Tips to Green Your Beauty Routine

There are lots of little things we can do and small changes we can make to help improve our skin, our health and the environment. Here are some tips to help “green” your beauty routine:

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  Conventional facial cleansers are often formulated with harmful ingredients like sulfates, parabens, triclosan, and fragrance. Try switching to a natural face cleanser rich in botanical fruit oils like lemon, avocado, jojoba, tea-tree oils, tea extracts, and aloe leaf juice.

• When looking for green beauty products, consider simple substitutions, like using avocado oil on your skin instead of mineral oil or cornstarch instead of baby powder. Try using organic coconut oil as great natural eye makeup remover and as a face/body moisturizer after showering.
• Avoid lip products that contain lead, artificial colors, fragrance, lanolin, or petrochemicals like perolatum. Instead opt for those that contain beeswax, shea butter, and fruit pigments – for a chemical free kiss!
• Use makeup brushes made from sustainable materials, like bamboo, and ones that have synthetic bristles not animal hair.
• You can make your own beauty products like scrubs, masks, and treatments in your kitchen. Lots of easy recipes can be found online, such as mixing 1/4 cup olive oil & 1/2 cup brown sugar for a great face and body scrub.
• Reduce waste by buying products in recycled or recyclable packaging, such as paper boxes or glass bottles. To save on excess plastic packaging, switch products like body wash to a bar of natural soap.
• Read the book Not Just a Pretty Face by Stacy Malkan. It’s probably the most important book written about the toxic nature of the beauty industry. The book gives you lots of information on everyday products, resources and tools to make smarter decisions on what to buy.
• There is a lot of misinformation out there, just because it says it’s made with “natural” ingredients doesn’t mean it really is or that it’s environmentally friendly. The best way to research beauty products is on The Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database website. You can search any ingredient or product and get a detailed profile of its health concerns.

Greening your beauty routine is a great way to reduce the amount of chemicals that you are exposed to and reduce the negative impact on the planet.

Photo courtesy iStock

Charmaine Leah

Charmaine Leah is a professional esthetician and skin therapist with a deep passion for beauty and living a natural lifestyle. She hosts the popular video blog Glamology and is the founder of Mint & Berry an online organic beauty retailer. Having grown up with sensitive skin, she became an activist for chemical-free products and now helps educate others on the dangers of toxic cosmetics. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.