Safer alternatives

Safer Alternatives

One thing I've noticed about human nature is that extremism can quietly sneak in through the back door once we make up our minds to follow certain ideas. Since I am a person who can certainly become slightly too extreme in my opinions I have recently taken time to re-evaluate some of my postulates regarding health and safety issues of cosmetic products. While my core beliefs haven't changed much, I realized that well-balanced compromise is almost always the most reasonable way out.

Hence, instead of campaigning for radical reduction of daily use of cosmetics, I am more likely to say: Women like to use make-ups and perfumes, and creams, and hair dyes and all sorts of other cosmetics, because among other things, it is fun to use them! And even in following a healthy lifestyle fun is as important as other things.

So I came across a few safer alternatives to beauty products which definitely make the whole business of looking after appearance more fun.

I.    I am UNE.

UNE is a Parisian cosmetics house launched last year which prides itself for its green credentials, an extensive colour range and a manifesto that calls for enhancing, not concealing women’s inner beauty. Doesn't it sound great already? Well, they go even a step further.

Backed by Bourjois Paris’ centuries-long experience in makeup formulation, UNE offers products made from 98-100% natural, and if available, organic ingredients free of petrochemical mineral oils, paraben, silicon, and GMOs. The packaging is also designed for minimum impact on the environment.

UNE Brand Director, Sophie Dugue, explains the vision of UNE products: 'UNE is proposing the first “intuitive makeup”, as it offers essential colours, inspired by the natural colours of the skin, the hair, the eye’s iris and the lips. Therefore, whatever colour you mix, you will always have a harmony; it becomes impossible to fail with your make up!'

The best news is that UNE is available in some of the larger Boots stores. The colour range is truly amazing and mixing the colours is foolproof (tested on my own face :).

Apart from ethical and safety aspects of UNE, the products are attractive, affordable and not giving them a try would be comparable to loosing an interesting opportunity! So, why don't you give it a go?

II.    Welcome to Urtekram

Body products CAN be organic, safe(r), ecofriendly, and free from synthetic preservatives and at the same time FUN and affordable. Urtekram, a company with eco credentials from Denmark, is a living proof :)

Since the 1970s, Urtekram has been producing pure and natural body and hair care products, and from the very beginning t has been aware that the body absorbs whatever we apply to it just like it absorbs whatever we feed it. Therefore, all Urtekram body and hair care products are:

* Free from hormonally active parabens and synthetic preserving agents.

* Made of vegetable ingredients (however, lip balm does contain beeswax).

* Free from petrochemical ingredients.

* A large selection of fragrance-free Urtekram products for children and adults are declared in cooperation with the Danish Asthma and Allergy Association.

*All raw materials must be free from pollution stemming from heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, dioxin, GMO (genetically modified organisms) and nitrate, and they must be processed by means of the simplest procedures possible.

 

And yet using Urtekram products is highly enjoyable. The Rose and Camomile shampoos smell wonderful and do their job very well. So do the soaps and toothpaste, though I still prefer Jason's SEA FRESH an all natural toothpaste for its much stronger minty taste.

III.    Clay

I'm not an expert in Dr. Hauschka products, but I do like clay in many forms and used for many purposes. I came across Cleansing Clay Mask by Dr. Hauschka and use it as a natural way of cleansing my face. It's suitable for all skin types, it's especially beneficial for  oily or blemished skin.

In this product finely ground clay is blended with extracts of nasturtium and witch hazel to form purifying and gently exfoliating mask. Impurities and skin secretions are drawn out and blemishes and blackheads are visibly reduced.  The product lasts for ages so it's well-worth its price of 20euro or so :)

IV.    Hair dyes can be safer too

I resisted dying my hair for a long time despite the growing pressure from folks to do something about my grey hair. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with grey hair, but I do acknowledge that it made me look older than I really am. In other words, I gave in to the pressure and decided to test Daniel Field's organic and mineral haircare products. I wanted a product that will cover my grey hair and will be easy to apply. In the past I had been using SANTE hair henna (available in Dublin!), but the main problem was a very messy application of the henna, long time for the active ingredients to colour the hair and very poor coverage of grey hair. I still think this is a great product range if you don't need to cover any greys like in my case. SANTE henna actually strenghthened my hair and gave it a nice shine.

Coming back to Daniel Field, her products are formulated with the finest ingredients including high performance organic essential oils and non-genetically modified cereal oils and proteins. They offer gentler, safer alternatives which deliver hair in superb condition without compromise to style or colour. The ebony colour I chose looks natural and fresh on my hair.

V.    Oils

By far the most popular oil on the market is so-called baby oil. Baby oil is nothing else than mineral oil which is a liquid by-product of the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline and other petroleum-based products from crude oil.

Instead, there is a plethora of oils obtained from vegetable sources which can be safely applied to skin and hair. There are many wonderful oils available on the market, but I have two favourite ones which I have successfully popularized among friends.  

Argan Oil and I - inseparable tandem

Argan oil is made from the nuts of the argan tree, which grows almost exclusively in Morocco. The oil is said to have restorative and age-defying effects. It is high in vitamin E and essential fatty acids, it is believed to help all sorts of skin conditions: dry skin, acne, psoriasis, eczema, wrinkles. Interestingly, argan oil remains one of the rarest oils in the world due to the small and very specific growing areas of the argan tree. I have been using it successfully on my oily skin instead of a cream and it does everything what I need: it keeps my skin well-nourished, soft, younger looking and it does not block pores.

Coconut oil - too simple to be true

Coconut oil is rich in fatty acids, which nourish and moisturize the skin and hair. Polynesian cultures historically have and still do use coconut oil as a beauty oil. A few studies  found that coconut oil applied to the hair reduced hair breakage and damage. You can replace expensive deep conditioning salon treatments, by using coconut oil as a hair conditioner at home. Coconut oil can also be used as a very effective non-poreblocking face and body moisturizer. It keeps my previously troubled hands almost completely eczema-free.  

Finale

This isn't an exhaustive list of safer alternatives to beauty products, but my subjective guide to some of them. I hope you find this article useful and encouraging to look for safer products which don't need to deprive women of the whole FUN of looking after their bodies and... souls!   

Safer alternatives are available, but are usually not as strongly advertised as the mainstream products for obvious (financial!) reasons. Often humble looking beauty products can be far more beneficial than fancy looking popular cosmetics. Happy looking behind the labels!

Argan Oil Production in small Co-op's

Let's TALC about health!

Let's TALC about health!

From my humble observations it seems that the public awareness of what constitutes TALC is very low. It’s even lower when it comes to its long-debated toxicity. For many of us talc is simply talc. I hope the short text below will cast some light on the murky clouds surrounding talc. I decided not to give talc the benefit of the doubt and discontinued using it (and any other products containing it) long time ago. I use a minimal amount of cosmetics from well-established manufacturers of safe cosmetics (recently I seem to favour Urtrekram, but there are many other manufacturers whose products might be locally available in your areas, such as Jason, Burt's Bees, Weleda).  

TALC [(derived from the Persian tālk (تالک )] refers to both mineral talc and industrial mineral products that are marketed under the name talc and contain proportions of mineral talc that range from about 35% to almost 100%. Talc occurs naturally in many regions of the world and its softness has made it valued for centuries as a body powder. Mineral talc occurs naturally in a platy (flat) form, but may also occur as asbestiform fibers (which describes the physical form and does not imply the presence of asbestos). Mineral talc products prior to mid-1970’s may have contained asbestos fibers. Nowadays the purer forms of talc (approx >90%) are used in many cosmetic products, including those for feminine hygiene, baby powders, soaps, blushes, powder compacts and eye shadows, foundations and beauty creams.

Unfortunately, numerous pathological studies have shown that particles and fibres that enter the body can migrate to distant organs. Analogously, following perineal application, talc particles can migrate from the vagina to the peritoneal cavity and ovaries. The association between talc use in the perineal region and ovarian cancer was investigated by a number of research groups worldwide. A very large number of studies have found that women who used talc experienced excess risks of ovarian cancer; some results were statistically significant and some were not. Some studies linked the use of talc with other forms of malignant tumours. In 2006 International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of WHO) evaluated data available on TALC and classified it as a possible carcinogen (group 2B).

International Agency for Research of Cancer - evaluation of talc: 

IARC evaluation of TALC

Research report on perineal use of talc and risk of ovarian cancer:

Abstract of Research Report

Big businesses can afford strong lobby groups. Here is a European lobby group which clearly downplays the research findings about toxicity of talc:

EUROTALC

The Story of Cosmetics

The Story of Cosmetics

I often wonder what goes through people's  minds. I often wonder why some things never go through people's minds. Being a zealous toxicista, I always keep under close surveillance what my fellow shoppers in the queue are unloading onto the check-out belts. Shopping baskets don't lie; they tell the naked truth and it's not always pretty. They often tell me a story of people whose minds seem to be in some kind of semi-comatose state in which they trustingly embrace the world of goods carefully displayed for them on the endless shelves of the endless shops. Some goods have sunk into our minds to such a depth that their existence is seldom questioned. In a simplistic and almost iconic way soap is soap, shampoo is shampoo, conditioner is conditioner, frizz control spray is frizz control spray, body lotion is body lotion, face cream is face cream, foot cream is foot cream, eye cream is eye cream, anti-cellulite cream is anti-cellulite cream, nail moisturiser is nail moisturiser, hand cream is hand cream, make-up remover is make-up remover (...). They are. Unquestioned, indisputable, axiomatic, absolute.

Not tailored to our needs. It's our needs that are manipulatively tailored around them.

Not to the benefit of our earthly bodies, but to the benefit of corporate bodies.

Not 'pure as nature desired', but  purely synthetic chemical cocktails.

Don't let your mind be silenced.  

DOUBT. ASK. CHALLENGE. Look behind those glamorous labels to find THE TRUTH.

THE STORY OF COSMETICS (2010) by Annie Leonard