Check skin care ingredients: Do you REALLY know what is in your skin care products?
Until I was in my in mid-20’s, I did not dive too deeply into researching skincare or cosmetics and their ingredients quality. Since the age of 2, I was a dancer all the way up until graduate school and my experience of cosmetics was what my mother mostly taught me.
She was a cosmetician for most of her life, and I can only imagine she only learned what her job taught her and from her own parents.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out our first skin care guide you can read through that here!
Table of ContentsToggle
Why Check Skin Care Ingredients?
Check skin care ingredients: what goes into our bodies matter
Unfortunately, we live in a time where chemicals and toxins are put in almost EVERYTHING.
Our foods, skin care, household products, clothing, etc.
It can feel overwhelming trying to avoid them.
But there IS hope!
Keep reading to go through The Earth’s Choice Apothecary’s Skin Care Ingredients Guide and important steps you can take to implement in your daily routine now.
These will help you to develop more awareness behind what is TRULY going into your body and on your skin.
Skin Care Ingredients Guide & Tips
1. Understand the Ingredients List
One of the first steps we can take to check skin care ingredients, is to understand and get in the habit of looking at the ingredients list on the packaging. Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration, meaning the first ingredient listed is in the highest concentration (most abundant), and so on.
Herbalist Tip: look for active ingredients known to benefit YOUR skin type or concern. Examples of concerns: acne-prone skin, fine lines and wrinkles, etc.
It is also important to look out for known allergens and toxins on the ingredients labels like fragrances and preservatives.
We will go into more details on those a little bit later.
2. Look for Active Ingredients
The next step when checking skin care ingredients, is to focus in on active ingredients known to benefit your skin concern or skin type. For example, if you have predominantly dry skin, you will want to search ingredients known to provide moisture and lock it in, such as, hyaluronic acid, ceramics, or even glycerin (if you are comfortable using that).
For acne-prone skin, you may want to search for products that have an active ingredient known to reduce inflammation and unclog pores, to help the healing process. Some of these known ingredients are: benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid.
Regardless of your skin type or problem areas, always prioritize doing your own research and choosing a product AND BRAND that utilizes the ingredients that not only benefit you, but are SAFE.
3. Avoid Harmful Ingredients
As we transition into SAFE ingredients, when we check skin care ingredients, this process is not solely on finding the good ingredients, it is to also help us AVOID THE BAD ONES.
In this day and age when consumerism is over saturated with both businesses that have been the monopolizers for decades and new small companies coming into the space, we have more options now than ever.
Allowing ourselves to choose non-toxic products is honoring our body and our overall health.
Knowing what ingredients are harmful to us is just as important, if not more!
Some ingredients may only cause mild irritation, rash, temporary light burning, etc. But others are known carcinogens and can negatively impact our health LONG TERM.
So, why would we want that in our homes, much less on our bodies!?
Some common harmful ingredients to watch out for on your skin care list is:
Parabens
Sulfates
Fragrances
synthetic-
phthalates
When considering purchasing a product, look for ones that either LIST those and AVOID THEM, or ones that state on the packaging they are “harmful ingredient name-FREE.”
Check Skin Care Ingredients
Check Skin Care Ingredients- what’s in a name?
One final way we can do this, (and this is in our top 3 tips to implement) is by considering the brand’s reputation and certifications.
Consider Brand’s Reputation & Certifications
When we think of a brand’s reputation we may think of the main ones that we see on commercials and social media THE MOST.
We need to break that association.
Just because a company has the limitless funds of a royal family, does not equate to them being non-toxic or a safe brand to buy from.
We need to dive MUCH deeper into what their mission statement is, where in the world they are manufactured and distributed, what certifications and 3rd party testing (if any) is listed on their website.
Lucky for you, we did a lot of that leg work for you in our cruelty free guide that exposed a lot of common brands you THOUGHT were safe, but through research we found out they actually aren’t.
So, what are some certifications to look for?
Leaping Bunny Certified
USDA Organic
Here are some of our FAVORITE Eco-Friendly Companies!
Resources Mentioned in Guide
Ingredients to Avoid During Pregnancy. Learn more…
Anti-Aging Secrets Revealed? Learn more…
Comentarios