Why not both.

To start a change you need to vote with your wallet.

To make it law you need to vote in your ballot

“Why not” in this case because you have no clue which products have or don’t have these compounds, and whether any alternatives exist.

I go way out of my way to buy products that are specifically branded as free of e.g. PFAS, like in shampoos, but these “loudly branded” alternatives don’t exist in most categories.

Buying lobbyists works. You may need a few years or a few more decades to realize your other claims also don't work because the system has been completely gamed by vested interests.

I would argue that it is actually the only thing that works, and the "real" vote is just for shows. You kinda agree with that in your last sentence. I don't think "real" voting works because it just reflects the aggregate of people's choices on a single variable. But your choices in life are an almost infinite number of variables and they almost always involve money/ressources. It's gotta be a more effective reflection when you consider the aggregate.

But anyway, in this case, I think the outrage is completely blown out of proportion and it probably isn't as bad as they make it out to be. It reads like a propaganda campaign from some government employed scientist that want funding to research the subject. I mean we should put some funds into it, but they have to give really hard results that it is actually a problem. So far everything on the subject is rather elusive and surface level. They use a lot of flowery language but not a whole lot of hard data...