I recently read Crazy, Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. I was stunned to learn that most women use 12 beauty products daily and each of those products have 168 ingredients. No premarket safety testing is required for the industrial chemicals that go into personal care products or the chemical industry as a whole. According to the Office of Cosmetics and Colors at the federal Food and Drug Administration, “…a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an approval from FDA.” (FDA 2012) The FDA does no systematic reviews of safety, instead authorizing the cosmetics industry to self-police ingredient safety through its Cosmetics Ingredient Review panel.
I really had no idea. I had been buying products stateside and shipping them in mass to whatever country I live in because I believed that the U.S. safety standards were higher. But then I used EWG Skindeep cosmetics database to check my products and learned that almost every product I used was between 5-6 (moderately toxic). Even scarier, I learned that cosmetic companies are not required to list all of their ingredients on the bottle so it's possible there were other chemical ingredients that I'd never even know about. There was almost zero correlation between the price of the product I was using and it's safety. In fact, many of the more expensive products I used were MORE toxic.
It was depressing. I'd spent years hunting down the perfect products and had quite a few that I really liked. But I've slowly gotten rid of everything that was 4 or above and eventually I hope to use products between 0-2.
Here are a few of my favorite (all natural) new things:
Vegan, Gluten Free Lipstick from Red Apple Lipstick. Currently using Naughty, Ralleye Balm, and Paris. I also love their lip exfoliant that isn't pictured here. I sort of hate the websites branding but they have great lipstick.
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I can't get enough of the RMS "Un" Cover-Up (EWG Score 1) and have been using it daily . Just a bit under the eyes an on any blemishes and off I go. It's amazing! I also like the 100% Pure Brand foundation (EWG Score 1) but I just don't use much with the amazing-ness of RMS. I only use this when I'm going out or for a work meeting. Or if I have more blemishes then normal.
Oldies but Goodies (A few of my old products made the cut!):
The products that made the cut were my 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented in Black Tea (EWG Score 2), The Body Shop Shimmer Cube eye shadow, and the Naked Urban Decay Basics palette (EWG Score 2).
Probably the funniest part of all of this is that while I am minimizing, I actually bought a whole pile of new beauty products. I don't really know what to think about that. But you win some, you loose some.
Well that's all for now! Do you guys have any all natural product favorites? I'd love to know about them!
