Cosmetics

One of my resolutions this year was to be more conscientious about buying cosmetics. That means no impulse cosmetics purchases- only buy what I need. (Note: I use the term need very loosely.) And when I do buy cosmetics, I want to be conscientious about where I buy them. The three brands I know about and that I believe are environmentally conscientious about their policies, lack of animal product use and animal testing, and their organic ingredients are Arbonne, Body Shop, and Aveda. I am not 100% sure that they are as green as I would like them to be, but I do believe they make an honest effort. Again, I am no expert. There could be many more brands that make the same effort to produce safe products, I just know of these three. I am concerned with both the manufacturing of the products and how safe they are for our skin.

With that in mind, I chose to buy mascara this week at Aveda. I love it, it works really well, and I like that the products are organic and I am rewarded for not using one of their bags to carry my purchase (10 cents off the price). (On a side note, in the grocery stores in Kingston, Ontario, you actually have to pay to use shopping bags.) The friendly salesperson also pointed out that if the ingredients used in Aveda's products can't be used in a sustainable way, they won't use them at all.

I also chose Aveda because I read in Women's Health that the company has won awards for being environmentally friendly. However, when I research Aveda and Arbonne (I have not researched the Body Shop), there are differing opinions about just how healthy all of their products are. It gets confusing for sure. I did learn that Aveda uses 100% wind energy for manufacturing their products!

A very good friend of mine, Natalie, is conscientious about the environment and making healthy choices. She recommended some great sites for researching cosmetics.

One is a cosmetic safety database called Skin Deep. I'd like to point out that I was unable to find my Aveda Mosscara on this site, and this has happened to me before.

Another website lists the dirty dozen chemicals used in daily products. Natalie also recommended SafeMama for researching products that are safe for babies, including cleaning products.

It certainly can be overwhelming researching every product, but there are so many choices out there, that I think it makes sense to compare and choose the safest products.