Cosmetic Labels
Ok so all of you know that I just can’t stand skincare products & make-up that are harmful for you and the environment. It just disgusts me that cosmetic companies, which say they want to make you more beautiful can actually harm, not only your skin, but your whole body. It’s possible for your skin to absorb 60% of what you put on it & if you’re putting on pollutants, then well, your skin is possibly absorbing estrogenic ingredients and known carcinogens. Therefore, reading labels is so important and just as vital as reading food labels. Case in point, a client of mine was using a face wash she had been using for years & years because she said it had always worked. Sure it may have worked from when she was 11 until maybe she was 20 or 21, but those harsh acne fighting ingredients weren’t good for her skin anymore because she is in her late 20’s. I looked at the ingredients and sure enough, the main ones were doing more harm than good.
The first three ingredients listed on the label are the ingredients that have the highest concentration in the product and everything else listed on the label can be less than one percent. Crazy huh? Say you were planning on buying a supposedly “organic” product made with rose hips or something of that nature. Well if it’s not in the first three ingredients listed & is pretty far down on that ingredient list; it probably has a minimal amount of that in it. So if you paid an arm & a leg for this magic potion made with rose hips, then you got ripped off. Knowing the three ingredient rule will probably end up saving you a lot of money because you get what you pay for.
You’ll know the actual ingredients versus the fillers, probably made with a bunch of stuff you can’t even pronounce. In fact, avoid buying products with ingredients you can’t pronounce and if you can’t pronounce it you need to do your due diligence and find out what it is. You may make the unfortunate choice to put petroleum products on your skin (which I DO NOT recommend) but, you should do so as an informed consumer knowing the origins and side effects of these products. So my point in this blog is to understand what you are putting on your face, your eyes, your lips, & everywhere else on your body. You should especially know what you’re putting on your lips because throughout a lifetime you eat 4 to 9 pounds of lipstick, that’s somewhere between 481 and 1083 tubes.
I am a huge proponent of the Environmental Working Group website because it talks about the ingredients in cosmetics & skincare products, and basically tells you what’s toxic & what’s not. EWG’s rating system is a great way to investigate products you might be interested in purchasing. Simply go to EWG.org and follow the “skin deep” link. Also check out the FDA’s Cosmetic Labeling Guide for more information on this. All the products Authentic Beauty sells & promotes are not toxic at all or have the least amount of toxicity possible. So dear readers, protect yourself, read your labels. What you put ON your body is just as important as what you put IN it.
