Let’s be real. Finding the right makeup product can be hard sometimes. There are all types of products out there. We have heard of vegan, natural and organic beauty. One fair trade product that’s often overlooked is clean beauty.
Clean beauty is defined by “products that are mindfully created without any proven or suspected toxic ingredients,” according to The Clean Beauty Box. Basically, clean beauty is all of the beauty types combined but with natural ingredients. Clean beauty gets rid of some common ingredients found in cosmetics including “parabens, fragrances, aluminum compounds, ethoxylated agents, formaldehyde, refined petroleum, hydroquinone, talc, triclosan, silica and oxybenzone,” according to Harper’s BAZAAR.
With more cosmetics studies being published, people are more aware of what harmful chemicals are in their products. Thus, people are more cautious of what ingredients to keep on their personal banned list.
One of the products people are unaware of is natural deodorant. I remember my mom telling me I needed to start buying natural deodorant. This was coming from a mother who meditates and is vegetarian. Maybe this should have been considered as a clue. At the time I did not care what deodorant I was using, so long as it got the job done. Then I started to do some research. Turned out, mother knows best.
In a 2017 retrospective study covered by Harper’s BAZAAR, people who used aluminum-containing products that are applied directly on the skin, such as deodorant, “showed an earlier age of disease onset in breast cancer patients that had used aluminum-containing antiperspirants combined with underarm shaving.” Clean beauty means getting rid of normal products and switching them for all-natural ones. Take the deodorant for example. With a regular one, it contains more aluminum. More aluminum means the higher chances of obtaining health issues like breast cancer.
And it’s not just deodorant. There is one, if not more, ingredients in cosmetics and beauty products that expose people to small amounts of harmful chemicals. It may be small quantities but like Juice Beauty states, “small doses add up.” Sure, beauty hurts sometimes. That doesn’t mean we have to ingest harsh chemicals that could lead to later health issues.
Ready to make the switch to clean beauty? The first step is figuring out which products stay on your skin all day or night. This could be makeup or even a moisturizer.
Swapping it for a cleaner alternative will provide a major upgrade on your health and skin. Start with the small products. Then transition into natural replacements for daily products like sunscreen or hand soap. You may decide to take it a step further and switch your shampoo or conditioner. We get it. Saying goodbye to your favorite makeup is hard. You don’t have to switch everything to clean beauty. Start small. That’s the first step.
Clean beauty sounds expensive once you think about it. It may be harder to switch to clean beauty the whole way. Luckily, there are places like Good Trade and EcoCult that make it easy to find inexpensive clean beauty products.