Current Challenges and Opportunities for Circular Economy in the Beauty Industry. A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract The beauty industry contributes not only to the pollution of the environment, because of the improper disposal of packaging, but to the users’ health as well, due to the harmful ingredients, which are used to mass-produce beauty and personal care products. Although sustainability has become an imperative worldwide, this industry still fails to adhere to such norms if we pay attention to the large volumes of plastic and the exaggerated impulse to buy without actually needing, which is a behavior driven by actual consumerism. This paper aims to disclose the current state of research in the academic field of circular economy in the beauty industry, by investigating the contributing authors, organizations and countries and the networks created until now, as a stepping stone for future research. By performing a bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer software, it was found out that the current literature is not very rich in publications on the integration of circular economy in the beauty sector, mainly because the topic started to be of interest in the recent years with the most productive publication year being 2022. Our research shows that authors from countries like India, China, Indonesia, Italy and the United States have contributed to the literature by touching topics revolving around sustainability in cosmetics and beauty products and innovations regarding a clean development of such products. However, the theme of circular economy in the creation of a clean and safe beauty industry still needs attention from academics in order to fully attain sustainable development goals.