The Dark Secret Behind Your Favorite Makeup Products | Shady | Refinery29 - video Dailymotion

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On this episode of Shady, our host, Lexy Lebsack explores the unethically sourced ingredient that's in almost all makeup products. She travels to the mica mines in India to uncover the truth about child labor rings behind this mineral. Watch Shady to see what really goes into making your makeup!  To donate to Sayarthi click here: http://bit.ly/310q2ru  ABOUT SERIES Shady is the side of the beauty world you haven't seen. Hosted by Refinery29 Senior Beauty Editor, Lexy Lebsack, the series swivels between the unexpected and uplifting, dives deep into the dark underbelly of beauty, gives a voice to those trampled by this quickly growing industry, and questions what it’s all worth. From counterfeit makeup to skin trafficking for cosmetic procedures, we go there.  ABOUT REFINERY29  Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life.  RELATED CONTENT The Truth About Where Hair Extensions Come From  https://youtube.com/watch?v=VlZ1SWLBfPE Why Fake Kylie Jenner Lip Kits Could Be Dangerous https://youtube.com/watch?v=G-VsdEy9IF8 What Beauty Is Like Behind Prison Bars https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dp1DFvQTcJk  SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29 Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29  TALENT Follow Lexy Lebsack on Instagram: https://instagram.com/lexylebsack/ Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothered/ Follow OnHerTurf on Instagram: https://instagram.com/onherturf/ Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/

Transcript

00:04Makeup can be a tool for liberation and expression.

00:09It can make us feel beautiful.

00:11But one of beauty's most popular ingredients has a dark side.

00:35When children are the hidden cost in our cosmetics, who's stepping in to help them out?

00:44And who's leaving them behind?

00:55We're here in London on a press trip with Lush Cosmetics.

00:59The British company invited us here to learn about an initiative

01:02surrounding one of the most controversial ingredients going into makeup today.

01:06Micah, an unassuming mineral essential to modern life.

01:10The property of heat and electrical resistance makes this mineral invaluable.

01:16For decades, it's been used in everyday products like electronics, insulation, paint, and even toothpaste.

01:24But over the past few years, the cosmetics industry's demand for glowing, radiant shimmer has exploded.

01:32From the perfect no makeup makeup gleam to the blinding shine of a highlighter created for double taps.

01:39Micah is often the magic ingredient.

01:42But it also has an ugly side.

01:44The majority of the world's micah comes from India, where a 2016 Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation revealed that it was

01:53being mined by children and at a deadly cost.

01:57The revelation forced the beauty industry into a moral reckoning.

02:01Some companies have pledged to work with the mining communities in India to create a sustainable supply chain.

02:08It's a lofty goal, with progress that's been slow to come by.

02:13Companies like Lush, that have built a brand on ethical sourcing, have taken a different approach.

02:19Without a transparent supply chain, it decided to pull out of natural mica altogether.

02:24The glittery, shimmery effect is all the synthetic mica.

02:28It looks pretty, but I'm about to find out that it's more complicated than appearances might suggest.

02:34Much as I love sparkles, I didn't want anything put into a Lush product that, you know, could have had

02:41a death attached to it.

02:42The nice thing about the synthetic mica is it has much more variety of the sparkle that you can get

02:49in the pigment.

02:50So really, there's no reason to have natural mica.

02:54It's much more complicated than that. Natural mica, it's a commodity which is in almost any product you use.

03:00You should not try to avoid mica. You should make sure that the families where you buy the mica from,

03:05as a company, get decent wages, get living wages.

03:10As corporations roll out initiatives with promises of positive change, I'm curious to know how they're actually impacting the people,

03:18and especially the children, on the ground.

03:26Globally, the mica industry is worth over half a billion dollars, and India is at its center, with the world's

03:33largest and highest quality reserves of mica.

03:36The majority of it can be found in the country's eastern states.

03:43We're leaving New Delhi, and we're about to take a sleeper train to a region called Jharkhand, which is where

03:48a lot of this mining is happening.

04:02Jharkhand is a mining state with rich reserves of coal, copper, and of course, mica.

04:11Most of the nearly 33 million residents live in rural areas where illegal and unregulated mica mines dominate the trade.

04:20It's been this way since the 1980s, when restrictive environmental laws drove the industry underground.

04:27It's been a very long journey, and we're trying to keep a low profile, just because this is such a

04:31sensitive subject here.

04:33Now, many of the mines are abandoned and scavenged, while others are run by illicit operators.

04:40We're finally getting close, because you can see all of the shimmer in the dirt.

04:46It's the first time I've ever seen pretty dirt.

05:01I met up with Rohit Gandhi, our local contact who secured our access to the mines.

05:07Very nice to meet you as well.

05:09We're going to keep the cars ready, just in case any of these contractors who actually mine with these children

05:15come around.

05:16We should be ready to leave right away.

05:17Why would they be mad that we're here?

05:19They know it's illegal, right, to use children in the trade for mining, then obviously they're against the law.

05:38Just a few steps off the road, I start to see them.

05:42Children.

05:44Hard at work, mining for Micah.

05:50Who will be Djibout?

05:55Good to see you in Australia.

05:56This is how WOUNichiwa feels so nice if they're all over the globe and boring up.

05:58Let's go this one.

06:03Good day!

06:06Guess who would they go and be so nervous?

06:08Yes!

06:09Good day!

06:14I think I have a much smaller degree in my field.

06:16Good day, did you see me and you have a great place in and turn in.

06:16up here. It's all mixed with gravel, and then they'll sift it through, and they'll take

06:21the mica out, and that they'll go and sell to somebody who will then, you know, ship

06:26it overseas.

06:36Pooja Burla is only 11 years old and has been mining mica since she was 8.

06:42How many days are you out here per week?

06:47Every day.

07:05Do you ever get scared when you're working in the mines?

07:33Pooja Burla is only 11 years old.

07:40Jharkhand suffers from a classic case of the resource curse, a phenomenon where areas

07:46with abundant resources tend to be worse off for it thanks to government corruption and

07:51commercial exploitation.

07:58Despite the fact that this area is rich in mica and other minerals, Jharkhand has one of the

08:03highest poverty rates in the entire country.

08:07many of these children, including Pooja, make less than a quarter a day, but it can mean

08:17the difference between something to eat and an empty stomach.

08:46What are the other children in the town doing?

08:57It's been estimated that up to 20,000 children are working all across the region in mines

09:03just like these.

09:06Seeing these mines and meeting these children, it's easy to understand why Lush wouldn't want

09:12anything to do with mica.

09:13This is incredibly scary and I can't even believe there's kids all the way down there.

09:19But it's also painfully clear that these children have no alternative.

09:24Can you tell me how old you were when you first started working in the mines?

09:30First year.

09:32First year?

09:34First year.

09:35First year of army?

09:35If you didn't have to mine, what would you be doing today?

09:39I really into eighteen.

09:42Do you have any idea where the mica goes after you mine it?

09:46I'm not understanding.

09:48Over there, take the wagon, save the camera and throw the ausge from there.

09:52Who's in there?

09:54Where's she?

10:02We had to take off really quickly from that mine because we heard that people were coming

10:06because they knew that we were there.

10:11The mica trade here is built on a facade that its players have a stake in maintaining.

10:16Once the mica leaves the mine, it's funneled into a process that conceals the fact that

10:21children ever had anything to do with it.

10:24Traders peddle the mica to intermediaries who often sell it under the license of a legal

10:29mine from another part of the country.

10:31By the time the mica is exported, its illicit origins have been stripped away.

10:36But back in Jharkhand, it's impossible to escape the realities of the trade and the risks that

10:42go along with it.

10:44Cuts and broken bones, respiratory illnesses that can damage or even scar the lungs.

10:51And sometimes the unthinkable.

11:03Surma Kumari and her sister Lakshmi were mining one day when the tunnel they were working

11:08in collapsed.

11:12Can you show me where you got hurt in the accident?

11:15The train forced them to get the tutaj for now....

11:17This is like a little forest.

11:24This is like a tree and we lost a energy area.

11:31réemed from the village from Kifran Hamman.

11:45If I had to die, I would have to die.

11:47If I had to die, I would have to die.

11:53I would have to die.

11:54I would have to die.

11:56I would have to die.

12:00Do you and your family still work in the mines?

12:09The Kumari family's story is a common one.

12:13Lakshmi's death is just one of an estimated 10 to 20 deaths that occur every month.

12:19The unregulated nature of mica opens the door to dangerous work conditions and predatory pricing.

12:26Families are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

12:30How much would the companies that are buying the mica have to pay you to be able to send Pooja

12:36to school?

12:41To be able to completely change your life.

12:56It really hit home.

12:58For better or worse, the choices that companies and consumers make have the power to determine people's lives.

13:07It made me look at my beauty products in a totally new light.

13:11I've pulled out some of the products that I use every single day.

13:16There's mica in this.

13:20First ingredient.

13:24They all have mica in them.

13:26There's mica in all of these products.

13:28While I don't know if the mica in these products specifically came from a mine that used child labor,

13:34there's no transparency in any of these supply chains involved in these products.

13:39These families all rely upon these mines and they've been selling mica for a long time now.

13:47There has to be an ethical way to get mica out of the ground.

13:50There has to be an ethical way to treat these families.

13:52And it's hard not to feel responsibility.

14:00I wanted to know where the Indian government was in all of this.

14:04It turns out the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, or NCPCR,

14:10has been aware of the issue since at least 2016 when its governing ministry lodged a complaint.

14:16When we reached out to them, they said they were conducting a survey to understand the scope of the problem

14:21and sent us to the ministry that oversees their work.

14:25There is poverty and there is less of spread of education in these interior areas.

14:31And our ministry is making all efforts to see that their child rights is protected.

14:37So we were just in Jharkhand and we saw children working in the mines that are young as five or

14:43six,

14:43but your department is the one that's surveying that. Is that enough that's being done?

14:48Actually, we are not aware of any such survey that is concurrently being done, as you say.

14:53We have been told that this committee is doing the survey and they're under your jurisdiction.

15:01How is it that…

15:02We have not authorised it. As far as this ministry goes, the Ministry of Women and Child Development,

15:08child labour is not exactly a mandate.

15:15It was alarming to realize that someone so high up at the ministry seemingly knew so little about this dire

15:22issue.

15:24While solutions may be slow to come from the top, a movement on the ground is providing some hope.

15:32A model that's been coined the child-friendly village is connecting parents to new income streams so that their children

15:39don't have to work.

15:41So many kids.

15:43It's a concept piloted by the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation. And it's working.

15:52More than 3,000 children have been rescued. More than 3,000 children have been withdrawn from child labour. And

16:00they have been enrolled in school.

16:03Funding comes through government services and private business support, including beauty conglomerate Estee Lauder.

16:10We thought long and hard if we wanted to stay in Indian mica, if we wanted to move towards synthetic.

16:16And where we've ultimately landed is that it's important for us to have a stake. And having a stake means

16:25we will continue to be there until this problem comes to a resolution.

16:29And it has been incredibly important for us to always start these initiatives with the community itself.

16:38It has been a long-term process. And everybody has a role and responsibility to play in addressing this whole

16:47issue.

16:49This gathering of child-friendly villages is a showcase of what's possible when companies stay invested in the communities they

16:57work with.

16:58Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

17:04I feel very welcomed right now.

17:08My name is Champa Kumari.

17:10Champa.

17:11It's lovely to meet you.

17:14Champa Kumari is part of the most important and inspiring outcomes of these child-friendly villages. The child parliament.

17:21The child parliament.

17:29At 14 years old, she's a fierce champion of eliminating child labor.

17:37I came to my CM and I sat at the CM on this.

17:41There were teachers in our school, and the children can't teach.

17:48The children cannot be studied in a great school.

17:49There are other schools where I've also seen and sent.

17:51They told me that I'm in a certain days.

18:12What would you say to some of the companies and consumers who are buying

18:17MICA that come from child labor?

18:29What do you want to accomplish next?

18:37You want to become a teacher?

18:42You're a big picture thinker.

18:44I like it.

18:46Yeah.

18:49Promising to be MICA free isn't the only or even the best answer.

18:55MICA is the lifeblood of this region and any solution that will make a real difference

19:00must acknowledge that.

19:03It's empowering kids like Pooja and Champa that will bring change and break the cycle

19:09that keeps this region and its children chained to MICA.

19:14There's nothing to me.

The Dark Secret Behind Your Favorite Makeup Products | Shady | Refinery29

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