A Salty Salvation? A Look at Seaweed in Skincare
Seaweeds are often viewed as a nuisance, a weed of the sea if you will. In reality, seaweeds are actually an impressive and diverse group of organisms comprising thousands of species, of all forms, shapes, and colors, that play an important role in the environment.
But they’ve gotten a bit of a bad rep lately. Large blooms of sargassum seaweed have recently washed up on Mexican shorelines and deterred tourists from the Yucatán Peninsula’s luxury resorts (although, maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing). From Cancún to Tulum, piles of sargassum have overtaken the once pristine sandy beaches.
While the blooms are somewhat of an affliction, seaweed can actually be a valuable and lucrative natural resource, with potential to be used in everything from cosmetics to food products. And there’s certainly enough of it to go around.
What’s all this have to do with our skin? Well for one, seaweed has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant that can reduce fine lines, improve moisture, and boost collagen production. Moreover, we can reap these benefits while still supporting our oceans. Let’s dive in further.
Is seaweed sustainable?
The general principle behind sustainability is that we can take enough of a resource without diminishing the total supply, so that the resource will continue to exist in the future.
There’s a lot of seaweed in the ocean, like a lot. It grows in abundance. We couldn’t take it all if we tried. That makes seaweed and other macroscopic algae (or algae large enough to be seen to the naked eye) actually super sustainable. It’s also worth noting that seaweed is actually an algae, which isn’t technically a plant, depending on who you ask.
Moreover, as now evidenced in Mexico’s resort towns, there isn’t just an abundance of seaweed in many regions around the world, but an overabundance. That’s because algae are sensitive to nutrient inputs; when an excessive amount of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus flow into water bodies, it feeds the algae. Like, too much. That leads to massive algae blooms that blanket the seas, and then the algae inevitably washes up on beaches. Unnaturally large blooms also block sunlight from penetrating the water column, which can kill fish and coral.
Where are all these excess nutrients coming from? Fertilizer. Mexico’s blooms have mainly been traced back to commercial agriculture in Brazil, where millions of tons of fertilizer are washed into the Amazon River where it flows into the Atlantic, and the water is carried upwards by the Gulf Stream.
Since humans are really, really effective at extracting resources we deem valuable, maybe it’s time to get on board with seaweed as a cash crop to restore some natural balance to our marine ecosystems and focus on exploiting resources where there actually is too much.
One study in the scientific journal Nature even argued that commercial exploitation of sargassum seaweed is the only way to manage it: the most effective control of “the negative impacts is raising public awareness for the potential of their commercial use, thus creating value, promoting their collection from impacted areas,” argued the authors.
Seaweed can be collected from the open ocean or raked from beaches to manage the excess blooms, but it can also be farmed. Even the farmed variety has little environmental impact – it doesn’t require fresh water, fertilizer, or really any other inputs. It also stores more Co2 than trees, making seaweed farms actually carbon negative, or something that stores more Co2 than it releases.
It also makes for a tasty snack. What’s not to love?
Benefits to your skin
Benefits to your skin
Seaweed is a sustainable, biodegradable, climate-friendly ingredient that can be incorporated into a variety of cosmetics. But it’s not just good for the environment: it’s also good for you.
Seaweed is a humectant, a type of water-absorbing substance that retains moisture, making it a powerful moisturizer for your face. And proper hydration is one of the sure-fire ways to prevent or diminish signs of aging.
Depending on the species in question, seaweeds are also chock full of vitamins A, B, and K, the latter which stimulates collagen production and helps to “plump” up the skin. Moreover, studies have found seaweed to inhibit enzymes that accelerate skin aging, namely, hyaluronidase, collagenase, and elastase, which are all responsible for wrinkle formation.
That’s why seaweed extract is already making its way into a variety of skin cosmetics, like Lush’s BB seaweed fresh face mask.
The Body Shop even has an entire range of seaweed products from cleansers to toners, using seaweed sourced off of Ireland.
Seaweed is also part of the larger “blue beauty movement,” which focuses on using natural ingredients sustainably harvested from our oceans in cosmetic products. The underlying idea is that we can utilize natural products to promote harmony in both our skin’s microbiomes (the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live on our skin that comprise their own individual ecosystem) and the blue ecosystems of our planet.
As we gripple with the impact of the beauty industry on the climate crisis, it’s time to look for solutions. And sometimes the answer is really just in front of us, laying on a beach.
WHATS UP NEXT …
