I'll be honest, I have never thought about the products that I use on my body. I can tell you that I have never looked at the ingredients in my beauty products and I've never thought about buying natural beauty products. It's actually crazy if you think about it, these are products that I put directly on my body every single day and I have no idea what is in them.
It wasn't until I stopped by AILLEA that I started thinking about what ingredients make up my beauty routine. AILLEA is a shop in Denver, where people know that every single product in the store is safe. Every product is free of paragons, sulfates, petrochemicals, endocrine disruptors or other toxic chemicals. They provide all natural products without sacrificing quality.To see just how "dirty" my beauty routine was, I downloaded the app Think Dirty. The app aims to raise awareness about the environmental impact cosmetics has on our health. "Think Dirty® empowers and educates the consumer on the cosmetics industry by allowing them to make an informed decision on what products to purchase."
The app ranks products on a scale from one to 10, 10 being the "dirtiest" and one being the "cleanest." Think Dirty looks at the publicly available data regarding the health and safety of individual components found in personal care products. They then evaluate the overall risk of a certain product based on the potential health impacts by looking at the published ingredients. Here are a few products I use daily and how they held up in the app. Looks like I have some room for improvement, most of my products were weighing in at a nine or 10. It is pretty shocking to learn that the cosmetics industry is not regulated like the food and drug industries. I would never describe my mascara or lipstick as toxic or cancer-causing, but the scary truth is they can be.
So it's time to clean up your beauty routine. You're probably thinking, "where the heck do I even begin?" If you're wanting to start cleaning up your beauty routine then here are a few good places to start.
Body products. Start to make the switch with your body wash or body lotion. You put these products on 90% of your body so this is a great place to start cleaning up your beauty routine.
Shampoo. This is a product that we go through pretty quickly and need to replenish more often. It's easier to slowly integrate natural beauty products into your beauty routine when it's time for a refill.
Lip products. Chapstick and lipsticks are also a great place to start making the switch. Since these products are placed directly on your mouth and they can easily be ingested you want to make sure these products are natural.
While I was in AILLEA, I bought Indie Lee Squalane Facial Oil. Squalene is naturally occurring in our own bodies, but our squalene levels start dropping drastically when we’re in our 20s. Using squalane oil promotes skin elasticity, diminishes age spots and hyper pigmentation, and boosts cell regeneration and oxygenation, so it basically makes your skin look and feel amazing. I've been using this product for about 2 weeks now and I'm hooked. Colorado is super dry and this keeps my skin feeling hydrated and looking fresh. I plan to slowly integrate natural products into my beauty routine as I need refills or learn more about cool products. I also wanted to share this awesome makeup tutorial with you. Makeup artist, Lisa Eldridge uses all natural and organic beauty products in this video. This shows that you don't have to sacrifice the quality of the products when going natural. You can still see great results with your makeup and other beauty products without harming your body.
I hope you learned something new from this post and hopefully it has made you re-evaluate your beauty routine. If you're in the Denver area and are interested in learning more about natural beauty products stop by AILLEA and chat to the experts!
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