If you’ve ever flipped through the labels on your favorite skincare or makeup products—whether it’s that vitamin C serum you apply every morning, the hydrating shea butter in your body lotion, or the glittery mica in your highlighter—you’ve probably never stopped to think about where those ingredients come from. For most of my career, I’ve been sitting on the other side of the table: as a cosmetic raw materials supplier, I focus on connecting brands with the high-quality, sustainable ingredients that make their products work. But last year, I spent two weeks visiting three different extraction sites—one for shea nuts in northern Ghana, one for mica in a remote region of India, and one for marine collagen sourced from sustainable fisheries off the coast of Norway—and what I saw left me rethinking every part of my job. Cosmetic Raw Materials
The truth is, most conversations about cosmetic sustainability focus on the end of a product’s life: the plastic packaging we need to cut back on, the chemical ingredients that might harm users’ skin. We rarely talk about the first step: the extraction of raw materials, which often leaves a far bigger ecological footprint than any bottle or tube. As someone who’s spent years sourcing these materials, I want to pull back the curtain on that hidden impact, and explain why it’s not just about “going green” for cosmetic brands—it’s about protecting the ecosystems that make their products possible.
Let’s start with one of the most ubiquitous natural cosmetic ingredients: shea butter. If you’ve shopped for body care in the last 20 years, you’ve almost certainly used a product that contains it. Most shea butter comes from the shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), native to the dry savannas of West Africa, where it has been a staple for local communities for centuries. For generations, women in countries like Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali have harvested shea nuts by hand, cracked them open, and rendered the butter using traditional methods that leave most of the surrounding landscape untouched. But over the past two decades, global demand for shea butter has exploded—cosmetic brands now use over 500,000 tons of shea butter every year, up from just 50,000 tons in the 1990s. That surge in demand has led to a wave of industrial-scale shea extraction, with clear consequences for the savanna ecosystem.
The biggest issue here is deforestation. Shea trees grow slowly—they take 15 to 20 years to mature, and can live for up to 300 years—but as demand has risen, farmers have started clearing patches of native savanna to plant large monoculture shea orchards, often replacing native trees like acacia and baobab that support far more biodiversity. A 2022 study from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that regions in northern Ghana that once had 60% native tree cover now have less than 30%, with much of that clearing driven by shea expansion. The acacia trees, for example, are critical for savanna wildlife: they provide food for giraffes, elephants, and birds, and their deep roots prevent soil erosion during the long dry seasons. When those trees are cut down to make room for shea, the entire food web shifts—birds that relied on acacia seeds disappear, small mammals lose shelter, and soil quality drops because there’s less organic matter to hold moisture.
Then there’s the water use. Shea butter production requires large amounts of water, both for processing the nuts and for irrigation in those new monoculture orchards. In the Sahel, where rainfall is scarce and unpredictable due to climate change, this is a crisis point. A 2021 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that industrial shea operations can use up to 10 liters of water to produce just 1 kilogram of raw shea butter—water that local communities and livestock depend on for drinking and farming. In villages I visited in northern Ghana, women told me that once the shea processing plant arrived in their area, they had to walk an extra 2 kilometers to get water for their families, because the plant had dug wells that dried up the local water table.
Mica is another ingredient with a hidden ecological cost—you’ve likely seen it in eyeshadow, highlighter, or even nail polish, where it gives that shimmery, pearlescent finish. For years, most mica came from India, Brazil, and Madagascar, with a large share of Indian mica mined through artisanal, small-scale operations. That artisanal mining has long been associated with human rights issues—child labor, unsafe working conditions—but the ecological impacts are just as severe.
Mica forms in thin, flat sheets in metamorphic rock, so mining it often involves clearing large areas of forest to access the deposits. In the state of Jharkhand in eastern India, which produces over 40% of the world’s sheet mica, mining operations have cleared an estimated 200,000 hectares of forest since 2000, according to the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. This clearing destroys habitat for endangered species like the Indian elephant and the sloth bear, which are already struggling with fragmented habitats due to agricultural expansion. But the bigger ecological problem comes from soil degradation. When miners dig into the rock to extract mica, they leave behind large piles of overburden—rock and soil that’s removed to access the mica veins. These piles are often left uncovered, and during monsoon season, rain washes the loose soil into nearby rivers, clogging waterways and killing aquatic life. The sediment in these rivers blocks sunlight from reaching submerged plants, which are the base of the river food chain, and suffocates fish eggs, leading to a sharp decline in fish populations. In Jharkhand’s Subarnarekha River basin, local fishermen I met said their catches have dropped by 70% over the last 15 years, directly linking it to mica mining runoff.
What’s more, artisanal mica mining is often highly wasteful. Miners might only extract the highest-quality large mica sheets, leaving behind smaller, lower-quality flakes that are still perfectly usable for cosmetic ingredients. Those leftover flakes are often discarded on site, ending up in landfills or washed into rivers. I saw piles of these tiny mica flakes in a mining village in India last year, glinting in the sun, and it struck me that this wasn’t just a human rights or mining issue—it was a waste of a finite resource, and a huge hit to the local ecosystem.
Now let’s talk about marine-derived raw materials, which have grown in popularity as brands lean into “clean” or ocean-friendly ingredients. Marine collagen, for example, is sourced from fish skin and scales, and is marketed as a sustainable alternative to animal-derived collagen from cows or pigs. But even here, the ecological impacts are complex. The demand for marine collagen has risen 12% annually since 2018, according to a 2023 report from the Global Industry Analysts, and most of it comes from fisheries in the North Atlantic and Southeast Asia. The key issue here is bycatch and overfishing. To get the 100,000 tons of fish needed to produce marine collagen each year, fisheries often target species like cod, haddock, and tilapia that are also critical for local food supplies. When fishermen process these fish to extract collagen, they usually only use the skin and scales, throwing away the rest of the fish—about 60% of the total catch. That means for every kilogram of marine collagen, you’re producing 4 kilograms of fish waste, much of which ends up in landfills or discarded at sea.
This waste creates its own set of problems. When fish waste is left at sea, it decomposes and releases large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the water, leading to algal blooms that suffocate marine life and create “dead zones” where no fish or plants can survive. In the Gulf of Maine, where much of North America’s marine collagen is sourced, dead zones have quadrupled in size since 2000, and researchers at the University of New England found that a significant portion of that growth is linked to fish waste from collagen processing. There’s also the issue of food security: in countries like Ghana and Indonesia, where small-scale fishing is a primary source of food for local communities, commercial fisheries taking fish for collagen have driven up prices and reduced access to affordable fish for residents. A 2022 study from the University of Ghana found that coastal communities near marine collagen processing plants have seen fish prices rise by 45% in the last five years, making a once-staple protein unaffordable for many families.
As a supplier, I’ll be honest: I didn’t always see these impacts clearly. For years, my focus was on getting the highest-quality ingredients at the best price, making sure cosmetic brands could meet demand without worrying too much about the source. But after those site visits, I realized that sustainability in cosmetics isn’t just about the packaging or the final product—it’s about every step of the supply chain, starting with extraction. The good news is that there are solutions, and they’re already being implemented by forward-thinking suppliers, brands, and even the communities that work with these materials.
Take shea butter, for example. Some cooperatives in Ghana have started agroforestry projects, where they plant shea trees alongside native acacia and baobab, rather than clearing native forests for monoculture orchards. These projects not only preserve biodiversity—they also increase soil fertility, because the native trees add organic matter to the soil, and provide additional income for farmers through non-timber forest products like gum arabic and berries. One cooperative I work with in the Northern Region of Ghana has seen native tree cover increase by 20% over the last five years, while their shea butter production has gone up by 30% because the mixed ecosystem supports better nut yields. They’ve also installed small-scale water collection systems, harvesting rainwater for processing, which has reduced their reliance on groundwater by 40%.
For mica, the solution is around responsible sourcing and waste reduction. Some suppliers are working with artisanal mining cooperatives to train miners to extract all mica, not just the large sheets, and set up processing facilities that collect the leftover flakes, which are then used in cosmetics. In the Indian state of Rajasthan, a cooperative of mica miners partnered with a cosmetic brand last year to develop a system where all extracted mica is processed on site, with 95% of the material being used, rather than the 60% that was used in traditional mining. They’ve also planted over 10,000 native trees in areas cleared for mining, restoring habitat for local wildlife.
Marine collagen is seeing innovation too. Some suppliers are now using fish waste that would otherwise be discarded, rather than targeting whole fish. They work directly with commercial fishing operations to collect skin and scales that would be thrown away, turning a waste product into a high-value ingredient. One supplier I work with in Norway sources 100% of their marine collagen from the skin and scales of cod caught for human consumption, so no additional fish are harvested specifically for collagen. They also process the waste on site, treating it to prevent nutrient runoff, and work with local fishing cooperatives to ensure fair wages.
Of course, these solutions aren’t perfect, and they come at a cost. Responsible, sustainable raw materials can be 10-20% more expensive than conventionally sourced ones, and some small cosmetic brands might not have the budget to invest in them. But the alternative—continuing to extract these materials in ways that destroy ecosystems, harm local communities, and threaten the resources that cosmetics depend on long-term—isn’t sustainable either.
For me, the biggest takeaway from those site visits is that we all have a role to play in fixing this, from the brands that choose their suppliers to the consumers who buy their products. As a cosmetic raw materials supplier, my job isn’t just to provide ingredients—it’s to connect brands with materials that are good for both the product and the planet. If you’re a cosmetic brand looking to source raw materials that prioritize ecological responsibility, I’d be happy to share more about our sustainable sourcing practices, the cooperatives we work with, and how we can help you build a supply chain that’s transparent and kind to the environment. Together, we can make cosmetics that don’t just look good—they do good, from the first step of extraction to the final application on a user’s skin.
Proteins/Peptides/Amino Acids References:
- World Wildlife Fund. (2022). Shea Butter Supply Chains: Impacts on West African Savanna Ecosystems. WWF International.
- Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. (2021). Mica Mining and Deforestation in Eastern India. ICFRE Technical Report.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2021). Water Use in Agricultural Raw Material Production. FAO Regional Office for Africa.
- University of Ghana, Department of Marine Sciences. (2022). Marine Collagen Sourcing and Local Food Security in Coastal Ghana. Journal of Coastal Development.
- Global Industry Analysts. (2023). Global Marine Collagen Market Report 2023-2028. GIA Inc.
- University of New England, Center for Marine Studies. (2022). Nutrient Runoff from Fisheries Processing and Gulf of Maine Dead Zone Growth. Marine Ecology Progress Series.
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