Safer Beauty is Here to Stay

In July an article came out in the Business of Fashion called “Tracking the Rise of Clean Beauty”. In this article it talks about how a large majority of the public wants cleaner and safer personal care products. And, while this is a good thing, companies are taking notice and marketing to this. What this means is that because there is very little regulation as to what actually goes in our products and on the labels the company can slap a label on a product marketing it as natural or botanical.I stayed in a hotel room this past weekend and the complimentary products they offered caught my eye. They were very “green” looking with plant leaves on the label and had a few catchy phrases like botanical, natural. However, when I flipped it over there were a couple of different parabens, fragrance, and PEG listed in the ingredients. Needless to say this was far from natural.The clean beauty movement isn’t going anywhere and it’s been incredible to see the growth over the past 3.5 years that I have been involved. I think back to 10 years ago when I dabbled in safer products and they were absolutely horrible. Nothing worked and it left me horribly disappointed. It’s amazing to see how far the technology has come with safer products and how many options there are out there. It makes me so happy!You may be wondering how do you really know a quality safer beauty brand from one that is posing? First, the Environmental Working Group has a handy app called Healthy Living that you can look up your products to get a rating. There are some shortfalls as there still needs to be some interpretation. Second, you can always ask me. Even though I represent a company that is a leader in this industry, I have done a lot of research on other companies and have gotten pretty darn good at reading labels.You can always use our shortened Never List to do a comparison check on your product. My general rule is, if an ingredient on that list is in your product, pitch it!Also, be cautious of mineral based make up. One very important question that you wan to ask is if they test for heavy metals. If they don’t I would steer clear. Mineral make up uses ingredients from the earth and the earth is loaded with heavy metals like lead. Heavy metals are known neurotoxins linked to developmental issues and unless a company is testing these levels, they may be unacceptable. This exact issue was why we had to send our color cosmetics to Italy to be produced. When we tested our initial products the levels were too high. This is going to be a fairly common issue.Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask a company question about their practices/ingredients. They shouldn’t be hiding anything. Asking questions is an important part of being an advocate for your health.https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/inside-beauty/tracking-the-rise-of-clean-beauty