Daily Bruin – Page 120

Alternating extended hours at dining halls has potential to better serve students

UCLA never fails to boast about its award-winning dining options on the Hill.

It’s just a shame that some students can’t experience them.

With classes, club meetings and jobs, Bruins have busy schedules that make it difficult to return to the Hill during the standard hours of the four all-you-can-eat dining halls. These facilities are often open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and for dinner from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., except for Covel, which is open for an hour longer during lunch and dinner.

This means the many students who have midday classes or activities at night have to resign themselves to eating hummus or take-out for their substantial meals. Award-winning, all right.

But at the end of the day, undergraduates are paying large sums for their meal plans. Being provided with the same after-hours dining hall option each day isn’t good enough for these high prices. Students’ schedules might not always fit the regular dining hall hours – especially with the university seemingly pushing for morning and after-hours classes because of overcrowding – but that shouldn’t disadvantage them.

Students living on the Hill pay for UCLA Dining’s variety. The university should thus rotate which residential restaurants have extended hours to ensure Bruins who find themselves eating late can experience the nutritional variety they are charged for.

After all, the value of students’ meals plans stems from the fact that they can go to the four residential restaurants and have access to a cornucopia of food. The average swipe is worth around $8 and many food options at take-out restaurants are valued at less with EasyPay.

The residential restaurants are clearly the best deal on the Hill.

That is, if students have the chance to eat at them.

UCLA Dining, in an attempt to alleviate this problem, offers take-out options at restaurants like Bruin Cafe and Rendezvous. But when the dining halls close, these eateries clog up with student orders and can be time-consuming for students trying to grab a meal.

Alexxa Vasquez, a third-year cognitive science student, said she thinks dining halls are more accessible for students.

“When to-go places have really long lines, it is more of an inconvenience than a packed dining hall,” Vasquez said.

Not only that, but students’ meal plans include much more than to-go food and a Mediterranean dining hall with a reputation for bland food. To-go options don’t come close to the variety, nutritional value and monetary value that a dining hall provides, and students don’t pay tens of thousands in housing fees to eat at an unexciting dining hall when there are three others popping with tantalizing options.

Katherine Alvarado, a UCLA spokesperson, said Covel’s central location is one of the reasons it has extended hours, in addition to the amount of staff needed to operate it.

But students who have schedules that require them to eat late surely don’t mind traveling to a less-central dining hall if it means they can eat something worth their time and money.

Rotating which dining hall has extended hours is the least UCLA Dining can do to make good on its promise of high-quality food for its residents. Cycling between Feast at Rieber, Bruin Plate, De Neve and Covel would offer students the nutritional and monetary value they expect when they cough up money for their meal plans.

And students agree.

“Sometimes if I have late class, it wouldn’t be possible for me to eat at Bruin Plate, even though I would want to eat there, so I would say that rotation could be very good,” said Thomas Qu, a first-year chemistry student.

Similarly, Ian Price, a third-year history student, said rotating which restaurant has extended hours could serve students who don’t live near Covel or would like some variety.

It’s understandable there would be logistical concerns about increasing the number of staff to operate a dining hall for extended hours. But it’s hard to argue that a profitable department like UCLA Dining is incapable of moving staff around to meet a valid student need.

Moreover, students deserve better access to dining services. Lack of after-hours dining hall variety is just one in a list of student grievances about services they’re charged for but can’t take advantage of – a True Bruin Welcome concert with limited seats, a residential mailroom that opens only during peak class hours and a mental health facility students can barely book appointments for, to name a few.

It’s UCLA’s responsibility to ensure it is serving residents on the Hill to the best of its ability.

After all, awards and rankings are great. But they mean little when students can’t make use of them.

UC must address financial needs of students of color and low-income families

Low-income students face an uphill battle both ways: on their journey into higher education and on their way out.

A report published in March by the University of California Student Association and The Institute for College Access and Success showed student debt distribution was slanted toward students of color and of low-income families. The study found that two-thirds of dependent African-American, Chicano and Latino UC graduates from the 2017-2018 academic year had borrowed money, compared to only 40% of white graduates.

The disparity doesn’t stop there. Nearly 66% of graduates with family incomes less than $29,000 had borrowed money, compared to only 22% of graduates with family incomes totaling more than $173,000. UCLA graduates average the highest amount of debt across the nine UC campuses, with 42% of Bruins racking up about $22,300 in post-graduation payments.

The lack of state-provided, need-based financial aid and inadequate Cal Grant funding are partially responsible for these statistics.

But the UC’s financial aid programs are also to blame. While they are lauded as some of the country’s most generous, awarding aid to more than three-fourths of undergraduate students in 2017, many receiving funding are still forced to work through part-time jobs and student loans to pay the bills.

That’s because the UC doesn’t take into account the entirety of its students’ situations when considering them for financial aid. Family tax information and income are not enough to capture an individual’s socioeconomic status, and we’d be fooling ourselves if we thought campuses like UCLA provide enough aid to students in need.

The UC must retool and improve its approaches to financial aid to supplement disadvantaged students. It needs to employ a holistic interview process when considering students for financial aid, and must make use of alternative funding, like private donations, to fulfill its obligation to students.

The University has worked diligently to address debt issues faced by low-income students, said Amy Weitz, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President. It has been working to enhance Cal Grants on the state level and loan forgiveness efforts on the federal level, she said.

But this advocacy is insufficient. Tuition costs insidiously increase by small percentages each year. Housing fees for university apartments at UCLA have seen a 3.5% increase in the past year. The cost of living in California is on a nonstop upward trend. And campuses like UCLA are fine with using their $4.2 billion in private funding and endowments on athlete-exclusive academic centers when very little of it finds its way to low-income students.

Christina Sargsyan, a first-year psychobiology student, said taking out loans and finding a part-time job were the only way to cover the housing costs that her financial aid didn’t. Her part-time job prevents her from volunteering for clubs.

“While I enjoy my job, it does get in the way of things,” Sargsyan said. “Because of my job, I have to take 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. classes, which causes me to feel tired all the time even if I go to bed early.”

In other words, Sargsyan has been deprived of a full college experience because UCLA didn’t give her enough aid.

The troubling narrative this tells is that low-income students of color are groomed for a graduate life of searching for employment while struggling to keep up with loan repayments. These financial burdens prevent them from kickstarting their professional careers and building a life for themselves.

And it’s almost as if the UC has settled for this reality. It congratulates itself on how it manages to pull aid packages together, when really its students’ insufficient packages should signal otherwise.

The least the University can do for its students is ensure it is fully addressing their financial needs. A holistic interview process for financial aid would allow students to tell a story that can’t be told through an application mostly concerned with income numbers and statistics. Many top colleges require interviews for prospective students to get a better sense of their personality and character, so there’s certainly potential for financial aid officers to do the same in order to obtain a greater understanding of their students’ financial needs.

That’s especially pertinent given financial aid packages remain constant throughout the year, whereas financial situations don’t.

Jason de Leon, a first-year political science student, said the UC should interview students and their families about their financial situations to distribute the appropriate amount of aid.

“I think it can help them set up a more complete portfolio of the student’s financial situation and needs rather than just going off their tax information,” de Leon said.

That’s not to say the UC doesn’t provide aid to students – this is in no way a criticism of the reach of its financial aid programs. Rather, the hard truth is the aid the University provides is not enough.

The UC needs to walk a mile in the shoes of its economically disadvantaged students to understand the types of situations they come from and provide them more financial support in their pursuit of higher education.

Until then, those students will be forced to fight an uphill battle both in and out of college.

Documentary analyzes director’s complex family dynamics with unique flashback style

“Running Aground” navigates the choppy waters of the tense relationships within the director’s family.

Graduate directing student Jake O’Hare was inspired to create a documentary reenacting his changing family dynamics after learning about the sailing trips his father Scott, his aunt Sharon, his uncle Craig and his father’s alcoholic stepfather embarked on in the 1970s. O’Hare centered the film around these trips and the 50-year conflict between his aunt and grandmother. For “Running Aground,” O’Hare interviewed his family about these childhood adventures, casting actors to play 1970s versions of each of his family members.

During their trips, O’Hare said the siblings had to learn to take care of themselves – particularly because their alcoholic stepfather was unreliable. O’Hare said he used the series of trips to stitch together a coming-of-age tale that focuses on self-sufficiency.

“They never really spent time together as a family except when they were forced to go on these wacky, ‘Gilligan’s Island’ type of sailing adventures,” O’Hare said. “Sailing trips were the only place to showcase their relationships.”

Though the documentary is based on the three siblings, O’Hare said the film’s main arc highlights the relationship between his aunt and grandmother. The two initially lived together, but various conflicts caused his grandmother to move out, and their relationship has not been mended in 50 years, O’Hare said. Since the childhood sailing trips were years ago and there was little archival material of the siblings’ childhoods, O’Hare structured the documentary around the series of interviews with each of them. Since half a century had passed, he thought his family members would be willing to speak about their relationship troubles.

“It seemed like the right time to make a film about getting down to the bottom of a couple of fractured relationships in my family,” O’Hare said.

Though O’Hare said he has always had an interest in documentary and narrative filmmaking, he wanted to explore reenactment in a nontraditional way. The scenes taking place in the sailboat were based on factual interviews, but he said they were designed to look fantastical. For example, he said the team played around with constructing half of a boat, used blue fabric for water and maintained color consistency throughout eras, with his aunt wearing red in both the flashbacks and interviews. Additionally, O’Hare shot the scenes using 16 mm film to hearken back to older films.

“People will tell you you’re crazy to shoot on film because most think it’s a dead form,” O’Hare said. “But I wanted a feeling for some moments that we were back in the 1970s.”

web.ae.runningaground.TS.picB.jpg — O’Hare said he utilized design elements, such as harsh stage lighting along with the grainy film, to render the reenactment less realistically, which helps make the difficult topics, like alcoholism, more digestible for the audience.
(Tanmay Shankar/Daily Bruin)

The flashbacks’ dreamy design elements are meant to mimic real memories and help viewers hone in on the dynamics between characters, O’Hare said. Cinematographer David Marquez, a graduate student, said children remember events differently than adults, and the flashbacks are meant to dramatically mimic childhood memory. Harsh stage lighting along with grainy film rendered the reenactment less realistic, which helped make the difficult topics, such as alcoholism, more digestible for the audience, O’Hare said.

“The way that we stage everything, it looks fake,” Marquez said. “You don’t feel the hardship of the situation as much.”

O’Hare said casting his family members was no easy task. He found it strange and challenging to select a crew that would accurately portray his closest relatives. However, he eventually found 13-year-old Cruz Anthony to portray the 1970s version of his father, Scott. Cruz Anthony’s mother, Linda Anthony, read the script and said her son found the experience of filming the flashback scenes very rewarding. Additionally, she said the role of Scott particularly resonated with Cruz Anthony because both were old souls.

“Scott would take control of the situation and try to help people navigate the boat, because the adult wasn’t really in control,” she said. “Cruz (Anthony) liked the feeling of being the support system for the group.”

Creating a documentary that honored the perspectives of each family member while maintaining a story arc was difficult as well, O’Hare said. While interviewing people, he found they tended to remember the same events differently – which presented a challenge when trying to piece together a cohesive narrative.

“To a certain degree, you have to weigh some perspectives over others,” O’Hare said. “This is definitely the most meaningful documentary I’ve ever worked on; that goes without saying.”

O’Hare said he hopes to make a follow-up to this film intended just for his family, exploring more holistically the other perspectives and relationships between his relatives. It would contain more information from the family interviews to paint the broader picture of their evolving family dynamics, and would be longer than the 15-minute cut required for his class.

“The question at the end of the film is if relationships can be mended,” O’Hare said. “I would definitely love to keep filming and see if that question could be answered.”

Q&A: Singer Haley Reinhart talks inspiration for latest album, industry experiences

Haley Reinhart translated her love for AM radio into her newest album, “Lo-Fi Soul.”

The Los Angeles-based singer and voice actor released her fourth album, “Lo-Fi Soul” on March 27. Currently touring the U.S. on her “Lo-Fi Soul” tour, Reinhart will perform at The Roxy Theatre on Friday. While her album is a solo endeavor, she has worked with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox in covering songs such as Radiohead’s “Creep” in a jazz style, and currently voices a character on the Netflix series “F is for Family.”

Reinhart spoke to the Daily Bruin’s Olivia Bridgnell about the inspiration behind “Lo-Fi Soul” and her experiences in the music industry.

Daily Bruin: How is your new album different from your previous three albums?

Haley Reinhart: They’re all kind of crazy different transitions that I’ve made through my journey as an artist. So I feel like there are probably some similarities – definitely a streamline – between my first record, “Listen Up!,” and “Lo-Fi Soul,” … but I would say on my two original albums, “Listen Up!” and “Better,” you’ll definitely hear a lot of the same kind of, stylistically speaking, moves that I’ve made, because that’s just me. But I do feel like I’ve evolved a lot. So I’ve taken a lot of these different genres that I love so much and finally mixed them together in a way that I think really shows exactly who I am as an artist.

DB: Which song on the album do you think most exemplifies your goal to mix genres such as rock and roll, soul and jazz in one song?

HR: Those are the three genres that I would say define me. And if I had to pick one song, I might say “Shook” – actually between “Shook” and maybe “Lo-Fi Soul” because they both have a little of all of those. There is a little more guttural sound on “Shook” that could get a little more of that rocky edge thing. And (with) “Lo-Fi,” it’s just playing a lot with the lyrics, like maybe in more of a jazzy sense.

DB: What are some of your inspirations for this album in particular?

HR: So I’ve been listening to AM radio actually a lot in LA. It’s 1260 AM. I’ve just been reacquainting myself with the early ’60s and even like a doo-wop kind of sound. So I would kind of just wake up or be kind of lollygagging around town and taking a walk to a coffee shop or what have you, and I’d get these cool melodies in my head that, to me, hark back to even the ’50s. We’ve even taken a lot of these sounds and filtered them directly from my voice memos on my phone into the computer to these new recordings and kept them super lo-fi. And same goes for my little crappy piano playing, because I play mostly kind of the ’50s way. … So it was pretty neat to have a lot of say in how these recordings would go down and be that much more a part of the production process.

DB: You co-produced your last two albums, including “Lo-Fi Soul” and “What’s That Sound?,” right?

HR: Yeah, and honestly it’s interesting being a young woman in the industry. I’ll say it’s been that way for all of my records. You get to a certain point though, where you realize what you’re truly worthy of and that you’ve paid your dues and sang the blues long enough to demand that that be something that’s a title for you. So that’s what I’ve done – the last two records, it’s like, “Well hey, if I’m going to put in that much work and write a majority of these songs and have it be a co-written collaboration, then I should be getting the co-production collaboration.” … I’m just really grateful to not only work with amazing producers and songwriters but really to have them really respect me and understand … how much I am actually doing for all of these songs.

DB: Another big part of your career thus far has been collaborations with artists Postmodern Jukebox and Jeff Goldblum. So what is it like working with them?

HR: Yeah, I mean it’s been incredible watching how far and wide these videos have gotten across. It’s kind of fun to watch back – like a lot of fans send me reaction videos with different kinds of (critiques) and stuff. It’s truly a humbling experience to see people that are freaking out over the different takes that you do, (or) a version of a song that’s already been created. And somebody like Jeff Goldblum, he is just as fascinating a person as he is an actor. What you see is what you get. He’s never really putting anything on – he’s just as wacky and fascinated by the world as he appears to be. And he’s really giving with his time so I think that it was really cool that he reached out to me – his team. And we literally met and rehearsed the song once, then we recorded it … with a live audience. And there’s things like these that are just lightning in a bottle and like magic.

RefineLA goes beyond reselling clothes, promotes free expression of social issues

Nga Mai’s graphic design depicts a lone fisherman sailing on a nearly empty ocean; despite the lack of fish left in the sea, his boat is piled with them.

The fourth-year biology student submitted her piece to an art competition conducted by RefineLA, a thrift shop founded by UCLA students. RefineLA opened during spring quarter 2018. Minh Mai, a third-year economics student and RefineLA’s founder, said their first shop mainly consisted of clothes from her own closet. RefineLA’s main goal is promoting sustainable fashion, but Minh Mai said the team is passionate about addressing other social issues, such as homelessness. The business’ recent art competition was its first step toward creating a community in which people can share their own ideas about social change, Minh Mai said.

For example, Nga Mai said her graphic design represents inequality in resource consumption. She said the fisherman in the sea symbolizes the idea that some people have more food than they need. The image is illustrated inside a black square frame, surrounded by a white border depicting hands grabbing for the frame to represent all those without access to food.

“We always forget that each person is a human being and we kind of devalue their existence by saying there’s so many people,” Nga Mai said. “A lot of the times, these communities that don’t have access to food are underserved and underrepresented.”

Another art competition submission, titled “Automation,” draws attention to a different subject than most of the other pieces, Minh Mai said. Andrew Zhou, a first-year computer science student, submitted a computer graphic to the competition that highlights humans losing jobs to advanced technology like robots. The piece portrays a human face with a robot hand holding a globe on a black background. The shading over the image changes from red to blue, representing a shift from a human-based to robot-based society.

Minh Mai said submissions such as Zhou’s highlight the concept that everyone has different perspectives and different issues they care about. RefineLA required each artist to submit a paragraph describing the meaning behind their piece for the competition. The first, second and third place winners’ pieces are already posted on RefineLA’s Instagram profile. Minh Mai said the company will upload the rest of the submitted artwork and paragraphs on their website and also will open a free submission option on their page.

“Instead of becoming a brand that’s kind of forcing something onto you like, ‘This is our message, take it,’ we’re a community of students that all cares about something different,” Minh Mai said. “(The art competition) is one way we’re tackling the issue.”

RefineLA also hosts a blog where content writer Annie Lieu discusses topics such as the brand’s main mission of promoting sustainable fashion, said Sonam Beckham, RefineLA’s co-founder. The third-year political science student said the thrift pop-up shops, blog and art competition work in a complementary manner to focus on promoting sustainability and raising awareness about social issues.

Beckham said the business currently sets up its monthly pop-up shops on campus or at the founders’ apartments in an effort to be accessible to students. She said the prices of items, which consist mostly of women’s clothing, range from $2 to $8. At the shops, the RefineLA team also likes to discuss how students can live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. For example, Beckham said they suggest nearby eco-friendly stores and may also write about sustainable food on the blog in the future.

“I think at UCLA, we have a large population that wants to be more eco-friendly and conscious but doesn’t know how to be,” Beckham said.

RefineLA might expand to sell clothes online in addition to the pop-up shops on campus and at their apartments, Beckham said. The venture is named RefineLA because Beckham said their goal has always been to start at UCLA and expand to the greater Los Angeles area. In addition to going online, Minh Mai said the company has considered becoming a social enterprise, which would maximize social impact and incur profit. Beckham says UCLA students can make an impact by selling their clothes instead of throwing them away to be eco-friendly and to help other students.

“The pop-up shop and the art competition – they’re kind of for the students,” Beckham said. “That’s kind of how we wanted it to be – for students to feel like they have a place where they can express sustainability or express issues that they’ve seen in the everyday and where they can also tackle it.”

Two UCLA buildings potentially exposed to measles, one student infected

This post was updated May 2 at 3:51 p.m.

All UCLA students and faculty who were quarantined for possible exposure to measles last week have been released from quarantine as of Thursday.
The students and faculty were cleared after they verified their vaccination history or after they were deemed no longer to be at risk for contracting measles, administrative vice chancellor Michael Beck said in an email statement. There are no more known cases of exposure or infection at UCLA, he added.

UCLA was identified as a site for possible measles exposure April 22, according to a press release from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

One hundred and nineteen students and eight faculty members were quarantined by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on April 24 until they could provide immunization records, according to a university press release. The number had dropped to 46 students Friday. By Sunday, only one student living on campus was still under quarantine, and 27 were still isolating themselves in off-campus housing, according to another university press release.

The number of individuals quarantined has dropped to 46 as of Friday, said UCLA spokesperson Ricardo Vasquez. Only one student living on campus is still under quarantine, according to another university press release.

An infected UCLA student attended classes in Franz Hall on April 2, 4 and 9 and in Boelter Hall between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on April 2 and 9. The student did not enter any other buildings at UCLA. Although there is no current known risk at these locations, officials are looking for people who may have been at the sites during those times.

UCLA is working to notify all students, faculty and staff who might have come in contact with the student, Vasquez said. Those people will be provided with detailed information about treatment and prevention.

Health workers contacted more than 500 people who might have been exposed to the virus at UCLA. Seventy-nine students and professors still had not provided proof of vaccination as of Thursday, according to a Los Angeles Times article. Those who could not provide immunization records may be quarantined for up to seven days on campus, according to an email statement from Chancellor Gene Block.

Public Health officials located five cases of measles in Los Angeles County. The majority of the people in these cases were unvaccinated. Other potential exposed areas include Los Angeles International Airport, Long Beach Airport, an El Pollo Loco restaurant in La Cañada Flintridge and California State University, Los Angeles.

Measles symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose and rash, and typically occur 10 to 21 days after initial exposure, according to the press release. Many adults born before 1989 have not had the recommended two rounds of measles vaccination. Officials suggest that those people contact their doctors to receive a second dose immediately.

The Quad: Consider clean cosmetics to cut out possible carcinogens in your everyday life

Formaldehyde is a key ingredient in embalming dead bodies.

But the chemical’s uses don’t end there. Formaldehyde can be released by substances found in a number of cosmetics, including hair and skin care products.

Toxic ingredients from coal tar to those that release formaldehyde – a compound linked to cancer – are regularly used in deodorants, lotions, makeup, and perfumes – but our country’s regulations on them are surprisingly limited.

Teniope Adewumi-Gunn, a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, has conducted research on the use of cosmetic products and their effects on salon workers, and she said she is working to make changes on the policy level regarding safer cosmetics.

“Unfortunately, cosmetics are under-tested and under-regulated, so what we are seeing on the research end when looking at the ingredients in these products is a lot of adverse effects,” Adewumi-Gunn said.

Some important toxins she said people ought to look out for are phthalates, heavy metals and fragrance.

While the Food and Drug Administration requires cosmetics be safe, it does not require any type of testing for these products, as it does with drugs, and the question of what qualifies as safe is often ambiguous. When cosmetic products are tested, they are often only short-term studies that check for an irritable or allergic reaction from the product. Many of the long-term effects of cosmetic products on the market are unknown because the products are solely evaluated for short-term effects.

Due to the United States’ leniency when it comes to regulations, many possible carcinogens make their way into everyday cosmetic products.

However, there are a variety of groups that attempt to mitigate the use of dangerous substances in cosmetics.

One such group is the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to diminish the toxins in the environment and to educate consumers so that they may make informed decisions on the products that they are using and eating.

The EWG rates cosmetics based on a number of hazardous factors, including cancer, developmental and reproductive toxicity, allergies, and immunotoxicity, which is the effect to the immune system when it is exposed to dangerous chemicals. Each product is then given an overall score based on these concerns.

According to the EWG, teenage girls use 17 cosmetic products a day on average. Additionally, a study found that because of the daily use of cosmetics, adolescent girls have a number of toxins in their bodies, many of which can be hormone disrupting. Girls often begin experimenting with cosmetics around puberty, and links have been found between some ingredients and endocrine disruption. These dangers are not limited to women, as altered hormone levels and sperm damage have been linked to cosmetic products used by men as well.

The toxins used in cosmetic products include phthalates, which are industrial plasticizers, preservatives and several other toxic ingredients. The EWG provides a comprehensive list of ingredients to avoid, and the potential dangers associated with each.

In Europe, 1,328 chemicals have been banned in cosmetics, while in the US only 30 have been banned. This discrepancy comes from the lack of long-term data collected by the FDA and its lack of comprehensive testing when it comes to cosmetics.

Isabel Schulte, a second-year chemical engineering student, is the founder of Unravel, a sustainable fashion club at UCLA. In addition to overlooking Unravel, she is also doing research through the UCLA Grand Challenges program, which is about sustainability in supply chains, and works to educate students on the dangers of toxins in clothing and beauty products.

“The chemical impact aspect is something that is very unique to clothing and beauty and is difficult to quantify, unlike greenhouse gases or water use, because different amounts of different chemicals are harmful and those are very hard to go through and quantify, which also makes it hard to regulate,” Schulte said.

Students often use products that are popular or more economically feasible instead of products with clean ingredients because they are not as widespread.

“If the clean products are a similar price to those that I use, I would be willing to try them,” said Elliott Santos, a second-year psychology student.

Schulte said she suggests that students who may not be able to afford clean products look up recipes for DIY cosmetics such as lotions and deodorants, which can be easily made in a kitchen. She also points to the fact that the UCLA student store is starting to expand its selection of clean options that are affordable.

Adewumi-Gunn suggested using apps such as GoodGuide and Think Dirty, which allow you to search for products and to see what ingredients could be potentially harmful.

“It is about educating people and then having folks make informed decisions. If you are educated on the dangers of the product and still choose to use it, you are making an informed decision,” Adewumi-Gunn said.