Au Naturel

It’s the one day of the year where everyone tries to be eco-friendly, where all the blogs are writing about sustainable fashion, and we’re all extra proud we’ve been recycling for so many years (if you didn’t know…it’s Earth Day). I’ve done the whole how to fashionably contribute to Earth Day types of posts in the past (although I’m still pretty proud of last year’s) but this year, I’m using Earth Day as an excuse to write about something I’m quite passionate about…although the passion is still pretty new for me. Can you guess what it is?

For years, I’ve been obsessed with beauty products (I mean, what girl isn’t?) In high school, my friend Jennifer and I used to drive downtown to go to Barneys (the old Barneys in the current Hermes spot…throwback). Because we were too young to actually afford any of the clothing, we used to go a little crazy in the beauty department. We loved this stuff…and still do to this day. But in this multi-billion dollar category (look at me getting all Shark Tank on you), there’s one thing that hasn’t been a topic of discussion until more recently. What exactly are we putting on our hair, skin and nails everyday? Do we even know?

As recommended by Jessica Murnane (I trust pretty much everything she suggests), I recently read the book Skin Cleanse. It included some things I already knew — like basically there’s a bunch of shit in our beauty products that our bodies don’t need. But also some things I didn’t know — like there’s no FDA-type organization regulating what goes in these beauty products, and when companies use words like “all natural” and “hypo-allergenic” it actually doesn’t mean anything. Gross, right? Listen, I’m not going to preach anything to you. I just let you know what I know and you can make your own informed decisions. Just like I’m not telling you that gluten is the devil (because if it was I’d be the ultimate sinner).

There are so many beauty products out there with all these ingredients we can’t pronounce (and what I also learned from Skin Cleanse is that the words you can’t pronounce aren’t always a bad thing, as they can be the scientific name for some pure and natural ingredients…but hey, we’re not scientists, how are we supposed to know?) and there’s only so much we can do about it. You can eat your way to better skin and hair, but we all need to wash our face with something. SO I made it a goal of mine to get my beauty routine as clean as possible. I would say I’m a little more than half way there (I still have most of my makeup and maybe my shampoo and conditioner left to swap) but when it comes to face and body, here’s what I’ve been up to.

I realize some chemicals put in skincare (especially for your face) have great benefits like decreasing wrinkles and fine lines…things of that nature. But I’m hoping if I stick to as natural of products as possible, maybe I won’t need said chemicals. Who knows? Currently, for the face I’ve been using M-61 Perfect Cleanse (a few times a week with my Clarisonic) and I switch between the Gemstone Organic Rose Quartz Cream (for day) and the Libras Botanicals Sweet Tea Cream (for night…as it’s much thicker). I got the Sweet Tea Cream from Mud Facial Bar that just opened here and all of their products are not only very natural but also come from independent companies that make small batches of these super cool products. So if you’re looking for a place to get some of this stuff, that’s a good spot to start. I’ll also use Josie Maran Argan Oil to moisturize throughout the day if I need a little extra hydration. The most difficult thing for me to find a more natural version of was sunscreen but I did find the Lavanila Sunscreen (which smells delightfully like a bowl of oatmeal). It takes a while to absorb so if you have any other suggestions, feel free to send my way. I actually tried the S.W. Basics Hibiscus Mask for the first time yesterday (FYI S.W. Basics was created by Adrina Grigore, the author of Skin Cleanse), and it was definitely the most unique color mask I’ve ever used, but it was pretty cool. My skin felt super soft afterwards, plus when you rinse it, it sort of feels like it’s exfoliating at the same time. Bonus? There’s only THREE ingredients. For the shower, I just switched to Castile Soap (specifically by Acure) which I’m into. There’s not many ingredients, it’s quite hydrating and it smells nice…so far, no complaints. I’m obsessed with the Earth Tu Face salt scrub, although it’s a little more than I’d like to spend on a body scrub…but it just feels so damn good. And lastly, I’ve been using coconut oil instead of body lotion for quite some time now, and I’ll never look back. NEVER.

Overall, I can’t vouch if any of these are technically eco-friendly, as they’re not necessarily advertised that way, but I have to assume if they’re better for our skin, they have to be better for the environment. And if you’re wondering where on EARTH do you find such products? (besides Mud Facial Bar, which I previously mentioned) Credo Beauty and Spirit Beauty Lounge are great options for online. It’s easy when there’s sites actually dedicated to these types of products, so you don’t have to sift through all the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. IT’S ALL GOOD. In person, space519 has really fantastic apothecary items that aren’t necessarily organic but the beauty products they do carry don’t have things like parabens and other harmful chemicals in them. Now I personally think it’s pretty easy at this point to find great alternative swaps for hair, face, body and nails but makeup is a little trickier. RMS, Kjaer Weiss and Ilia are go-tos but there’s definitely room for more quality makeup, sans chemicals. And I get it can’t be easy to create products based around color, only using natural things that create color in the first place. But hopefully more people will figure it out so we’ll have a better selection of natural makeup to get our face on. Or I’ll just have to create my own…ChiCityFashion Organics? Eh, not feelin’ it.

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So that’s all, folks. I guess you can see this is my sort-of contribution to Earth Day. What are you doing to celebrate this wonderful planet? Do you have any thoughts towards this whole natural beauty movement? Are you using any totally organic products right now that you love? What do you wish to see in this category that hasn’t been done well yet? TELL ME EVERYTHING. And if you’re down for some clean beauty swaps, here’s a few things to get you started.

Images via Credo Beauty, Cocovit, S.W. Basics & Pinterest