Eco-consultant Mazey Heydman keeps it light on Instagram. Between posts featuring her famous dumpster-diving, highlighting the problems of plastic, she also uploads gorgeous images from her regular hikes through the mountains. But the humor and positivity exuding from every post has a purpose - to lead change through action.
“Seven years ago, when I started planning my own salon I got very caught up in how much waste we produced as an industry,” adds Mazey, who witnessed the extent of the problem in the various salons where she’d worked before. “I did tons of research, but Oklahoma is very conservative and even though Oklahoma City is pretty forward-thinking, recycling is limited.”
It took time but eventually she found companies that would recycle or repurpose her waste.
“That’s when my ‘dumpster-diving’ really started and I set up my consultancy and waste removal service,” she says.
She became an expert on every piece of waste produced by her salon to ensure it was disposed of properly. She also offered her guests a take-back program to ensure the plastic that left her salon didn’t end up in the landfill. Soon other owners keen to be more responsible started asking her what they could do and she began doing it for them.
“It’s a great way to start the conversation and make people aware of how much waste we produce and where it goes. I really believe once they understand how much is unnecessarily being thrown into landfill, they won’t ever go back to just throwing everything in the trash,” she adds. “And for some salons local to mine I make it even easier by coordinating responsible disposal for them.”
Her activities have brought her into contact with some like-minded people, such as Sustain Beauty Co, but also The Salon Chair Guys’ Daniel Johnson, Salonvironment founder Hannah Craik and Jacquelyn Rodriguez, the holistic salon owner behind The Clean Beauty Biz Coach. It’s catapulted her awareness about other downsides to the industry beyond waste.
“I’ve discovered that the products I once used contain – still contain – endocrine disruptors, which affect hormones and can cause birth defects and miscarriages,” says Mazey, who has personal experience of this, having suffered three miscarriages. “These chemicals are banned in Europe but here the FDA doesn’t regulate things the same way. There are no checks and balances; we are called consumers, not citizens, and we are left to find out for ourselves. But that takes time,” she explains. “That’s why these companies get away with it.”
But Mazey is determined to platform safer alternatives and practices so others can make informed choices. She has joined with Daniel, Hannah and Jacquelyn to launch the Green Beauty Community, to “Inspire, Educate & Empower”. It’s an agnostic organization that will use education and advocacy to promote change at the very heart of the industry and lobby for more responsible regulations to protect professionals, their clients and the planet.
And they will keep going, she vows, until every professional is safe and their children have a future. No one should endanger themselves, their current or future families or their clients by being forced to use products full of unsafe chemicals.
