10th May 2019
by Grace Browne
My first encounter with Benefit Cosmetics was when I was 14 years old. I was gifted with a glossy Benefit box during the Christmas of 2010. Disguised as a book entitled ‘How To Look The Best At Everything’ and filled with primer, powder and concealer, Benefit Cosmetics with their pretty packaging made a lasting impact on my teenage self. Nine years later at the age of 22, I am still as infatuated with Benefit as I was at 14. I currently use their ‘Dandelion Bright Finishing Powder’ and the ‘Bad Gal Lash Mascara’. Their packaging is idyllic, their makeup counters are dream-like. It’s easy to understand how so many young girls, just as I was, are in love and influenced by the brand. This understanding makes the revelation that Benefit Cosmetics aims to pour their funds into one of the largest abortion chains in the world even more disturbing.
In March of this year, Benefit Cosmetics announced that they will be bankrolling their profits to Planned Parenthood, which specialises in ending the lives of an average of 320,000 innocent humans each year. Each May, Benefit donates 100% of brow wax profits to their Bold is Beautiful Project, which aims to ‘empower women and girls’. This May, proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood, with Benefit stating that they aim to raise $6 million for the abortion giant. The cosmetic brand have even released a special-edition Bold is Beautiful 3D BROWtones product with all proceeds pocketed by Planned Parenthood.
The reality of what Planned Parenthood does, is hard to hide. The abortion chain specialises in poisoning, suctioning or dismembering to death an average of 320,000 humans each year and have currently been caught up in a spiral of alleged scandals including ‘selling baby body parts.’
Ironically (and chillingly), Benefit started donating to Planned Parenthood just two months after they employed Kate Grant, a model with Down’s Syndrome, as their Brand Ambassador. The decision to employ Kate was hailed by many as a step forward for inclusivity and broadening beauty ‘standards.’ However, bankrolling a chain that happily kills over 90% of babies possibly diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome hardly fits with this ‘inclusive policy’. Benefit has pledged their support to an organisation that is designed to weed out and kill those humans deemed ‘imperfect’, the same as their own Beauty Ambassador.
Furthermore, the abortion industry as a whole is not just violently anti-life, it is blatantly anti- woman. There are an estimated 160 million missing girls from our world today. Babies have been disproportionately targeted and killed in the womb, specifically for having the audacity to be female. Abortion is being used as a physical tool to weed out the female population. And Benefit Cosmetics, a brand aimed towards young girls and women is bankrolling the very industry actively involved in such behaviour.
It is saddening, yet not surprising, to witness an alliance between the abortion and cosmetic industries. They are industries which hide a sinister interior behind a glossy exterior - and which use similar rhetoric - in telling women that they aren’t strong enough, that they aren’t good enough. And that their solutions will make their ‘imperfect’ lives perfect.
It is saddening to look beneath the glossy packaging and dreamy makeup counters and witness the truth. It is even sadder to look upon the entire generations of young and impressionable girls, who will not know to look past the beauty and glitz and glam and see the lives sacrificed at the expense of vanity and charm.
What You Can Do
Boycott Benefit Cosmetics.
Send your name to: grace@spucscotland.org to join the petition below against Benefit's decision.
Grace Browne
Eden Linton
Alison Robinson
Elizabeth Clare
Thomas McCourt
Michael Robinson
Esther Mannell
B. McClenaghan
Elain Gallacher
Margaret McDade
Patricia Burns
Patricia Armstrong Egan
Kate McNamara
Tony Mullett
Tess Bowen
Laura Szpruch
Louise Grant
Margaret Akers