Consumers are driving the demand for natural beauty. This raises the question, how do you know the skin care natural products that you use are truly natural. When you hear ‘clean beauty,’ what is the first thing that comes to mind? Most people will say handmade cosmetics, natural handmade soaps, and other products without any chemicals or in other words natural or pure products. This is not wrong by any means but there is a lot more to it than that.Â
Clean Beauty – What is it?Â
Technically, there is no fixed definition of clean beauty. It is also not right to assume that all-natural skin care products like handmade cosmetics and natural handmade Soaps are clean and all products with one or more synthetic ingredients are harmful. For instance, if you take a natural product like lead, it is extremely harmful to us. Another scary thing to know is that the FDA does not require all the skin and beauty care products to be approved by them before they hit the shelves in stores. This means that the responsibility to vet products beforehand lies on the customers alone. It is crucial to be vigilant and aware of what you are using. This is further iterated by the OCA report of 14th March 2008 which states that a minimum of one cancer-causing chemical was used in the manufacture of over 40% of all-natural products like Handmade Cosmetics, Natural Handmade Soaps, and other similar products in the market.
How To Be Sure That You are Using Clean Beauty Products?
For most customers, just large and bright labels are enough to decide whether a product is good or bad for them. This is not a good way to judge a product as marketing labels in the front are never an accurate representation of what to expect from the product. To get a clear picture of what the product contains, you must take a look at the back label which contains the list of ingredients.Â
Often harmful and toxic ingredients hide behind some confusing names given to them to make them more appealing. We are here to demystify all these terms in this article to reveal the true nature of these harmful ingredients to help you make informed decisions on whether a product is good, bad or downright ugly for your skin care routine.Â
Parabens – The most Harmful Ingredient Hidden In Beauty Products
One of the most widely used synthetic preservatives, parabens are known to mimic the estrogen hormones in the body cells. Usage of products with this ingredient will result in an increase in the estrogen which can lead to various complications among women like ovarian cancer and breast cancer among other major diseases. It can even cause hormonal imbalance among men. So we advise you to stay away from all products that contain this ingredient.Â
Parabens may also be listed as butylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, and methylparaben on the labels of Handmade Cosmetics, Natural Handmade Soaps, and other skin care products.