Why I Switched to Green Beauty

Since I started seeing my nutritionist back in August I’ve made a lot of health and dietary changes. Eliminating things like gluten, added sugar, and dairy (I get to reintroduce this) has helped me be more mindful of how things affect my body. What I realized was cross contamination was affecting me in other ways, like my beauty products.

During these last couple of months, I stumbled upon an amazing podcast called Unbound Healing which has been a wonderful companion to everything I’ve been doing with my health, lifestyle, and nutrition. Seriously, I encourage you to give it a listen.

One of their episodes last month was on Non-Toxic Makeup and Body Care Products, and it really opened my eyes to how my beauty and skincare products were affecting me.

I have since then begun switching out all my beauty products for green, non-toxic ones. But why?

I Was Cross-Contaminating My Skin

I’ve been struggling with acne for YEARS, trying practically every product/method out there to no avail. And what I realized was while I was doing all this work to heal on the inside, it’s only interesting if I continue to use products that cross-contaminate me on the outside.

I later discovered many of the products I was using were not gluten-free, had endocrine-disrupting ingredients in them, and were just flat-out not good for me. A lot of what I thought was bad acne turned out to be minor allergic reactions to the skincare products I was using. Once I switched up my products my skin began to clear up.

One point brought up in the podcast is the fact that some of these products go near major organs on a regular basis and are absorbed through the skin. Think about how harmful ingredients absorbed through the skin can affect those organs over time. 😳

Beauty Products Are Not Regulated

I also learned that the beauty industry is super unregulated, so anyone can make claims that products are “all-natural”, and have “healthy ingredients” and whatnot. It’s actually quite scary all the crap that goes into conventional beauty products.

Enter The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and its Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, a non-biased organization that reviews the ingredients in the products we use. They rate products on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most toxic.

I used their site and an app called Think Dirty to start analyzing my products. Boy was I sad to find a lot of products that were in the 5-10 range, especially products I thought were natural.

What I’m Doing Differently

I’ve been gradually replacing my products with green ones, so when I run out of something I get a green replacement. It’s way more affordable than dumping everything and replacing it at once.

I also hung on to all of my receipts, so I was able to return most of my dirty beauty products. Then I used the money from the returns to buy green replacements. I’ll share my new skin care regime in another post.

Whenever I am about to buy a new product, I scan it via the Think Dirty app to check its score. I’ve been familiarizing myself with more clean brands such as 100% Pure (we have one locally at the Roseville Galleria) and One Love Organics. The Organic Bunny is one of my favorite new beauty blogs for green products.

My skin is definitely a lot happier with green, natural products. I’m really glad I made the switch.

Resources

• October 2017 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine has a great article on green/natural beauty.
• Why Natural? – The Organic Bunny
• My Favorite Non-Toxic Makeup – Unbound Wellness
• The Guise of “Natural” in the Beauty Industry – 100% Pure
• Skin Absorption and Natural Skin Care Products – 100% Pure