Beauty, sustainability, and women’s advocacy: the Green Glam Club’s three ambitious goals to make a difference in the community. 

As club sign-ups began at the beginning of the school year at Tamalpais High School, an exciting new club made the list, advocating for education on sustainability in the beauty industry. The Green Glam Club was formed by juniors Maya Hodus, Louise McGinness, and Mia Wong at Tam High. All three leaders have a genuine passion for beauty and advocacy. 

Their first goal is beauty, to educate about the safety of makeup products, and make you feel beautiful in the process.

“We got inspired by our love for beauty products, and also wanting to make them sustainable to make a difference in our community through the lens of beauty and makeup,” McGinness said.

Cosmetic products are known to be historically under-regulated, prompting the club to tackle this issue by raising awareness of possibly dangerous chemicals in these products. 

“Makeup products and makeup companies can put whatever they want in these products and they’re not required to get approval from anywhere,” Hodus said. 

The Federal Drug and Administration (FDA) does not approve cosmetics before they are released to the public for purchase. 

According to the FDA’s website, the FDA “does not have the legal authority to approve cosmetics before they go on the market,” excluding coal tar hair dyes. 

Cosmetics are, however, FDA-regulated. According to the FDA, these products can’t be “adulterated” or “misbranded” and must be safe for consumers according to the directions provided on the packaging, which must be properly labeled. 

“We’re trying to educate people on what we are putting on your face because you don’t know what’s in these products, and a lot of it is not great for you, or for the world,” Hodus said. 

The Green Glam Club’s second goal is sustainability. The beauty industry produces a massive amount of waste from packaging alone, most of which are non-recyclable plastics. 

“We recently got some [public relation] packages from sustainable beauty brands and we’re working on promoting those on our Instagram and giving them out to our club members so they can try them out themselves,” McGinness said. “Sustainability doesn’t have to be boring, it can be interesting, and fun, and pretty.”

In addition to the packages they have received, the club’s members will be working together to produce their own sustainable products. The club’s first production day will include making some homemade blushes, sugar scrubs, and lip balm. There will also be a fundraising day at The Depot where they will sell those products, McGinness said

“It’s a very exciting club in general. Just the meetings alone, I mean there’s a very nice energy in the classroom,” Green Glam Club advisor Arielle Lehmann said. “It’s so neat to focus on a topic that is interesting, that people care about.”

The club’s final goal is women’s advocacy. The profits from the products they produce and sell as a club will be put to a good cause. 

“We’re donating any profits from our products that we’re making to women’s shelters and organizations to help women,” Hodus said. 

Overall the Tam community has accepted this new club with open arms. 

“We’ve had a really positive reaction [from the community],” McGinness said. “It’s been really rewarding to see people join and contribute.”

The club welcomes everyone into the community, the majority of which are young women. Although focused mainly towards women, the leaders highlighted the importance of everyone feeling welcome, and that makeup is not exclusive to one gender. 

“It’s a very inclusive and fun place for everyone,” club attendee Canyon Sallady said. “[The leaders] were actually ready to make change, which is really cool to see.”

Together, Hodus, Wong, and McGuinness are working to achieve big goals in order to make a difference in the beauty community and to prove, according to McGinness, that “Beauty and makeup can be empowering.”