I didn't know what to write about today, & felt like I should, and then I had a thought Hey, why don't I take a backseat to badgering friends & family for blog entry ideas, and just share something straight from my very own brain???... & thus, an incredible list of my fave lips/body/face products. You're in for a treat because 1) I'm a body product junkie & try all sorts of stuff, so this is the best of the best IMHO & 2) everything on this list is absolutely paraben, pthalate, perfume, -eth, dmdm hydantoin, (insert yucky ingredient here) free! Yay!
Saltspring Soapworks lip balm (Wildflower) - As a kid I owned 50+ of the Lip Smackers variety (I was clearly very careful with how I spent my pocket-money). 15 years later, my enthusiasm for all things lip-worthy has not faded (though my taste for fake chemical-laden flavours has) & I consider myself a bit of a chapstick connoisseur. And might I say that Saltspring Soapworks' %100 organic & natural lip balm is the very best with its supreme moisturizing capabilities and easy-glide on texture. $6.95
Rocky Mountain Sugar Scrub in french lavender - a super sweet (calorie-free!) treat, I dare you to find another product which leaves your skin as soft and nice smelling as this one does. You can say Aurevoir to chapped, parched, scaly skin, & Hello! to soft & smooth. Heck I don't even have dry skin (anymore! heh) and I use this luxurious organic sugar scrub at least once a week because it is simply gosh-dang wonderful. You can choose between French Lavender <3, Blood Orange, & Juicy Cherry sugar scrubs or a Bamboo citrusy-mint scented salt scrub. $21-23.
Rocky Mountain Rosehip Cleansing Oil
- the best way to keep your visage looking its finest; this cleansing
oil dissolves dirt, oil, & makeup, moisturizes, reduces redness
& inflammation, brings oil production into harmony, loosens
blackheads, and fights aging. $40 - a splurge, but believe me, your face
will love you, and the 100mL bottle will last you months upon months.
Gabriel mascara in black - More often than not, the only eye makeup that I apply is mascara, so it's super important to me that I'm wearing one that will a)stay on well & b)make my lashes look thick and long & lovely. I was nervous to jump on the natural cosmetic bandwagon after reading online reviews of smudgy & flaky lashes, but Gabriel mascara is honestly better than any mascara I have tried ever, ever. All I need is this stuff & an eyelash curler & my lashes are perfect! It doesn't make my lashes clump together, nor does if flake off half-way through the day, I just love it. $15-19 depending on retailer (I get it at Lifestyles).
Cheeky Cosmetics Mineral Foundation in fair - an awesome, natural, non-micronized powder foundation. Swipe on 1 coat for discreet coverage or up to 3 for max. Balances out my skin tone perfectly, and isn't 'heavy' on my face. Also, Cheeky Cosmetics offers the wonderful option of ordering sample sizes of products (whether that be eye shadow or foundation) for $1, so you can try a shade out before committing to the full-size! Also, it's made by a chica here in BC - yahoo! $25
Rocky Mountain Lip Gloss in blush - this
yummy berry-scented NON-STICKY(!!!) lip gloss gives your pout a healthy glow while it
moisturizes with ingredients like jojoba oil, shea butter, &
pomegranate. The Lip Plump is awesome, too, with a cinnamon-y tingle & super plumping action. $8 & $10 respectively. Cheeky Cosmetics has really nice glosses (click) if you like more colour - my favourite is Siren ($14) which gives me an awesome rouge pout that I plan to sport on my wedding day.
This by no means exhausts the beauty supplies in my bathroom cupboard and makeup bag, but they are products that will grace my powder room forevermore (along with tea tree essential oil, baking soda, and a dry brush, but more about that later). What are your fave bod products?
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
DIY & the safely-scented way
If you read my last entry, you probably aren't too stoked on forgoing fragrance in the name of natural, because lets face it, unscented can be pretty boring. But forgoing fragrance doesn't mean you have to forgo scent! Here are
some easy & safe ways to smell nice without exposing yourself to
weird chemicals (the key is essential oils!)
Your luscious locks- add a couple drops of your favourite essential oil (I like peppermint -great for scalp circulation- or lavender in my hair) to an empty spray bottle with water. Following your scent-free shampoo/condition, simply spray on your hair. If you're looking for a natural hairspray or volumizer, just add 1tbsp finely ground sea salt (per 1 cup of water) to the mix, & spray away, lifting at the roots. Since hair absorbs scent super well, your result will be lovely, safely, (potentially volumized) naturally scented hair.
Your super soft bod- seriously, essential oils are your best friend! Add a couple drops to a bottle of almond oil & you have a fantastic, amazingly scented, natural moisturizer. Don't let the initially greasy feel scare ya - it absorbs super quick and will leave you with super soft skin:).
Sudsin' it up- unless you want to take on the task of making your own soap, stick with all-natural brands that scent their products the natural way, such as Dr. Bronners (your local health food store should carry his products). Don't be fooled by 'all-natural glycerin soaps' that are clear; they are clear because they have had alcohol added and so will most likely be drying to your skin. Real glycerin soaps will generally be solid in colour, have an ingredient list reading of primarily vegetable oils (canola, cottonseed), coconut oil, olive oil, & essential oil(s). My personal favourite, Rocky Mountain Soap Company soaps lather amazingly (solid bars or liquid-form) because the company adds additional (vegetable) glycerin to their soaps (on top of the already occurring natural glycerin!)
When you are using natural essential oils as a source for scent, it is not going to give you an over-powering perfumy smell, and it is not uncommon for those who are typically allergic to fragrance to be OK with essential oil scented products! Plus you get the added bonus of essential-oil-specific therapeutic benefits (eg maybe you are prone to spots on your back - both lavender essential oil & tea tree essential oil are naturally antiseptic and can help get rid of the pimple-causing bacteria!)(rosemary is great for your scalp, as is peppermint!)
Your luscious locks- add a couple drops of your favourite essential oil (I like peppermint -great for scalp circulation- or lavender in my hair) to an empty spray bottle with water. Following your scent-free shampoo/condition, simply spray on your hair. If you're looking for a natural hairspray or volumizer, just add 1tbsp finely ground sea salt (per 1 cup of water) to the mix, & spray away, lifting at the roots. Since hair absorbs scent super well, your result will be lovely, safely, (potentially volumized) naturally scented hair.
Your super soft bod- seriously, essential oils are your best friend! Add a couple drops to a bottle of almond oil & you have a fantastic, amazingly scented, natural moisturizer. Don't let the initially greasy feel scare ya - it absorbs super quick and will leave you with super soft skin:).
Sudsin' it up- unless you want to take on the task of making your own soap, stick with all-natural brands that scent their products the natural way, such as Dr. Bronners (your local health food store should carry his products). Don't be fooled by 'all-natural glycerin soaps' that are clear; they are clear because they have had alcohol added and so will most likely be drying to your skin. Real glycerin soaps will generally be solid in colour, have an ingredient list reading of primarily vegetable oils (canola, cottonseed), coconut oil, olive oil, & essential oil(s). My personal favourite, Rocky Mountain Soap Company soaps lather amazingly (solid bars or liquid-form) because the company adds additional (vegetable) glycerin to their soaps (on top of the already occurring natural glycerin!)
When you are using natural essential oils as a source for scent, it is not going to give you an over-powering perfumy smell, and it is not uncommon for those who are typically allergic to fragrance to be OK with essential oil scented products! Plus you get the added bonus of essential-oil-specific therapeutic benefits (eg maybe you are prone to spots on your back - both lavender essential oil & tea tree essential oil are naturally antiseptic and can help get rid of the pimple-causing bacteria!)(rosemary is great for your scalp, as is peppermint!)
Un-natural natural products & what to avoid
For anyone who is trying to switch to more natural products (whether that be soap, shampoo, moisturizer, etc.), it can be a daunting task. First off, there is little to no regulation for use of the word "natural," so any company can claim their products are such, even if only 1 of all the ingredients is natural (or none! - it may have taken natural ingredients like plant derivatives, and swapped molecules and changed the chemical structure of the ingredient into something completely different than what was started with!) So where the heck do you start, if products clearly labelled as natural, aren't even necessarily natural? How do you avoid spending your money on a 'natural' product, that is in fact on chemical par with all the other products the un-natural beauty industry throws at us, and truly invest in good quality truly natural products? You've got to read the label! & to make it a bit easier, here are a few tips & hints of ingredients to watch out for (though this is far from a conclusive list).
1) First and foremost, one of the most awesome changes you can make is by avoiding 'fragrance' or 'parfum' (unless it is solely essential oil derived). Perfume is in EVERYTHING, but if you're willing to be conscientious of what you are putting on (and therefor in) your body, this change can significantly lower the amount of chemicals you are exposed to on a daily basis. Since the perfume industry does not have to reveal any of what they put in their products (it is considered 'trade secret'), there is a whole array of strange chemicals (like nasty pthalates, which have been linked to scary things such as infertility and abnormal reproductive development in males) which you won't see on the ingredient list, but will be included under the title 'fragrance'. Companies that produce moisturizers, shampoos, etc. use fragrances in their products to, yes, make it smell appealing and pleasant to you, the consumer, but also to mask all the weird scents the chemical ingredients in their products have created! Avoid all of the above by choosing fragrance-free, or products scented only with natural essential oils.
2) Another thing you can look to avoid on labels: anything ending with '-eth,' this means it has gone through the ethoxylation process (eg. sodium lauryl sulphate becomes sodium laureth sulphate), meaning it has most likely been exposed to, and containing (but you won't see it on the label!), the nasty carcinogenic ingredient 1,4 dioxane.
3) Now that you're avoiding perfumes and -eths, a third to add to the chemical party which you will not be attending is dmdm hydantoin! This little baby is a yucky formaldehyde releaser; on contact with your skin it becomes a carcinogenic substance. Not so nice!
Take time to research 'natural' products before you buy them! My philosophy is that if I'm going to shell out more money to have a better-for-me, natural product, then it better be just that - all natural! I'm a pretty frugal gal, and the last thing you'll find me doing is buying a product just because it says 'natural' on the front - read the ingredient list (nutritional info for your body!) & use the Cosmetic Database! If there's perfume in it, it's not all natural! If it has an ingredient that ends with -eth in it, or contains dmdm hydantoin, it's not all natural! If it has weird ingredients you can't pronounce, or you don't know what they are, you guessed it, it's probably not all natural! Take the time to do a bit of research and your skin, and your pocketbook, will thank you.
1) First and foremost, one of the most awesome changes you can make is by avoiding 'fragrance' or 'parfum' (unless it is solely essential oil derived). Perfume is in EVERYTHING, but if you're willing to be conscientious of what you are putting on (and therefor in) your body, this change can significantly lower the amount of chemicals you are exposed to on a daily basis. Since the perfume industry does not have to reveal any of what they put in their products (it is considered 'trade secret'), there is a whole array of strange chemicals (like nasty pthalates, which have been linked to scary things such as infertility and abnormal reproductive development in males) which you won't see on the ingredient list, but will be included under the title 'fragrance'. Companies that produce moisturizers, shampoos, etc. use fragrances in their products to, yes, make it smell appealing and pleasant to you, the consumer, but also to mask all the weird scents the chemical ingredients in their products have created! Avoid all of the above by choosing fragrance-free, or products scented only with natural essential oils.
2) Another thing you can look to avoid on labels: anything ending with '-eth,' this means it has gone through the ethoxylation process (eg. sodium lauryl sulphate becomes sodium laureth sulphate), meaning it has most likely been exposed to, and containing (but you won't see it on the label!), the nasty carcinogenic ingredient 1,4 dioxane.
3) Now that you're avoiding perfumes and -eths, a third to add to the chemical party which you will not be attending is dmdm hydantoin! This little baby is a yucky formaldehyde releaser; on contact with your skin it becomes a carcinogenic substance. Not so nice!
Take time to research 'natural' products before you buy them! My philosophy is that if I'm going to shell out more money to have a better-for-me, natural product, then it better be just that - all natural! I'm a pretty frugal gal, and the last thing you'll find me doing is buying a product just because it says 'natural' on the front - read the ingredient list (nutritional info for your body!) & use the Cosmetic Database! If there's perfume in it, it's not all natural! If it has an ingredient that ends with -eth in it, or contains dmdm hydantoin, it's not all natural! If it has weird ingredients you can't pronounce, or you don't know what they are, you guessed it, it's probably not all natural! Take the time to do a bit of research and your skin, and your pocketbook, will thank you.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Paraben who-be whattie?
Take a stroll through the beauty section of your local drugstore and it's not difficult to happen upon new "paraben free" formulations of lotions, shampoos and conditioners, sunscreens, shaving creams, and makeup. But what are they, why are they in products, and is it even necessary to avoid them?
Parabens are in cosmetics and moisturizers, and have been for decades, because they have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. That is, they keep your pots of face cream from becoming host to the various organisms off your fingers as you double-dip, as well as other environmental bacteria or fungi it may come in to contact with.
Companies are starting to remove them from their products as public awareness grows of a 2004 study that revealed the presence of parabens in 18 out of 20 breast cancer tumours in women. While the study does not prove that parabens cause breast cancer (parabens, absorbed mostly from body products, in fact exist and are stored in tissue throughout the whole body, not cancer tissue alone), other studies have shown that parabens mimic our body's natural hormone, estrogen - and disruptions in estrogen activity have been related to upwards of 80% of breast cancers. Messing around with your body's hormones -the endocrine system- is really just not a good idea. It may also raise your 'brow to learn that Europe has restricted the amount of parabens that are allowed to be used in European beauty products; North America as yet does not have any such regulation.
Since our skin absorbs much of what we put on it, and because products which contain parabens commonly contain other ingredients which enhance the penetration of the product (so now these questionable ingredients will not just absorb regular-style, but with super powers!) you gotta get reading those beauty labels! Picking apart the ingredient list on your deodorant or antiperspirant might be an exceptionally good place to start, considering the proximity to your breasts. The most common types/names of parabens are: methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, and isobutylparaben.
For the greatest benefits, search out not only paraben-free, but weird-chemical-in-general -free products, at whichever health food store is convenient for you. Online shopping is always good too:). My favourite moisturizers, face care, and deodorant are from Rocky Mountain Soap Company, and my favourite makeup is from Cheeky Cosmetics (& both are Canadian companies - bonus!:)
Parabens are in cosmetics and moisturizers, and have been for decades, because they have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. That is, they keep your pots of face cream from becoming host to the various organisms off your fingers as you double-dip, as well as other environmental bacteria or fungi it may come in to contact with.
Companies are starting to remove them from their products as public awareness grows of a 2004 study that revealed the presence of parabens in 18 out of 20 breast cancer tumours in women. While the study does not prove that parabens cause breast cancer (parabens, absorbed mostly from body products, in fact exist and are stored in tissue throughout the whole body, not cancer tissue alone), other studies have shown that parabens mimic our body's natural hormone, estrogen - and disruptions in estrogen activity have been related to upwards of 80% of breast cancers. Messing around with your body's hormones -the endocrine system- is really just not a good idea. It may also raise your 'brow to learn that Europe has restricted the amount of parabens that are allowed to be used in European beauty products; North America as yet does not have any such regulation.
Since our skin absorbs much of what we put on it, and because products which contain parabens commonly contain other ingredients which enhance the penetration of the product (so now these questionable ingredients will not just absorb regular-style, but with super powers!) you gotta get reading those beauty labels! Picking apart the ingredient list on your deodorant or antiperspirant might be an exceptionally good place to start, considering the proximity to your breasts. The most common types/names of parabens are: methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, and isobutylparaben.
For the greatest benefits, search out not only paraben-free, but weird-chemical-in-general -free products, at whichever health food store is convenient for you. Online shopping is always good too:). My favourite moisturizers, face care, and deodorant are from Rocky Mountain Soap Company, and my favourite makeup is from Cheeky Cosmetics (& both are Canadian companies - bonus!:)
Friday, February 10, 2012
nutritional information for your shampoo?
For some people the world "natural" stimulates thoughts of lakes and forests and the ocean and mountains, while for others it stimulates thoughts of hippies and underarm hair and body odor and far-fetched claims that your shampoo is going to give you cancer.
I myself used to be in the second category of people; those claims are far-fetched, right? Since we've been using shampoo for decades, and we aren't sprouting cancerous tumors on our scalps, the very place the shampoo goes, it's gotta be a-ok. Not to mention, as if those stand-up body product companies, who campaign for healthy body image and equality, would put toxic chemicals in the very products we douse ourselves in every day. You are cracky as a cracker to claim there are dangerous chemicals in my shampoo!, I would think.
It may not be as simple as that. I'm going to challenge you to grab your favourite bottle of shampoo or conditioner. Now pick out one of those words you don't know the meaning of -let alone how to pronounce it!- (cocamidopropyl betaine? dmdm hydantoin? methylchloroisothiazolinone?) & type this ingredient in to the cosmetic database search engine HERE.
This website rates products on a scale of 0-10 for safety, notes how much research has been done to support the number rating, as well as why the rating is such. (You can even search the product as a whole, as opposed to it's individual ingredients.) You'll find references to studies that show that many of these ingredient are immunotoxic, they "bioaccumulate" - your body absorbs them (for instance through the large pores on your scalp) and stores them, in your fatty tissue, in your organs, wherever it so pleases. & the toxins sit. In you, in your body, the toxins sit. Toxins, that can potentially cause a wide array of bodily disorders, diseases, hormone disruptions, and aggravations - as dangerous as cancer or as 'simple' as eczema.
Skin absorbs 21-94% of what we put on it; what if we start looking at our shampoos' & lotions' & hair-sprays' & cosmetics' ingredient lists the same way we analyze the nutritional box on the side of our cereal?
For the keen, HERE is a link to check out common myths about the safety of cosmetics.
I myself used to be in the second category of people; those claims are far-fetched, right? Since we've been using shampoo for decades, and we aren't sprouting cancerous tumors on our scalps, the very place the shampoo goes, it's gotta be a-ok. Not to mention, as if those stand-up body product companies, who campaign for healthy body image and equality, would put toxic chemicals in the very products we douse ourselves in every day. You are cracky as a cracker to claim there are dangerous chemicals in my shampoo!, I would think.
It may not be as simple as that. I'm going to challenge you to grab your favourite bottle of shampoo or conditioner. Now pick out one of those words you don't know the meaning of -let alone how to pronounce it!- (cocamidopropyl betaine? dmdm hydantoin? methylchloroisothiazolinone?) & type this ingredient in to the cosmetic database search engine HERE.
This website rates products on a scale of 0-10 for safety, notes how much research has been done to support the number rating, as well as why the rating is such. (You can even search the product as a whole, as opposed to it's individual ingredients.) You'll find references to studies that show that many of these ingredient are immunotoxic, they "bioaccumulate" - your body absorbs them (for instance through the large pores on your scalp) and stores them, in your fatty tissue, in your organs, wherever it so pleases. & the toxins sit. In you, in your body, the toxins sit. Toxins, that can potentially cause a wide array of bodily disorders, diseases, hormone disruptions, and aggravations - as dangerous as cancer or as 'simple' as eczema.
Skin absorbs 21-94% of what we put on it; what if we start looking at our shampoos' & lotions' & hair-sprays' & cosmetics' ingredient lists the same way we analyze the nutritional box on the side of our cereal?
For the keen, HERE is a link to check out common myths about the safety of cosmetics.
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