Do Ingredients Really Matter?
YES!! Ingredients matter for so many reasons. Any age, any color, any skin tone, any genetic makeup, no matter who you are you should be concerned about what’s in your beauty products. Ingredients lists require PhD’s in Chemistry, they’re confusing, daunting, and meant to keep you in the dark. Using chemical terms keeps most everyone guessing on what the ingredients truly are and where they come from. Educating yourself on ingredients is important.
Avoid Allergens
Recently I wondered why a highly rated, very fancy, very expensive lip balm seemed to totally dry my lips out. During my research for Conscious Beauty I discovered that one of the ingredients they use is Punica Granatum Flower Extract, an extract from the flower of pomegranates, something that I am very allergic to. I would never have known that was what that ingredient was until I did my research. Now I know to avoid that ingredient and that lip balm. Companies are not required to break down their ingredients lists to the very basics, obviously. Otherwise we’d have little to complain or be concerned about in regard to knowing what our ingredients are. If you find some things are regularly bothering you, check the ingredients list and see if they have common ingredients; perhaps you’re allergic to something in the formula. Just learning what ingredients you’re allergic to and what other names they may be listed as can save you lots of money and frustration in the long run. Once you know what to avoid, I promise you you’ll find it quickly on a label. It’s funny how things like that stand out.
Avoid Toxins
There’s no sugar-coating it, we have toxins in our makeup. Over the course of history, as humans seeking to look more attractive, we steered away from rubbing berries and flowers on our faces and resorted to putting toxins on our face, as long as we look good. What do I mean? Certain colorants like Carbon Black (Black 2), are dangerous, and we’re putting them by our eyes or on our lips. But it’s not just colorants, there are ingredients like Phthalates or formaldehyde which are KNOWN toxins that are in our cosmetics. There are ingredients that are generalized names for multiple ingredients like Fragrance, flavor, parfum etc that you don’t even know what the ingredient actually is. I find it scary that there are ingredients like 1.4-Dioxane, a known carcinogen, that doesn’t even have to be listed on ingredients labels because it’s an expected byproduct of other processes. In our quest for beauty we went from rubbing berries on our face to rubbing dangerous chemicals all over our face. This is not the first time in history that people have been alright with putting dangerous chemicals on our faces, in Victorian times it was in vogue to look as dead as possible, with skin that was nearly “translucent” women used skin products and makeup containing mercury, arsenic, and lead. They knew the chemicals were dangerous, but they did it anyway. They ended up going insane or dying because of the poisoning that would result, so let’s try to avoid repeating history.
Read More:
Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dangerous-beauty-products_b_4168587
TMJ4: https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/you-should-avoid-these-dangerous-beauty-product-ingredients
The Chalkboard: https://thechalkboardmag.com/toxic-10-dangerous-beauty-ingredients
Victorian Era Makeup: http://www.katetattersall.com/early-victorian-era-make-up/