Going Green: The Skincare Edition for Truly Natural Products

By
Mara Proost
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Back in the day, I used to have the Sephora super-duper, double-platinum, wrapped-in-diamonds membership level. You know, the one where you spend oodles of money each month to cash in on all the extra goodies? Little did I know that what I was using for my beauty routine was pretty toxic.

Since my autoimmune flare three years ago, I’ve worked to change my lifestyle. Once I changed my diet, I started to look at what I was putting ON my skin. When all was said and done, my skincare shopping habits changed significantly. 

Have you been thinking about going green with your beauty routine? It’s a daunting task, I know! Over the next few months, I’m going to dive into Going Green: Skincare, Make-Up, and Household. It always helps to have a starting point.  

First up: Skincare. I’m a huge skincare junkie (thus the previous outrageous Sephora membership). I just love skincare!

When I started researching how to heal my body, I made some startling discoveries. A lot of what I was using had really harmful ingredients! There is little to no government regulation in the beauty industry, and that’s a frightening thought. Most cosmetics and skincare products contain endocrine disrupters, which can affect hormonal balance and fertility. Others contain ingredients with clear links to cancer! Um, no thank you!

Going green with natural skincare products on big green leaves at white table, top view

So you’ve decided to go green, but don’t know where to start? Here are some tips when going green with your skincare:

  1. RESEARCH. You need to decide what works for YOU. I’m pretty green in my routine; however, I do use products with a few ingredients that Die-Hard Greeners would argue against. I weighed the pros and cons and decided which ingredients were for sure no-no’s for me. Even if you only change over one product, that’s a step in the right direction!
  2. Start small. Don’t try to change everything over all at once, as that can be incredibly overwhelming and expensive. Pick a few products and add on from there. My recommendation would be to start with cleanser, serum, and moisturizer. Those are the main skincare items that touch your face first!
  3. “Natural” doesn’t always mean that it is truly natural. Green Washing is a real thing. Look at some of the products that claim to be green; they certainly are not!  We’ll see “All Natural!” Or “Paraben-free!” but when you look at the ingredients – it’s full of chemicals.
  4. Which leads me to: READ THE INGREDIENTS. Get yourself educated on harmful ingredients and decide what you want to eliminate. You’ll be shocked at how many not-so-good ingredients are in our skincare products. Don’t let the marketing fool you. Just like with food labels, you need to read product labels, too.
  5. Use Helpful Apps. Apps like ThinkDirty are a great way to start checking ingredients. With this app, you can scan the barcode of the product, and it will give you a rating of all the ingredients. It’s eye-opening!  A warning: this app is a great jumping-off point, but they also rate Tide pods as being clean (which they aren’t). So be careful.
  6. Look to the “experts.” Instagram is a great place to discover green beauty bloggers, green beauty brands, and other wellness gurus. Look to brand’s accounts to start connecting you with green beauty people in the know!
  7. Where to shop. There are quite a few websites that now house green beauty items. Online shopping can be troublesome, but most of these sites have a nice return policy: Safe and Chic, Credo, and Lark STL to name a few!

Image result for toxic skincare ingredients"

 

To get you rolling – here are few of my tried and true holy grails:

Cleansers

Toners

Serums

Moisturizer

Masks

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