If you visit Our Fifth House for the design and style talk, never fear we’ll be back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. However, if learning about toxic-free living and switching to safer beauty products is on your radar, keep reading! There’s a fun little giveaway at the end!
I Didn’t Know What I Didn’t Know
As a self proclaimed cosmetics junkie, I used to peruse the aisles of Sephora and Ulta with wild abandon……blissfully unaware I assumed all the products were safe to use, because well, this is America where we regulate everything. Don’t we?
Unfortunately for us American consumers, personal care products is one of the least regulated industries. What does this mean? It means companies are allowed to use harmful ingredients and make their own judgments about safety. With more than 80,000 chemicals on the market today, it means we as consumers have the burden of regulating our own safety when it comes to the products we use.
And so, I am now a card carrying lipstick hippie. 😉
Did You Know?
Not to freak you out or anything, but the truth is what you put ON your body is just as important as what you put IN your body. The products we use matter! But who has time to research every ingredient listed on a bottle of moisturizer, body wash, sunscreen etc.? It’s one thing to read food labels, but product labels too? They can be so much tougher to dissect because NOT ALL CHEMICALS ARE TOXIC, and ingredient lists can be so long and hard to understand! How can the average consumer distinguish the good from the bad?
There’s Actually an App for That!
Because, of course there is! It’s 2017 for goodness sake. Of course there’s an app for that. Now if there was an app for folding laundry…….. but I digress.
The Environmental Working Group’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. They’re a non-profit, non-partisan group that’s at the forefront of research and education. Thankfully they’re doing the grunt work for us! They’ve made making safe, healthy choices simpler by creating an app that puts the ingredient research in an easy to navigate database right at your fingertips.
I mean seriously guys this app is so easy to use! You can scan a barcode or type in the name. There are ratings for more than 120,000 food and personal care products. What I love is that it lists and rates each individual ingredient in a product. Check your current product squad with the app and see how your daily product routine rates. Just by using the app on a regular basis you’re teaching yourself more about which chemicals are toxic and why. So you can decide for yourself and make more informed choices.
And It Gets Better
EWG is now offering a verification program for companies that are committed to consumer health and ingredient transparency. The EWG VERIFIED mark on a product means that the product goes above and beyond its green rating in EWG’s healthy living app because the company has disclosed more about its formulations and manufacturing processes. From a consumer standpoint it means that when you see that a product is EWG Verified you can trust that it’s safe to use.
Beautycounter is EWG Verified
I’m thrilled that Beautycounter products are EWG Verified. After years of trying to find safer alternatives to my favorite beauty products, it’s nice to see I’ve finally found a company that is not only effective but completely safe!
Pictured above is my morning skincare squad. You can check out all of my skincare essentials here.
Safe Samples for 10 of You!
I’m giving away a little package of three of my favorite Beautycounter skincare samples to 10 lucky winners! All you have to do to enter the giveaway is sign up for The Safer Beauty Tribe Newsletter. My monthly newsletter that delves deeper into the personal care industry in order to equip you with easy to understand information so that you can make healthier choices for yourselves and your families. It only hits your inbox once a month so you don’t have to worry about being bombarded with emails, and it’s completely free! If you’re already a tribe member, you can enter this giveaway by leaving a comment below letting me know what topics you’d like to see covered in The Safer Beauty Tribe Newsletter this year.
This giveaway ends Monday, February 27th!
Thanks for sharing about the app Carmel. I have used their website in the past. Good to know there’s a mobile version so we can check while out. I am a huge fan of the Beauty Counter products (thanks for the introduction), and can say they are just a “effective” as those laden with chemicals.