NO! Clean beauty is not a ‘trend’, it shouldn’t be a passing phase that we ‘grow’ out of. Clean beauty should be our new lifestyle, it should be our norm. Simply put, Clean Beauty refers to products that do not contain harmful ingredients that would impact our health.
Choosing clean products means you are opting for the safer choice that will do the job without causing side effects or long-term damage. Unlike the food industry, the beauty industry is not as strictly regulated. This is why the customer has to choose carefully between the millions of products in the market. If you want to shop clean, and you should, here is what to look for:
- Transparent Labels: Avoid brands who don’t put the effort to list their ingredients and label their products. Labels that use umbrella terms or buzzwords, often, have something to hide. The first 3 ingredients on the product label are the concentrated ingredients in the product.
- Clean Ingredients: always look at the ingredients of the product, this way you will know exactly what you are paying for. Essentially, products that do not include carcinogens, hormone disruptors, or irritants.
We need to understand that clean means non-toxic, the products shouldn’t be hiding ingredients or exaggerating their benefits. Non-toxic products are not necessarily all-natural or preservative-free because preservatives are needed to maintain the formulation of the product.
The most important thing when it comes to the Clean Beauty movement is understanding that as consumers we should be aware of what we are paying for. We have to know more about the ingredients we are exposing ourselves to and stay up to date on the industry’s regulations, common toxins, and functionality of some ingredients.
If you are not thinking ‘well now I am questioning everything on my vanity’, that is good! Being a conscious shopper means questioning the brands and looking for the products that actually have the ingredients that will do the job. Instead of simply following the next trend or the next hit brand, you should do what is good for your skin, body, and hair.
To help you on your mission to adopt clean products, we’ve compiled the list of ingredients that you should 100% avoid. These are toxic elements that do more harm than good and should not be in any of your products whether it is for your hair, skin, makeup, or body.
- Parabens
- Synthetic fragrances
- Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS)
- Phthalates
- Artificial colours
- Formaldehyde
- Aluminium compounds
- Hydroquinone
- Oxybenzone
- Triclosan
- Refined petroleum
- Talc
- Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)
Unfortunately, more often than not, we find these ingredients in our daily products. Women usually have around 12 daily products, which means we end up having over 100 toxins on our bodies daily!
In addition to caring for your health, clean beauty looks after the environment. Brands that create clean beauty products usually make sure that their packaging is sustainable which means the materials used are recycled or biodegradable. This helps reduce the waste we leave behind and at the same time reduce the use of non-renewable resources.
Now that you are armed with the necessary information about Clean Beauty, do you still think it’s a trend?
