Is Your Beauty Routine Killing Sharks?

There is a secret hiding among our beauty products that many companies don’t want us to know about. It’s so hidden that a company can call themselves “cruelty free,” but still use this ingredient in their products. Highly acclaimed documentaries like Sharkwater Extinction, Shark Girl, or Saving Jaws, all highlight the shark finning industry around the globe, but it often feels as if the finning industry is a problem ocean’s away. However, this problem hits closer to home than we can ever imagine and doesn’t just happen because of shark fin soup.

100 million sharks are being killed a year with many of them being killed for an ingredient known for its hydrating benefits called squalene or squalane. These types of oils can be derived from plants like olives, rice, or palms, but are most often harvested from shark liver because of its low cost and high yield. If a company chooses to use the plant derivative they will mention it in the ingredients list as being such. If not, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that the squalene is derived from sharks. When I first found out this information I immediately defended some of my favorite brands like Honest Beauty, who claims to have such rigorous standards in ingredients that they have created a list of over 2,500 that they won’t use in their products. But I was quickly proven wrong. The amount of greenwashing that takes place in the beauty industry is astounding and unless a product is truly certified as “vegan,” brands can continue to hide shark in their products without the public knowing.

Brands that earn millions in revenue each year such as Clinique, Covergirl, Tarte Cosmetics, EOS, Gold Bond etc. all source squalene from non-plant derivatives. In fact, Harpers Bazaar reported that in the second quarter of 2020 squalene was already the number five most searched beauty ingredient. As a result of squalene being so popular in demand, the market for it is estimated to grow from $129 million in 2020 to $184 million in 2025. If you do a search for squalene on Sephora’s US website it shows 16 results, CVS shows 20 results, and Ulta shows a whopping 134 results. However, companies like Pacifica, Dr. Botanicals, and Alchimie Forever are certified as “vegan” and do not source any of their products from any animals or animal derivatives.

You might ask yourself why this is all so important. Shouldn’t we kill as many man-eating sharks as we can? The answer is outright no! Sharks are not man eating creatures of the deep that the media likes to portray. This type of negative media attention is a way that big companies can get away with sourcing shark without any consequences. Sharks are curious apex predators that benefit the environment in such great ways that without them, the balance and health of the ocean would decline severely. Sharks feed off of sick and dying fish more than any other predator in the ocean. Their easiest prey are the slowest, and the prey that they don’t have to work as hard for. If you’re like me, you love seeing pictures of healthy coral reefs, sea turtles hatching, and dolphins playing in the wild. Well these pictures wouldn’t exist without the help of sharks to create such a balanced ecosystem. Because sharks are beneficial for the environment, it is imperative that we protect them. The world is currently killing sharks at a rate faster than they can reproduce. Sharks have long pupping seasons and depending on the species, gestation periods can be anywhere from 6 months to two years, yielding anywhere from one to eighty pups per pregnancy. If we continue to kill sharks at this rate we will see a mass shark extinction sooner rather than later, and thus the ocean and all of its inhabitants will begin to die off as well.

So what can we do to reduce the amount of sharks being killed around the world? You can first make the biggest impact by not giving companies that benefit off of the killing of sharks your business. Consumer power is everything, and if a company is watching their customers leave for more sustainable and shark-friendly options, then they will soon follow as well or suffer the losses. If you find yourself in a restaurant either here in the US or abroad that sells shark fin soup, report it to local authorities. The heavily toxic soup is banned in many countries around the world not only for its inhumanly derived ingredients, but for its dangerously high levels of mercury. Lastly, you can sign petitions and contact your local politicians to ban shark finning and the trade of sharks throughout the US. Every decision you make to benefit sharks really does make a difference in their fate across the globe, not just for now but for years to come.