Choosing Eco-friendly Beauty
With an array of beauty products on the market in this day and age, choosing eco-friendly products has many valuable benefits for both you and your family. The eco-friendly beauty market is growing quickly due to the consumer demand for products that are better for the earth and are free of harsh and toxic ingredients. Many big box brands that are distributed widely contain harsh sulfates and other chemicals that can be harsh on the skin and even interact with hormones in the body.
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Cruelty free
Eco-friendly beauty products are often cruelty free, which means they aren’t tested on animals. This is a huge bonus to many animal lovers. While many large companies test their products on animals before distributing them, now there are plenty of other companies that take a strong stance against the testing of products on animals. Larger brands sometimes still test their products on animals even when they have been selling and distributing a product for decades. They harm hundreds of thousands of animals each and every year in order to earn their profit when they could otherwise choose to be cruelty free. Products sold in China must be tested on animals. Some companies therefore refuse to sell their products in China, while many large companies choose instead to comply with China and harm animals in the process for the sake of boosting profits.
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Less harsh on Mother Nature
Eco-friendly products are less harsh on Mother Nature. As products wash down the drain, they sometimes run into streams and rivers. Products that contain microbeads in order to exfoliate or provide scrubbing action are extremely bad for the earth, as these microbeads do not break down and end up being washed into waterways. This harms the marine life and other wildlife that depend on the water these microbeads flow end up polluting.
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Better for your Skin
Many eco-friendly beauty and skin care products also just happen to be better for your skin as well. Many people are drawn to skin care products that smell delicious, but it is important to learn and realize that fragrance is simply not skin care. While a product may smell great, fragrance in products is actually an irritant to skin, especially for babies or for those naturally have more sensitive skin. So while your whipped strawberry scented face cream may smell amazing, it could be the culprit for the pesky rash or red spots that won’t go away even when you think you’ve tried everything else.
Eco-friendly products are less likely to have added dyes, which don’t the environment or you skin any favors. It’s amazing how many products contain both dyes and fragrance. Sadly, many skin care companies feel that they need to add these ingredients in order to make the products more appealing to customers, but these ingredients aren’t good for anyone or the waterways that they will eventually wash into. While some skin care products may not be labeled as eco-friendly, those without harsh dyes and fragrances are eco-friendly in the sense that they don’t contain these ingredients even if they aren’t labeled as being good for the environment.
Choosing products that don’t test on animals is another form of a product that is considered eco-friendly. It is appalling how many companies still test their products on animals before selling them to the masses. Some companies even use tricky wording to make it appear that their products aren’t tested on animals, but any wise person can see that it is just wording. Watch for labels that say, “This finished product not tested on animals.” Notice that the company uses the words “finished product” – this is just silly. Why would a finished bottle of lotion or cleanser be tested on an animal? What the company is really referring to here is that they tested the batch of the formulation on animals before bottling it to be distributed for sale in various stores. This information is misleading and a company that labels products in this way should be questioned on what other practices they use that could mislead customers.
Making informed decisions and considering the environment when purchasing skin care products can go a long way for your skin and the world around you. Protect your family, as well as wildlife and the ecosystem, by considering more friendly products that will do your skin and the environment a bit of good. While this often requires more time and research, it’s well worth it to ensure that you’re getting the best of the best in skin care that causes no harm.