When shopping for cosmetics and skincare products, we spend a lot of time talking about what these products can do for us, but one subject we don’t spend a lot of time discussing is what the companies we’re supporting are doing to help others.

The answer is quite a lot. So many cosmetic companies give (and give big) to charities that we can only scratch the surface and look at a handful of them in the space we have here.

Proctor & Gamble

Proctor & Gamble (the company that owns Cover Girl and Max Factor) recently launched a campaign to benefit the Special Olympics. The company offered discounts on three dozen brands, with an added enticement: for every coupon redeemed during the promotion period, it agreed to give ten cents - up to $750,000 – to the Special Olympics. After the cap was reached, P&G asked retailers to make their own grants, and then matched those, for a total of $1.25 million raised.

Estee Lauder

In the 13 years since introducing the world to the pink ribbon, the Lauder companies (which include Clinique, M.A.C., Aveda, Bobbi Brown, and Rodan + Fields to name a few) have helped raise $117 million - $13 million of that through cosmetics sales - for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, a charity established by Evelyn Lauder to fund the search for a cure.

Avon Products
From 1992 through 2005, the Avon Foundation has raised and donated more than $400 million in 50 countries worldwide for breast cancer medical research, access to treatment, screening, support services and education. In addition, Avon has also raised over $7 million for families and children of those lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and over $3 million for families of military service personnel lost or wounded in Iraq and other armed conflict - as well as for a unique new state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility, the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas.

L’Oreal

The L’Oreal family includes such popular brands as Maybelline, Kiehl`s, Lancôme and the Body Shop and supports national charitable organizations like Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, AIDS prevention, Look Good... Feel Better, Work Your Image, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, and Women in Need. The Body Shop alone has donated nearly $16 million to groups that include the National Missing Persons Helpline, the Big Issue, Body & Soul, Children on the Edge, the Amazon Co-Op and NAPAC to name but a few.

Revlon

Over the last 15 years, Revlon has donated over $25 million to cancer researchers and activists. In addition to these donations, their annual runs and walks for women have raised an additional $37 million for health research and counseling. Revlon also generously supports New York Women in Film & Television and the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

Mary Kay

In 1996 Mary Kay Ash founded the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, an organization that raises money to help find cures for women’s related cancers, such as breast cancer. Along with this support for cancer research, the foundation also supports a number of women’s shelters and educates women of the dangers of domestic violence.  In 2005 alone, the Foundation awarded $4.7 million to support its causes.

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