These Ingredients You'd Rather Not Put on Your Skin

Do you apply a load of chemicals to your skin every day, perhaps without realising it, through the use of your cream, shower gel, or body lotion? It's unnecessary because nowadays there is a wide range of natural cosmetics that protect your skin, enhance its beauty, and are also less harmful to the environment. Do you think your skin deserves a well-earned holiday? Dive into your bathroom and take a critical look at the ingredient list of your skincare products. We guide you with the points below to help you choose cleaner and more effective cosmetics.

What is Natural Cosmetics?

Many cosmetic brands appear 'green', but they are not. There is no law that defines what natural cosmetics are precisely. A manufacturer can put the term 'natural' on the packaging, add just one or two natural ingredients to the composition, and thus give the impression that the entire product is natural. What does indicate something is a certification that can be awarded to products that meet certain standards. Natrue, Ecocert, and BIDH are certifications that all stand for environmentally friendly natural cosmetics. Well-known cosmetic brands with certification include MÁDARA, Dr. Hauschka, and Weleda. Even without certification, natural cosmetics can be safe and good. You will just have to make a bit more effort to find information about a product.

Why Should You Switch to Natural Cosmetics?

The products currently in your bathroom or bedroom probably work just fine. But there are several reasons to switch to natural cosmetics. If your skin is very sensitive and irritated, natural cosmetics can support your skin's healing power and help restore its natural balance. Many cosmetic products contain ingredients like parabens, phthalates, microplastics, and preservatives. Some of these ingredients regularly cause skin irritation, while others burden the environment.

Preservatives, Parabens

Preservatives are added to prevent a product from becoming full of moulds and bacteria within a few days. Methylisothiazolinone is such a preservative. The substance can cause an allergic reaction with symptoms such as itching, hives, redness, and eczema. Dermatologists warn against methylisothiazolinone because the number of patients with a skin reaction to this substance has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Parabens are also preservatives that can be identified by their names ending in -paraben, such as methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben. Parabens are popular with cosmetic manufacturers because they are colourless, odourless, and inexpensive. If you are hypersensitive to these preservatives, this can result in redness, bumps, swelling, flaking, and itching. Parabens can also penetrate the skin to some extent when used in cosmetics. It has been shown that they can occur in human tissue. Like phthalates and UV filters, parabens are mentioned in connection with their hormone-like effects.

It is more complicated and expensive to develop a stable product without preservatives. Fortunately, nature offers a whole range of preservative substances, about which there are no safety disagreements. Especially with baby products, you prefer not to take unnecessary risks. With baby products from Naif and MÁDARA, you can be sure that they are free from PEG, SLS/SLES, phenoxyethanol, and parabens.

Sulfates and PEGs

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES) are strong cleansing ingredients added to shampoo, shower gel, facial cleanser, soap, bubble bath, and toothpaste, but also to dishwashing liquid and all-purpose cleaners! These two sulfates remove grease and dirt from your skin and make your product foam nicely. The downside of SLS and SLES is that they can dissolve the natural oils on the skin. This damages the natural skin barrier, and you may experience an irritated and dry skin. You may also suffer from pimples. SLS is the most irritating for the skin. It is so irritating at a low concentration that manufacturers use the substance to irritate the skin so that they can then test the soothing effect of cosmetic ingredients. Moreover, SLS is also harmful to aquatic life.

Of these two sulfates, SLES is the slightly milder variant for the skin. However, if your skin is sensitive, it is better to avoid SLES as well. Moreover, SLES has another problem. Some products with SLES contain a small amount of 1,4-dioxane as an unwanted by-product. Another synthetic ingredient in cosmetics where contamination with 1,4-dioxane can occur is polyethylene glycol (PEG).

Legally, 1,4-dioxane is not allowed in cosmetics. However, in a sample conducted by the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority among cosmetic products with PEG (polyethylene glycol), the presence of 1,4-dioxane was demonstrated in half of them. If you start using a natural cleansing product, it may take some getting used to that your shampoo or face wash foams less. But it is not necessary to cleanse excessively and strip away the natural oils and moisture that your skin needs so much.

Eco-friendly and Cruelty-free

The production of natural cosmetics takes more account of the environment. Products are free from microplastics; very small particles that can be found in scrubs, face creams, toothpaste, and lipstick. These particles can contribute to the plastic soup in oceans and are harmful to fish and other marine animals. Microplastics in a product can be recognised by the word 'poly' in the ingredient list, such as 'polyethylene' or 'polymethyl'. The previously mentioned certifications guarantee that there is no microplastic in your product. Some sunscreens contain the UV filter oxybenzone, which endangers marine life and coral reefs. In principle, both natural and conventional brands sold in the Netherlands are cruelty-free. Animal testing for cosmetic products is banned in Europe. Since 2013, there is also a trade ban on cosmetics for which recent animal testing has been conducted. This does not mean that cosmetics are necessarily 100 percent animal testing-free. Many ingredients have been tested on animals in the past. Some large cosmetic brands no longer test in the EU but still do so in other countries like China, where they market their products. This country requires foreign cosmetic brands to conduct animal testing when exporting their products to China.

Natural Cosmetics are Entirely of the Present

The days when natural cosmetics were sold in brown glass jars with a dull label are long gone. Natural cosmetics are trendy and happening. There are natural brands that exude pure luxury. Anti-aging creams, toothpaste, deodorant, there is virtually no cosmetic application imaginable for which there is no natural variant. You can also find makeup free from synthetic fragrances and preservatives, mineral oils, silicones, and PEG, with ingredients that are as much as possible from controlled organic cultivation.

View all our natural cosmetics products here

Author: Sanne van der Rijt