2021 - 05 - 02
Exit Colorants
The environmentally conscious consumer will begin to notice the bad side of the colorant industry. This movement started in the food industry, but has moved over into fashion and will hit the care cosmetics and household cleaning industry too.
We use many personal care products when showering, bathing, and cleaning the household. Many of these products have colorants in them. When brushing our teeth, wash our hair with pearlescent shampoo, and even wash our toilets, we can barely avoid using cleaners that are coloured.
The colorants in these products have no effect whatsoever on the cleaning power of them. Even though we can’t change our system of flushing potable water down the drain, we can at least make a conscious effort to stop flushing colorants along with it. The future consumer will start to realise this.
The enormous chemical process needed to make colourants is staggering, and mixing them with potable water doubles the problem. Until somewhere in the ‘90s consumers and producers alike were often not aware of the fact that we were polluting our water supply and the environment with colorants. Since the green revolution, this has changed.
As a result of this change the whole industry has started to make the production process of colorants as sustainable as possible. The big question is; do we really need the colorants? Skipping them entirely is by far the most sustainable solution altogether.
Shampoos, shower gels, and toilet cleaners are products we only see for a few seconds before they are flushed down the drain never to be seen again. It’s a split second of joy that pollutes our drinking water, and enables the production process of colorants which is highly pollutive. These colorants can definitely be skipped.
As the environmentally conscious consumer starts noticing this fact, they will start to avoid coloured products. The final producer in the production chain of cleaning products can simply choose to stop adding colorants. It does not drastically change or even stop their business, it may in fact be cheaper. It’s all about finding new tools to help their uncoloured product stand out from the crowd. There are many solutions to this on marketing and product level.
The producers of colorants have a big issue to deal with. They have to start inventing alternatives in order to keep their business afloat. The switch to these alternatives to colorants will not be an easy process. You need a clear vision of what the future will bring in combination with a deep analysis of your core business, and match the two by developing new alternatives.
An example of an alternative product might be an ecological ingredient that helps to clean the water and is also naturally coloured. Deeper research is of course needed to find a new route for your business. It can become an intensive process; The Lady in Blu is available to help.