Kourtney Kardashian Is Lobbying for Clean Beauty—Here’s What It Means

Kourtney Kardashian is someone who slathers Manuka honey on her hair and swears by non-toxic sunscreen (among other healthy habits like sippin' on ACV). So you could say it's only obvious that she would care about regulation for safe personal care products.

Yesterday in Washington DC, the health-conscious (konscious?) Kardashian, alongside the Environmental Working Group, met with legislators to advocate for the Personal Care Products Safety Act—a bill that calls for FDA regulation (for the first time in 80 years, mind you) on cosmetics and beauty products in the United States.

Like many women, she started looking at the ingredients in personal care products once she became a mother. "As a mom, you really take so much interest in the products… and it’s so crazy," says Kardashian. "I would get so many baby gifts and a lot of it was products, skin-care products for my kids. And I would use the things that people sent me just assuming these are baby products and that they should be safe."

"You shouldn’t have to walk around aimlessly asking ‘Is this okay?’ ‘Is this not okay?" —Kourtney Kardashian.

But, of course: Many have toxic chemicals lurking within them that could disrupt your endocrine system or be carcinogenic. And yet there's no regulation that says these have to be tested for safety. "You shouldn’t have to walk around aimlessly asking ‘Is this okay?’ ‘Is this not okay?’ adds Kardashian. "Everybody should have the right to healthy products."

The PCPSA would require the FDA to more closely regulate and test products that are on the market and going onto people's bodies. With Kardashian lending her name to the case, she says that she wants to "make it a bigger deal." And she's not wrong there: Though, the act has bipartisan support, it's also been around since 2016 and hasn't been passed yet.

"It seems to us this could be an opportunity to really educate a broad group of consumers that haven’t thought about this much before," says Ken Cook, president of the EWG. "It’s important to understand they’re not just putting on makeup and shampoo, they’re putting on chemicals."

It's true—so many people don't realize what they're slathering on affects their health until a celebrity, like Kardashian, gets behind the cause. "We applaud Kourtney Kardashian as she joined our fight on Capitol Hill today," says Gregg Renfrew, founder of clean beauty brand Beautycounter that's been lobbying since they formed. "We need more people who are willing to lend their voices to the better beauty movement in order to get credible, meaningful reform across the finish line.”

Tara Foley, founder and CEO of natural beauty chainlet Follain, agrees: "It's so exciting to see someone with this level of visibility bring clean beauty—and the importance of more health protective laws—into the limelight. The more citizens demand better oversight of the personal care industry, the faster change will happen; so I think any steps to create further conversation around the topic and bring it to the forefront of consumer consciousness are steps in the right direction."

To help with the cause, Kardashian has some advice—which is, namely, that knowledge is power. "You should try to get your own information and research the best that you can," she says. "But also get involved in trying to make the change."

To get a head start, here's the beginner's guide to reading a beauty product label. And, if you're going clean, these are the 3 most important natural skin-care swaps to make first.