What are Natural Skincare Products?

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If you are not reading up on Natural Skincare Products, then maybe you are here because you want to know why you should make the extra effort to look for natural cosmetics (that are normally hard to find)

Take a step toward something you don't know

It would be much easier to find something that is equally convenient to purchase. I could not agree with your more. This is why we need a change of attitude.

We have been spoilt by convenience. We expect everything to simply be on the shelf and ready for us to buy.

Consider fruit. Fruit is seasonal. Are we even aware of the seasons when certain fruits are available? Probably not. Supermarkets have taken the seasons away.

In most first world supermarkets, it is very unusual not to find most fruits every day of the year.

That is the power of convenience … and we are guilty of it because we support it. It is not the supermarkets fault – they are giving us what we want.

Only a change of attitude will drive us to make the extra effort to learn about the seasons, and to learn about Skincare, the Natural way.

Explanation of natural skincare products

The word natural refers to the ingredients source. It can get a little confusing now – stay with me.

Pure water is a chemical and so is everything else that you buy that you would normally consider to be “natural”. Why?

Because the word chemical refers to the cosmetic ingredients structure. By this definition, everything in our world is a chemical (almost – electricity is not, but this is not for today)

You may be asking what is the relevance of this?

Well, if your local Natural Skincare Product store changed the shop front sign to “Chemical Skincare Products”, they are technically still correct and you would still be getting “Natural” Cosmetics from them.

The importance of the last sentence is to know the difference when people advertise. Natural is a Chemical and a Chemical is everything.

The key issue here is that when an advert says Natural Skincare Products, it can be anything.

Lead is natural – but we would certainly not want that in our Natural Skincare Cosmetics.

The US FDA, that regulates ingredients in cosmetics, has no definition of the word “Natural” for cosmetics.

This is why it is important for you to know this. It will protect you from unscrupulous marketing. It will protect you from mistakenly buying a “natural” cosmetic product that has nothing good for you.

Just when you thought that you were getting somewhere, you are back to square one. This is not true. You are already one step ahead of many others that buy blindly.

It is safe to assume that our perception of natural is more like Au Natural, not quite the nude type, but Au Natural as in safe, simple, pure and direct from mother nature (or as close to as possible)

Natural skincare products are supposed to be au natural

This website is based on this understanding – Natural Skincare Products, just as the good Creator intended it to be.

If we cannot determine what is natural and what is not natural from adverts, marketing, the un (or mis-) informed, then we need to inform ourselves. We do this by knowing the ingredients.

An Informed Public Cannot be Lied to or Manipulated

Even natural ingredients can be toxic, so we need to know a little about them too.

These natural cosmetic products contain natural ingredients. These are typically sourced from roots, essential oils, flowers, herbs and other botanical sources formed by nature.

These ingredients are then added to a carrier. Water is an example of a carrier, oil is another.

We borrowed this image from anti GMO campaigners that share our same thought process - an informed public cannot be lied to or manipulated by Governments and corporations. The unfortunate reality is that if you fail to inform yourself, crying for help when you get hurt is too late.

When you look at the ingredients list and you see words like beeswax, rose hip seed oil, shea butter, coconut oil, squalane, tocopherol, witch hazel, jojoba oil, aloe vera, tea tree oil, safflower oil, chamomile, etc, then you know you are onto the right thing.

Remember that the ingredients list starts with the highest concentrations first. As a makeup tip, start reading from the bottom of the list.

Bad and ugly makeup ingredients generally have concentration restrictions on them and these are the ones you need to be looking out for.

Also remember the Ingredients List when you need to check something up.

Because of their softness, Natural Skincare Cosmetics are well suited for people with skin conditions. These conditions can be very mild, such as dryness or sensitivity and continue all the way to more extreme conditions, such as acne, rosacea and post surgery.

Another makeup tip to remember is that good natural skincare products normally have little or no water in them. This means it goes a long way as the product is concentrated and you will need less product every time you use it.

It is not uncommon for off the shelf skin care products to be very diluted with water (Aqua or water near the top of the ingredients list) This simply means that you use the product quicker.

Why should you use natural skincare products

Think about how many cosmetic products you use every day. Toothpaste, underarm deodorant, body spray, hand cream, body cream, face cream, face moisturiser, foundation, blush, lipstick, aftershave lotion, eye shadow, shampoo, soap, etc … and many more.

The average person will use around 10 different products on a daily basis. Each product has 5 to 50 ingredients. Let's use an average of 20 ingredients per product.

10 products x 20 ingredients = 200 ingredients. Let's say half of these ingredients are common in all the products.

These are very estimated figures for this illustration, but we can consider around 100 different ingredients every day on and in our bodies.

When it comes to cosmetics, our skin acts like a sponge and absorbs up to 60% of what we put on it.

Remember that some ingredients are duplicated. Also remember that some ingredients have concentration restrictions on them. This means that some ingredients may not exceed a certain percentage of volume per product.

You are the test subject

What happens if 5 cosmetic products all contain the same restricted ingredient and each product contains the maximum permitted percentage?

This means that you are potentially receiving 5 times the allowable limit.

The answer is – nobody really knows.

The long term effects of restricted ingredients is unknown.

You are the guinea pig.

Good enough reason … or still not convinced that Natural Skincare Products are the way to go. Would you like to know more?

Do you know that the average woman absorbs about 1.8 kilograms of lipstick in her lifetime or how about 13.6 kilograms of ingredients, only from moisturisers?

Our liver needs to clean all of this out from our bloodstream to stop us from being poisoned. The best thing that we will ever own in our lifetime is our body - and this is how we look after it?

Click here to read Article 1. This is an example of when the lead tolerances are within allowed limits. Multiply these limits by 1.8 kilograms of lipstick over your lifetime and what do we get?

We don't know. The long term effects of various accumulated ingredients is unknown. Some ingredients are bio-accumulative – this means that the body absorbs ingredients faster than it can get rid of them.

Pthalates were used in cosmetics, especially in artificial fragrances. Pthalates is a known hormone disruptor. It causes birth defects, sperm damage, infertility amongst other sicknesses. Would you like this to happen to you?

It is said that about 10%, of the 10 500 or so cosmetic products out there, have been evaluated for safety by public institutions. Some countries only ban ingredients after there is very clear evidence that they are toxic.

Some countries follow the Precautionary Principle. This principle states that if an ingredient is a suspected toxin (danger to the public or environment), then it is deemed to be a toxin (danger to the public or environment) until such time that is is proved not to be a toxin.

The European Union follows the Precautionary Principle.

An example of this principle in action is that in the European Union, about 1 100 cosmetic ingredients are banned.

In the USA, for example, this principle is not enforced and the result of this action is that, approximately, only 10 cosmetic ingredients are banned.

Some accuse the European Union of being petty. Some accuse the USA of being reckless. You know both sides of the story now.

You make the decision ... a healthy body or a sick and tired body may depend on it.

What are the guidelines for natural skincare products?

Avoid Fragrances

  • Makeup companies do not reveal/publish/label fragrance recipes
  • Their reason : Trade Secret
  • How do you get a toxin into cosmetics : Add it to a fragrance
  • What is this called : a Loophole in the system
  • Avoid products with the ingredients parfum or fragrance

Choose Good Packaging

  • Whenever possible, choose glass containers
  • Most plastics are acceptable (and recyclable)
  • void PVC containers (they can contaminate)

Learn about the Makeup Company

  • What are their values : profit or social values
  • Learn about Benefit Corporations

Keep it simple

  • You need fewer products than you think
  • Basic cleanser
  • Basic moisturiser
  • Basic toner
  • Basic sunscreen (broad-range UVA + UVB)

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