% of the population lives in extreme poverty according to the Financial Express, mica is their livelihood and the only way for these families to put food on the table. By facing the issues associated with the mica industry head-on, BeautyCounter is working to provide an economic, ethical and safe opportunity for these impoverished people to survive, while keeping children in school, where they belong and creating high-performing clean products at the same time!
Click this image👆to learn more and watch the 12-minute BeautyCounter mica documentary.
If you want to visit BeautyCounter’s website and shop for sustainable, clean skincare and cosmetics that are also making actual changes in the beauty industry, click HERE. Or click on the Safer Beauty tab of this website to learn more or complete my FREE skincare consult questionnaire. I would love to help you switch to safer and support change in the mica industry.
References
1. https://www.beautycounter.com/en-ca/responsible-sourcing/mica
2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-mica-child-labour-trfn-idUSKBN1XU04I
4. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/inside-beautycounters-quest-transform-its-mica-supply-chain
5. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-transforming-mica-supply-chain-transforms-lives
6. https://mineralseducationcoalition.org/minerals-database/mica/
7. https://responsible-mica-initiative.com/about-us-rmi/about-us-approach-and-strategy
9. https://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/chemicals-of-concern/mica/
10. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mica
11.https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=73.1496&SearchTerm=mica
12. - https://www.safecosmetics.org/get-the-facts/chemicals-of-concern/mica/
