Sunday 18 May 2014

WHY WE SHOULD ALL USE NATURAL ORGANIC BEAUTY PRODUCTS


You will regularly hear from the green/holistic beauty world that what we put on our skin is absorbed and enters into our bloodstream. 

Then there are others who say that the skin acts as a great barrier to keep out chemicals, and they do not enter our bloodstream.

Errr hello... what about things like nicotine patches and hormone patches?  These are all medications that are absorbed through the skin, so why would we not absorb the chemicals that we find in our moisturisers, shampoos, deodorant etc? And what about things like Castor oil packs? There are many people who use these to help break up scar tissue (among other things) and it works because the oil gets absorbed into the body.

What if we are poisoning ourselves everyday little by little, all in the name of beauty?

My personal opinion is that we are being bombarded enough in our day to day to lives with chemicals, from household cleaning products, plastic water bottles, to even our food! So what we choose to put on our skin in the name of beauty needn't add unnecessary chemicals to the mix. I think its smart to err on the side of caution, and in my mind it makes sense that if we wouldn't be happy to ingest some of these chemicals then we should really be questioning whether we want to be slathering them all over skin.

Just like the food industry, i think the mainstream beauty industry is more out to serve itself then serve us. Why do so many of these products contain potentially hazardous ingredients? Simple. They are cheap, easy to manufacture and market. 

When we talk about Organic beauty products, what we mean is using skin products made of plant derived ingredients along with some other naturally occurring ingredients. These ingredients are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, GMO and so on. 

Check out this brilliant video. 


Thankfully, the green beauty market today offers a wide variety of choice for conscious consumers, and there are many wonderful green beauty brands.
So what are some of the ingredients we should we avoiding? check this list below of the "Dirty Dozen" and have a look to see how many of your current beauty products contain any of these.
Source is this, read there also for more information.

Top tips to transition to natural/organic beauty products:

    Don't switch out everything at once - take one product a a time. A lot of the makeup i use is still not 'natural', this is where i have struggled the most, but I'm not getting stressed or overly paranoid about this, as I'm trying to do the best i can!

    Know where to look! Where i live there are no shops that sell organic, natural beauty products so i tend to order a lot of products from the internet. The online shops that i like and have personally ordered from are Content Beauty, Love Lula, & Naturisimo. I'm sure there are many others, so have a little search around.

    Try out DIY beauty recipes, there are so may blogs/websites which you can look to for inspiration and ideas. I love to whip up a DIY face mask from time to time, not only is it cheaper it's fun!

    Rate your current beauty products. Head on over to this website, Environmental Working Group (EWG) to rate your current beauty products toxicity levels. You might be surprised!

    Be aware of "fake" organic beauty products, as consumers we are walking into a marketing minefield! Finding real organic beauty products is actually much more difficult than buying organic food. Any foods items labelled organic must be certified as organic. However with beauty products its a very different story! It is not mandatory for a product to be certified organic to use the word organic in the product name! This is why its key to educate ourselves to avoid these deceitful products. Don't be conned by the use of clever wording on the product, buzzwords such as 'natural' 'eco' 'green' 'organic' 'naturally derived'. Companies love to use words like this, as they know that nowadays, more than ever consumers are demanding cleaner beauty products, as we become more aware of what we are putting on our bodies. Be sure to always whip the product around and have a look at the actual ingredients list!

    An  organic certification on a product label is also a good way to guarantee the integrity of a product.Without certification, a product can contain one or two organic and natural ingredients and then the rest might be chemicals or synthetically derived compounds. Certified organic products must contain a minimum of £95% of organic ingredients.
    Here are some of the most recognised certification logos, and it is certainly not all of them.Every country has its own organic standards, and there is no international standard, so do a little homework before you decide to spend your money on organic beauty products!


    Since switching to natural organic skincare, my skin has really reaped the benefits. I never did get on with commercial drugstore skincare items, as they never really did anything for my skin, oh apart from give me clogged pores mostly!

    It really makes sense to me that our bodies not only use the nutrients through the food we eat, but also through what we put on our skin. I don't know about you, but i don't want to be putting nasty chemicals, and cheap fillers on my skin!

    I really feel that by choosing natural organic products i am giving my the skin the real nourishment it needs.

    What are your thoughts on organic beauty products? Have you made the switch yet? I love to hear what you think. 






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