AHAVA is an Israeli cosmetics company whose luxury products, like bath salts and botanical skin care, have long been sought-after commodities for visitors to Israel. Although the products are now widely available, AHAVA and its beauty and skincare products like mineral mud from the Dead Sea still hold intrigue for consumers. The company claims a commitment to environmental responsibility and doesn’t test on animals. Its name even means ‘love’ in Hebrew. Aside from caveats about how cosmetic companies target women and make them feel that they need to continually buy products to fix manufactured and/or imagined flaws, and then profit from women’s insecurities, AHAVA sounds like pretty nice company, right?

Unfortunately, behind its statements of environmental consciousness and message of love, AHAVA is hiding a dirty secret: although its products say “Made in Israel,” its plant is in the occupied West Bank. That means that the Dead Sea Mineral Mud is made from exploited natural resources – AHAVA is appropriating the mud from the Dead Sea and passing it off as an Israeli product. Under the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for an occupying force to take from or profit from the natural resources of the occupied country. AHAVA’s products are illegally made and sold: they are stolen goods.

This week, CODEPINK Women for Peace launched its Stolen Beauty campaign to address AHAVA’s business practices and lies. CODEPINK wants the public to know that there is nothing loving about what AHAVA is doing to Palestine. With events across the nation and the world, the Stolen Beauty campaign encourages peace activists to ask local stores who sell AHAVA to stop stocking the company’s products, and to build a boycott movement of AHAVA. Stolen Beauty is CODEPINK’s contribution to the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and to support human rights for Palestinians.

There have already been several high-profile actions worldwide: during a Gaza delegation, CODEPINK activists investigated for themselves the AHAVA factory and staged the first protest in a spa in Tel-Aviv’s Hilton Hotel. There have since been actions at a Tel-Aviv beach event in Central Park, NYC, at a cosmetics trade event in Las Vegas, and local actions at upscale beauty salons in Washington DC and Santa Monica. A group in Paris, France also staged a demonstration at the Champs-Elysées Sephora. You can see pictures and videos from these actions here .

Check out CODEPINK’s campaign at www.stolenbeauty.org to learn more and to find out how to stage your own local action.

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July 30, 2009 3:27 PM

[0+]  earwicga.wordpress.com said:

Thank you for posting this. CODEPINK are a wonderful organisation with an absolutely vital and important message. Much like FreeGaza. Usually it is media messages that are run, but this campaign is a solid one which will hopefully have an effect on invaders illegally operating a factory on occupied land.

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July 31, 2009 11:43 AM

[0+]  grrrl_revolution replied to earwicga.wordpress.com :

Thanks! Please check out the media around our action in DC and feel free to call the stores directly to ask them to remove AHAVA products!

http://jezebel.com/5326281/the-pink-ladies

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3754920,00.html

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August 1, 2009 7:30 PM

[0+]  allegra said:

Mmm. This is a big problem with so many luxury consumer products, including diamonds, that are basically looted from an occupied people's land (the reason I plan to never own a diamond or a diamond wedding ring). In addition to AHAVA, I'd like to see more voices speaking out against the wedding industry, where the woman's diamond ring has become almost obligatory in the American mind.

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