Could natural ingredients be harming your skin?

When it comes to skincare, the buzzword "natural" is often associated with healthy, pure, and safe ingredients. However, the truth is that not all natural ingredients are beneficial for your skin, and some may even cause harm.

One common misconception is that natural ingredients are always gentle and non-irritating, but this is not always the case. For instance, essential oils such as lavender, tea tree, and peppermint, which are often used in natural skincare products, can be highly irritating to some skin types, especially when used in high concentrations. They can cause redness, itchiness, and even burns in severe cases.

Moreover, some natural ingredients can be allergenic, causing contact dermatitis and other allergic reactions. This is particularly true for botanical extracts such as chamomile, arnica, and aloe vera, which can cause allergic reactions in some people, even at low concentrations.

Another issue with natural ingredients is that they can be highly unstable and prone to oxidization, which can render them ineffective or even harmful. For instance, some oils such as coconut oil and sunflower oil can go rancid quickly, releasing free radicals that can damage the skin's natural barrier and lead to premature aging.

Furthermore, natural ingredients may not be as effective as lab-designed synthetics in addressing specific skin concerns. Synthetics can offer more precise, potent and efficient solutions to address a wide range of skin concerns. For example, ingredients like hyaluronic acid, retinoids are synthetic ingredients that have been proven to be effective in anti-aging, brightening, and overall skin health.

Finally, synthetics are less prone to contamination and can be formulated to have a longer shelf life, without the need for harsh preservatives that can irritate the skin. This makes them a more stable and safe option for skincare products.

When choosing a product, focusing on understanding the formulation - here are some tips on how to read a skincare label like a pro. Do your research and ensure that the brand uses ethically sourced clean ingredients (be it natural or synthetic)

Our view on Clean and Conscious Beauty

You often hear “Clean Beauty” and “Conscious Beauty” used interchangeably.  And that’s perhaps understandable given there’s no agreed definition of the terms.  But before we dig into how we think of these two (similar but different) concepts, and what they mean to us - some context first.

Skincare products in the US are regulated by the FDA (Food & Drug Administration).  Perhaps because they’re more focused on the food and pharmaceuticals areas of their remit, they have historically taken a lighter touch in their regulation of the skincare industry.  It almost feels like they’re reactive vs. proactive (nothing wrong with that) in that they seem to wait for a problem and then fix it.  A case in point is the FDA’s list of specifically prohibited skincare ingredients – it has 11 (eleven, not a typo) names on it.  By contrast, the EU’s list of prohibited or severely restricted inputs is over 1,300 ingredients long!

Against that backdrop, it’s no surprise that extremely knowledgeable consumers started digging deeper to understand more about what they were putting on their skin.  What they found surprised them – several popular products were rife with carcinogens, skin irritants and assorted other harmful ingredients.  The earliest clean beauty brands were invariably founded by consumers struggling to find products that were safe and wouldn’t irritate their (or a loved one’s) skin. 

The idea caught on pretty quick and with the explosion of interest in Clean Beauty, you had a plethora of opinions on what is, and isn’t, clean.  Some consumers conflate clean with natural and/or organic.  We do not as (a) not all manmade ingredients are bad for you and (b) there are several natural or organic ingredients that can irritate your skin.   

We have reviewed the science and standards established by leading Clean Beauty brands and retailers in coming up with criteria we feel best addresses consumer concerns by avoiding harmful ingredients while at the same time ensuring that whatever we make is highly efficacious.