Hi Lovelies,
Welcome back! And welcome if You are new here xo
How are all of You, I hope You are well? Today I want to talk about a few things, including how and why I have started using natural products – decade and a half ago. Before internet & apps existed, before green beauty movement even took place. No kidding. Also, tips for everyone who is new to this.
If this is Your first time here, welcome! I am so glad You are here. Very recently I did a Wellness and Nutrition course and very unexpectedly my blog was mentioned. The whole group had questions about beauty products. I suddenly had to go back to my own beginnings and explain how and why I switched all of my beauty products to natural ones. I came home already writing a blog post in my head on how and why I have started this journey & why I continue to blog about natural beauty products 15+ years later. Turns out I already wrote my story and completely forgotten about it 🙂 If You are up for some blog reading, click on the post below.
If not, no biggie, here is a quick summary of it. Just like average Joe I had no idea how much toxins were (still are!) in “conventional” beauty products. I just assumed they are rigorously tested before they are allowed to be put on the shelves. Not true! In fact, the total opposite is true. Companies can put ANY ingredient under the sun into their products. If the ingredient/ product is proven to be harmful, the bodies regulating the cosmetic products industry can ADVISE the brand to recall it, but they do not have the power to remove the products from the shelves. This can take years, even decades. Baby powder case anyone?
I have started my blog with the intentions of helping people to find natural beauty products, because it was so hard back then. I feel like a dinosaur saying this, but it was time before the internet, meaning no online shopping. Fast forward to today and we have an opposite of the problem – too much choice, plenty of greenwashing – when products pretend to be natural but are anything but. Green beauty movement exploded and isn’t stopping any time soon. Big brands are starting to take notice and are coming out with “clean” lines. You might want to start there if You are new, but still take it with a grain of salt. It took me one look at Chanel “natural” foundation to say no thank You to the whole line – the base is mineral oil. You just google what mineral oil (or silicones) do to Your skin. Ask Yourself if petrol by products are something You want to put on Your face on the regular basis? On Your baby’s skin?
Getting angry yet? Good. You should be. I was too.
I might sound like all doom and gloom, but fear not. Truly natural products do exist. They might be a bit harder to find, but they are there, waiting for You to discover them. This is where clean beauty bloggers like Yours truly come in. Also, there are plenty of apps novadays where You scan the barcode and it does all the work for You. You might want to download Think Dirty, Yuca, Skin Safe, Inci Beauty, Inci Decoder or Ingredients Scanner, depending on Your device’s operating system.
Don’t want to do apps? That’s ok too. Here are my tips on how to get started with natural beauty products. Start with Your local health store. They will definitely have natural skincare and body care products. Some pharmacies also stock very limited ranges, so check there too. Aim for products with minimal ingredients list and have a look at it – You want to recognize ingredients too.
You might want to swap Your products one by one, as dumping all of them and trying to replace everything in one go will get pretty expensive and pretty overwhelming fast. Aim to replace products that cover large surfaces of Your body first – namely body lotions, foundation, sunscreen. Also toothpaste. Leave products that You wash away for later. Also, have in mind that You might shop online rather than in store for most of the time. The prices might be a bit higher, but simply because of the lack of cheap fillers. Organically grown ingredients cost more to produce too, but I am well prepared to pay for that. Clean beauty can be still done on the budget though, let me know if You want me to post on that. We also need to remember that we need wayyy less beauty products industry lets us to believe. I have a post on 40+ products I am doing without, You might wan to check it out if You wish.
I can recommend some products I personally love, use and vouch for, but it depends highly on Your skin type, texture preference and other factors. I am confident You will find Your best products sooner or later too. There might be some learning curve and getting used to new textures – foundations will rarely have that slippy smooth texture for example. That mostly comes from silicones in “conventional” foundations and natural ones won’t have that. They will however make Your skin look just as good AND will let it breathe. Most of natural foundations will have skincare ingredients too, so Your skin will than You for the switch, trust me.
Here is a list of my Holy Grail products, perfected over the last decade+. For reference, I have very sensitive and dermatitis prone skin, frizzy thin hair, but lots of it. Body skin normal. So my products recommendations will be aimed at that, but fear not if Your skin is different. Go to my Instagram page, peruse the list of people I am following and choose a blogger that would have Your skin/ hair type. I follow lots of good ones. All of us love talking clean products, so chat with us, leave comments either here or on social media. Most if not all brands are happy to answer Your questions too, but we need to remember that some of them might be small businesses with no dedicated customer service staff, so it might them some time to answer. Don’t be afraid to contact them, ask questions about their ethos, ingredient sourcing and products – truly natural ones will be happy to answer everything with smiles on their faces.
Books I’d recommend to get You started:
No More Dirty Looks: The Truth about Your Beauty Products by Siobhan O’Connor and Alexandra Spunt
Renegade Beauty by Nadine Artemis
Whole Beauty by Shiva Rose
Imperfectly Natural Woman by Janey Lee Grace
Toxic Beauty by Dawn Mellowship
Some of these books might be harder to find, look for them in all the good book shops or request them from Your library.
My favourite online stores:
The Dutch Health Store
Live In The Light code GREENLIFEINDUBLIN15 saves You 15%
Living Libations
The Clean Beauty Edit code GreenLife10 saves You 10%
Pure Anada
Fushi Wellbeing code GREENLIFEINDUBLIN saves You 15%
iHerb code CDI1500 saves $£€ for first time
don’t forget to visit health stores, farmers markets and some pharmacies too, they will have some natural products too.
That’s all of now, many thanks for reading. Let me know if You have any questions.
Ta ta for now, I will see You here next Tuesday, my posting day.