I want to restock with no-nasties toiletries

donnac2558

Check out A'Kin an Aussie brand many swear by. Available online with offers sometimes.

Jacks_xxx

It all depends which nasties you're trying to avoid. Many ranges market themselves to people who want to avoid nasties - but actually contain lots of things that we might wish to avoid. There's nothing I can use from Body Shop, Lush, Tesco or Naked for example. Ranges like Sarah Chapman, Liz Earle, and Elemis have been positioned as "natural" in our brains by clever marketing - but they all contain chemicals from my TO AVOID list.

I'm particularly anti PEGs, parabens, perfume, Parsol1789, Propylene glycol, Butylene Glycol, Silicones, Squalane made from sharks, synthetic colours, Sodium Lauryl (and laureth) sulfate, mineral oil and all the TEAs DEAs and MEAs. Basically I avoid everything on the Green Beauty Bible NO list - and a couple more! :eek:

http://www.beautybible.com/green_pages/gp_ingds_not_wanted.html

http://www.beautybible.com/green_pages/ingredients-index.htm

This is marketing rather than factual info but it gives a good overview of what chemicals Lush uses:

http://www.lush.co.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=lush.lushopedia.php&action=displayByLetter&indexLetter=a

I look up chemicals here a lot:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

The Green Beauty Bible is a great place to start finding out about the different brands that exist because they're usually not as heavily marketed as the full of nasties ones.

I can use REN, Jason and A'kin with no reservations. Their products have the utmost ingredient integrity as well as being high performance and lovely to use. I've used shower gels, handwashes and shampoos and conditioners from all three brands, and skincare from A'kin and REN.

A'kin have a very highly rated eye product. A'kin Hair products are fab too. I get my A'kin from here:

http://www.mypure.co.uk/

I get my REN from here but there's always loads on eBay too.

http://www.renskincare.com/Homepage.aspx

A'kin have some shows on QVC coming up which might give you an introduction to the range.

(Sorry for the long post! )

PS Green people are worth a look too.
http://www.greenpeople.co.uk/organicdeodorants.aspx

Love Lula is a great site for hitting a lot of brands at once and saving on the P&P. It sells EcoSoapia, A'kin Jason, Green People and more.

http://www.lovelula.com/default.cfm

glowgirl_2

Thanks Jacks - great post:T

TomsMom

Thanks very much Jacks. My no nasties list started off with just SLS and parabens. I think I need to do a bit more research as I looked up one of the ingredients of a Naked product and I found it undesirable. Your links will be very useful.

Jacks_xxx

glowgirl wrote: »

Thanks Jacks - great post:T

TomsMom wrote: »

Thanks very much Jacks. My no nasties list started off with just SLS and parabens. I think I need to do a bit more research as I looked up one of the ingredients of a Naked product and I found it undesirable. Your links will be very useful.

No worries my lovelies - as you might have guessed this is a little bit of a hobby horse of mine!

beautyscientist

Well Jacks, you are certainly very choosy indeed about what you put on your skin. I am familiar with most of the reasons why people avoid most of the things on your list. It means you are spending a great deal of money on brands that in turn have very high costs. I personally think that the risks you are avoiding are very low, but you have obviously done a lot of research and made your own judgment.

Can I just put your mind at rest on one point. Squalane has not been extracted from sharks for decades, probably 40 years. Its all made from vegetable sources, usually olive oil nowadays. Squalane is a completely natural material and is part of our skin's barrier. It also has the most amazing skin feel. You are missing out by avoiding it.

For anyone who doesn't want to pay top dollar for their skin care, please don't feel you have to pay extra to avoid 'nasties' for health reasons. Mass market cosmetic products are completely safe and do not contain any known toxins.

Kirri

I've been buying more natural brands for ages and tried a lot!!! Some of the things I like in particular are (available in either health shops or widely online) are:

Green People - Sun cream is best I've used, Gentle tone (a gel type toner), fruitful nights (smoothing night cream) and Limited Edition day/night cream in particular but also the masks and other creams. I'm not keen on the shampoo and conditioner though.

Burt's Bees pomegranate lipbalm and milk/honey body cream.

Jason Natural - for the amazing shower gels, stick deo, hand soap, shampoo and conditioner and the baby cream is a fantastic hand cream for really dry hands. My favourite overall brand.

Lavera - face wash and bronze lip gloss.

Dr Hauschka - mascara and foot cream.


I personally avoid Lush/Body Shop etc.

Jacks_xxx

beautyscientist wrote: »

Well Jacks, you are certainly very choosy indeed about what you put on your skin. I am familiar with most of the reasons why people avoid most of the things on your list. It means you are spending a great deal of money on brands that in turn have very high costs. I personally think that the risks you are avoiding are very low, but you have obviously done a lot of research and made your own judgment.

Can I just put your mind at rest on one point. Squalane has not been extracted from sharks for decades, probably 40 years. Its all made from vegetable sources, usually olive oil nowadays. Squalane is a completely natural material and is part of our skin's barrier. It also has the most amazing skin feel. You are missing out by avoiding it.

For anyone who doesn't want to pay top dollar for their skin care, please don't feel you have to pay extra to avoid 'nasties' for health reasons. Mass market cosmetic products are completely safe and do not contain any known toxins.

Hiya beautyscientist,

I'm not that selective to be honest. There's loads of choice in the no nasties market once you find it. Middle market brands like A'kin and Jason are not really what I'd call expensive either. My Jason shower gels cost about half the price of buying Boots Botanics Shower gel ml for ml. (In fact, if you're paying more than £1.80 per 200ml then Jason is cheaper! )

I have to ask, if squalane from sharks hasn't been used for 40 years then why don't the cosmetics houses just say so when I ask?

Here's a 2010 article from Science Daily which certainly gives the impression that squalane from sharks is still very much in use in cosmetics:

"In 2006 the European Union imposed deep-sea shark fishing limits in the North-East Atlantic, and since 2008 some important cosmetic firms have declared that they have stopped using shark squalane"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100518230649.htm

When I ask them about it, all they've got to do is tell me that so that I can buy their products. If the company is prepared to specify in writing that the squalane they use is from olives then I'm happy. Lots of them don't though...because they can't.

There's a sizeable consensus that mass market cosmetics are not safe. There are concerns about individual chemicals, and the information gap regarding how the unique cocktail of chemicals we put on our bodies every day interact and impact on our health and the environment.

Mass market cosmetic products are not completely safe, and they do contain known toxins.

It's sweet of you to try and reassure us though.

beautyscientist

Well I hope nobody is depriving the sharks of their squalane. They need it a lot more than we do. They have to swim around in sea water all the time while maintaining their metabolic systems intact. It really is fascinating to look into how living creatures solve problems like that. In the skin squalane seems to act a bit like a brace would in a brick wall, giving the skin's barrier a bit of rigidity.

I have been working in the cosmetic business for a long time and have lots of contacts, but I wouldn't know where to find shark squalane if I wanted it. I really can't believe it is being used in any mainstream products.

As to the toxins - well there is no data gap in my lab. We have to scan the stuff in and store it on computers because it would take up so much room in paper form. I have never felt any desire to put toxins in any of my products and am always mystified by why people find it so easy to believe I would. What possible motivation would anyone have to include toxins in a skin care product?

If you can name any particular examples I can probably track down the person who formulated the product and ask them about it.

Kirri

beautyscientist wrote: »

Well I hope nobody is depriving the sharks of their squalane. They need it a lot more than we do. They have to swim around in sea water all the time while maintaining their metabolic systems intact. It really is fascinating to look into how living creatures solve problems like that. In the skin squalane seems to act a bit like a brace would in a brick wall, giving the skin's barrier a bit of rigidity.

I have been working in the cosmetic business for a long time and have lots of contacts, but I wouldn't know where to find shark squalane if I wanted it. I really can't believe it is being used in any mainstream products.

As to the toxins - well there is no data gap in my lab. We have to scan the stuff in and store it on computers because it would take up so much room in paper form. I have never felt any desire to put toxins in any of my products and am always mystified by why people find it so easy to believe I would. What possible motivation would anyone have to include toxins in a skin care product?

If you can name any particular examples I can probably track down the person who formulated the product and ask them about it.

Doesn't it all come down to what is 'considered safe' for consumers though? It's the same with household cleaning products and food, not just beauty products, it's one of the reasons I try to get as much organic and non chemical products as possible - everything sold is considered safe enough for humans to use but to me most other people's baskets just looks like a cocktail of chemicals and additives, whether it is considered 'safe' by the regulating bodies or not...

Re your previous post, I don't find buying natural ranges that expensive anyway, in fact a lot of them seem cheaper than the typical mass marketed chemical stuff.