Impacts of health and environmental consciousness on young female consumers' attitude towards and purchase of natural beauty products

This study investigated young female consumers' beauty product shopping behavioural patterns, their perceived importance of product attributes, and their attitude towards and purchase of natural beauty products. This study also examines whether consumers' product attitudes and shopping behaviours are influenced by their health and environmental consciousness. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 210 female college students enrolled at a south‐eastern university in the US. In order to examine the impacts of both health and environmental consciousness on other selected variables, the respondents were divided into four groups based on their scores on the two variables, and a series of analysis of variance were conducted to compare characteristics of the four groups. The results showed that health and environmental consciousness significantly influenced the importance placed on beauty product attributes. Additionally, those with a high level of both health and environmental consciousness were significantly more positive in their evaluations than those with low scores on both variables in their perceptions of natural beauty products. Those with low scores on both variables were significantly less willing than the other groups to pay more for natural beauty products. Analysis of variance results also indicated that the two groups with a high level of environmental consciousness purchased natural beauty products more frequently than those with a low level of health and environmental consciousness, indicating a relatively stronger impact of environmental consciousness than health consciousness on frequency of natural beauty product purchases. Health and environmental consciousness were both significantly related to a respondent's perceived level of knowledge of beauty products and ability to distinguish natural from conventional beauty products.