In the past year I’ve been phasing out my regular cleansers and cosmetics and replacing them with organic, eco-friendly products. Blogging about products is totally lame, but I am doing it for the planet!!! Anyways, it took me a lot of research, trial and error to find good, inexpensive products that are actually eco-friendly. (I’m not affiliated with any company/getting paid for this post). A lot of products claim to be natural just because they have one or two plant ingredients, but if you read the ingredients, they’re full of parabens, silicones, sulfates, and other crap. Other products are actually green, but don’t work or are too expensive.
About a year ago, I decided to let my hair go curly rather than chronically straightening it. I found a website (probably through some internet discussion on “good hair”) called Naturally Curly. I had a lot of baggage about curly hair. I thought it made me look ugly, but constantly fighting it was ruining my hair and costing a lot of money.
The gist of the naturally curly method is to avoid using harsh chemicals that dry out and break curly hair, and to avoid waxes and silicones that stick to hair and weigh curls down. After a couple months of changing my routine, I started getting a lot of compliments on my curls, that have continued. After some trial and error with health food store shampoos and expensive products, the best hair care I found at the drugstore. Live Clean is Canadian, biodegradable, free of harsh chemicals, made with organic ingredients, doesn’t test on animals, and it costs the same as other drugstore shampoos. Recently I started using their argan oil, which has smoothed out my hair.
After seeing the difference in my hair, I decided, hey, maybe my face would benefit too. Other than sunscreen, skin creams are basically bullshit. They do nothing for your skin. They’re formulated mainly to feel nice and look shiny as you put them on. There’s only three ingredients that have shown any improvement to skin in clinical studies; retinol (vitamin A), vitamin C, and vitamin E (tocopherol). Juice Beauty contains these ingredients, is made with certified organic ingredients, doesn’t contain harsh chemicals, uses recycled packaging and eco-friendly production. However, it is not cheap. I justify the purchase because I’m a vain hippy.
I haven’t phased out my cosmetics yet, I’m still using vile petroleum based products, but I only wear makeup occasionally. I have tried Physician’s formula Organic Wear bronzer, which was nice and affordable. Cosmetics can also be found at health food stores, The Body Shop, and the Sephora natural section, but I haven’t tried any of their products yet.
I am sure these products aren’t perfect and won’t perform miracles, but I did actually look up the definitions of ingredients before I went to the drugstore. Its amazing how many cosmetics are full of petroleum crap yet claim to renew a woman’s skin. I used to use Clinique and my god they don’t even list their ingredients anywhere. If we’re going to spend money on shampoo and facial cleanser, we may as well use stuff that is eco-friendly.
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