What if I told you that many of the so-called natural skincare products on the market today are anything but? Would you be surprised?
Similar to the organic health food industry, natural skincare is an emerging market that has not gone unnoticed by the large cosmetic companies. This should be a good thing as this should bring better, safer products to the market.
But as you may have already noticed with foods, “organic” and “natural” are sometimes anything but. For example, seafood can be labeled “Organic” even though it contains mercury and other dangerous chemicals. As another example, meat can be labeled “Natural” regardless of what the animal is fed or how they are raised, effectively making the term meaningless.
I could go on about the natural food industry, but let’s focus on similar deceptions used in the natural skincare industry.
Several large international corporations are now carrying lines of natural skincare products. How can we know if these are really good for us or if they are just another attempt to pass an inferior and potentially harmful product to unsuspecting people hooked by the “natural” tag?
Read on and I will give you some key things to look for when searching for natural skincare products to help you make just such a determination.
1. It should be clear what other larger company (if any) controls the company whose products you are considering. The big players can spend more on a product name than we will on a four year college education. Of course it will sound trustworthy. If in the fine print somewhere it says something like “Division of Humongous Global Conglomerate Corp”, do you think they really grow their own aloe and hand pick it for quality?
Now, I’m not saying do not consider large companies here. I’m just saying be fully aware who you are buying from so you can make an informed choice.
2. Ingredients should be readily available. You can’t evaluate the ingredients if you can’t find them, and many companies make it next to impossible to find an actual ingredients listing until you have the product in your hand.
If shopping online, be immediately wary of any company that sounds good, looks good, but does not list the actual ingredients anywhere on their site. I will explain more about some less than honest practices companies use later.
3. Ingredients should NOT include parabens, fragrance, or petroleum based alcohol. These ingredients are not good for your skin but are widely used because they are cheap and help preserve the product or, in the case of fragrance, entice you to keep buying it because it smells nice. Some of these are not only harmful, but are suspected carcinogens. And to think these are being absorbed through our skin!
4. Active ingredients should be mostly plant based. One example of a cutting edge ingredient used in the best natural skincare products is Phytessence Wakame, an exotic kelp native to the Japanese Sea which helps keep skin youthful looking. Another is CoQ10, a vitamin like substance that is found in all of our body’s cells and is very important for healthy skin.
One thing you should understand when reading ingredients listings is that even plant derivatives sometimes need to be processed slightly in order for it to be usable by our bodies. At this point they are often given un-friendly, chemical sounding names. This is required by law and is referred to as the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) code.
Educating yourself is the only sure way to evaluate what is natural and what is not. As a general rule, if two products have ingredients with the same name, but one is derived from plants and one is derived from petroleum, always discard the product with the petroleum derived ingredient.
5. The best natural skincare products will contain at least 50% active ingredients. As I alluded earlier, some companies engage in a little trickery here. They will include an impressive array of natural ingredients which actually only make up a tiny fraction of the whole, making them ineffective and a waste of your money.
Make no mistake about it, natural skincare products are here to stay and are aggressively competing for your dollars. The information in this guide will start you off on the right foot in your search for honest, effective, safe natural skincare.
Walter Evans is a dedicated researcher of natural skincare products and he shares his research on his website. Should you be interested in finding the best natural skincare products on the market today, visit his site now at http://www.absolutely-clear-skin.com/
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