Beauty Brands Bet on Purity as Pollution Anxiety Rises
Source: Vogue
As air quality monitoring goes mainstream and environmental dread enters everyday conversation, beauty companies are launching filtration masks, detox serums, and air-purifying skincare. The category monetizes pollution anxiety by reframing an external environmental failure as an individual skincare problem. It assumes consumers will spend premium prices on protective products rather than demand systemic change, effectively privatizing what should be a public health responsibility and creating a new permanent expense category around managing polluted air.