As the cost of living goes up across America, many consumers are complaining about "shrinkflation," which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "the situation when the price of a product stays the same but its size gets smaller."
One aspect of the problem that often gets overlooked is how wasteful it is to package a tiny amount of product in a huge amount of plastic. One buyer called out e.l.f. Cosmetics for adopting this strategy.
What's happening?
The post appeared on r/Anticonsumption, a Reddit community united against waste. "I bought two eyeliner pencils and thought the first didn't last long," said the original poster. "I open the next and screw the entire stick open — this is its full length."
The post came with a photo of an e.l.f. Eyeliner pencil in a medium brown shade. Although the makeup part of the pencil is extended as far as possible, it's less than a quarter of the length of the plastic barrel, somewhere around an inch long.
"I know makeup is notorious for serving us overpriced garbage, but this coupled with the sheer amount of plastic for basically nothing is making me make better purchase decisions," said the original poster. "This is gross."
Why is shrinkflation important?
When packaging stays the same or gets bigger while the product inside gets smaller, buyers end up either spending more money or making do with less and less. It's a misleading, money-grabbing practice.
Meanwhile, using this much extra plastic is a wasteful and environmentally damaging approach. Most plastic is never recycled, so it either ends up in a landfill or it becomes litter. It stays in the environment for 100 years or more without breaking down, and it sheds small pieces called microplastics that have been linked to serious health problems.
Is e.l.f. doing anything about this?
It's not clear whether e.l.f. actually shrank the size of its eyeliner or simply packaged a small amount in a large plastic applicator to begin with.
Either way, the company does say that it's looking for ways to reduce this kind of unnecessary packaging in what it calls Project Unicorn. It says: "We are committed to reducing the amount of packaging we use. Since 2019, Project Unicorn has eliminated 2.5 million pounds of excess packaging."
What's being done about plastic waste more broadly?
If you want to see less plastic waste, you can support brands that use plastic-free packaging. Meanwhile, many cosmetics companies have programs that will help you recycle empty containers — some of which will even give you free products or store credit in return.
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