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If you’ve watched The Plastic Detox on Netflix recently, you already know this conversation has gone mainstream. And if the documentary sent you straight to your bathroom cabinet to start reading labels, you’re not alone.
Microplastics in personal care products is a topic that’s been building in scientific circles for years. The documentary just brought it to the dinner table. Here’s what it means, why it matters, and exactly where Nectar Life stands on it.
What The Plastic Detox Got People Thinking About
The documentary follows six couples navigating unexplained infertility as they work to reduce their daily exposure to plastics and plastic-associated chemicals. It features researchers and epidemiologists who have spent careers studying what these substances do inside the body, and the findings are hard to look away from.
One of the key areas it covers is personal care products. According to the documentary, skin can absorb a significant portion of the chemicals it comes into contact with, which means what you put on your body matters just as much as what you eat or breathe. Cosmetics and bath products have historically been formulated with plastic-derived ingredients that, when rinsed off, enter waterways and ecosystems that can’t filter them out.
It’s a lot to sit with. But it’s also a good prompt to ask better questions about the products in your routine.
What Are Microplastics, Exactly?
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles, generally less than five millimeters in size. In beauty and personal care products, they’ve historically appeared as microbeads, tiny plastic exfoliating particles used in scrubs and cleansers because they were cheap, consistent, and effective. They also show up as plastic-derived ingredients used to give products a smooth, skin-coating texture or a longer shelf feel.
The problem is what happens after you rinse them off. They pass through water treatment systems that weren’t designed to catch particles that small and end up in oceans, waterways, and eventually the food chain. They’ve been found in fish, in drinking water, and increasingly in human blood and tissue.
Some countries have banned microbeads in rinse-off products. But regulations vary, enforcement is inconsistent, and not every plastic-derived ingredient falls neatly into existing legislation. Which is why we think waiting for regulations to catch up isn’t good enough.
Where Nectar Life Stands
All of our bath and body products are microplastic-free. That’s not something we decided recently. It’s been part of our clean ingredient commitment since we started making products.
When we look at a formula and ask whether every ingredient belongs there, microplastics don’t make the cut. Not because a regulation required us to remove them. Because they don’t align with what we believe a product should be: genuinely good for your skin, and responsible about what it leaves behind.
For our scrubs, that meant using natural exfoliants that do the job just as well. Sugar crystals, sea salt, ingredients you can actually recognize. Your skin gets the result. The waterways don’t pay for it.
We also don’t use parabens, sulfates, or phthalates across our bath and body line. The same thinking applies to all of it: if an ingredient raises questions we can’t answer confidently, it doesn’t belong in our products.
Why This Matters for Your Routine
You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. The conversation around microplastics can feel overwhelming, especially after watching something like The Plastic Detox. But the documentary makes a useful point: small, consistent changes add up.
Your bath and body routine is actually one of the more straightforward places to start. The products you use in the shower rinse directly off your skin and into the water system. Choosing products that are microplastic-free means you’re making a cleaner choice for your skin and a more responsible one for what comes after.
That’s a swap worth making and one you don’t have to think twice about when you’re choosing Nectar Life.
The Standard We Hold Ourselves To
We make our products in small batches because it lets us be deliberate about every ingredient that goes in. Microplastic-free, paraben-free, sulfate-free, phthalate-free. Not as a marketing checklist, but because we genuinely believe the products you use every day should be something you feel good about.
The Plastic Detox is worth watching if you haven’t already. And when you’re ready to take a closer look at what’s in your shower, we’ll be here.
