Have You Seen Signs of a Clean Beauty Revolution?
We don’t like to complain. And besides, we’re having such a good time doing what we do—especially all the dialogue we get to have with our readers! But do we think clean beauty gets the attention it deserves? No. And do want to rip our healthy hair out sometimes when we see the control the industry has with its lobbying and its advertising money? Correct. Has a single women’s magazine written a review of our book—even a negative one? Most certainly not. We suspect they think it isn’t worth it for them to court controversy.
But here’s the thing: We know the tide is turning. Of course, we’re trolling for signs, but they do keep showing up and lately the stars seem to be coming out for clean.
Here’s a little celebrity news roundup if you will:
Numero Uno: EO told us that their haircare line is going to be used at the Oscars!
EO is one of those lines that’s been around for ages. While a few of their products contain the ever-controversial phenoxyethanol (an ingredient that many natural brands use instead of parabens, but that we generally avoid), we love their yummy bar soaps and essential oils. I particularly adore this blend, which features two of my favorite smells: cedar and ylang ylang.
Numero Dos: Natalie Portman listed a super-clean Pai moisturizer as her favorite in Harper’s Bazaar. (We love it too!)
And finally: Gisele got in trouble for calling sunscreen poison and saying that she doesn’t use anything synthetic on her body. Um, and there was quite the debate on our Facebook page about it!
Is there all kinds of hypocrisy here? Sure, both of these women do perfume campaigns for major cosmetics conglomerates. But when two of the world’s biggest celebrities make any kind of bid for clean beauty, we rejoice.
Have you noticed other signs that clean is making its way into the mainstream?
Have a great weekend everyone!
People don’t look at me cross-eyed anymore when I share the recipe for a home made concoction…they are enthusiastic and wish to know more…and often sheepishly inform me that they are using some baking soda recipe instead of toothpaste, or something. When the sheepish is out of the equation we’ll know clean has made it. ;)
I’m not sure I’d use the word revolution quite yet…I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area and we are kind of a bubble of crunchy goodness, but revolution…hmmmm… It seems like there is a greater recognition of problems with drugstore products these days, but I think lots of people still fall for the “fake green/clean” advertising. How will people know they are being duped unless they read The Book or this blog?? : ) Even at Whole Foods I have to carefully read ingredients on products to make sure they are okay. There are smaller neighborhood stores I’ve found that have some gems, so that’s good. And while there are some clean brands out in stores in your average community, it seems the truly clean and simple ones are mostly accessible through online ordering – and if people aren’t looking for clean products specifically, they aren’t likely to find them.
Ironically, today while I was out and about a young woman dressed in all black carrying lots of little bags randomly approached me. Turns out she was representing an apparently famous hollywood makeup artist and cosmetics line owner I’d never heard of. The girl seemed astounded I wasn’t impressed by the name of the line, and she wanted to give me samples. I asked her if the line had clean/non-toxic ingredients, and she really had no idea what I was talking about and couldn’t give any specifics. She had truly awful looking skin and I felt bad for her, but that didn’t help in convincing me to try the line. I smiled and thanked her for the offer, but said I wasn’t interested. I later checked out the website for the line, and I couldn’t find ingredients listed anywhere. Maybe this girl will carry the idea that clean ingredients are important to potential customers back to her boss…or is that too hopeful?
I pass on information to friends and to my students every chance I get, so while I don’t think I’d use the word revolution just yet, I think we are building the foundation that will allow a revolution in the future.
Rebecca, I share your sentiments about “fake green/clean” advertising and products. I believe that some people think they are part of the revolution, but they are actually a hinderance or an impasse.
I just got back from having my mammogram and was leafing through the magazines in the waiting room. The reason no woman’s magazine is going to review the book is primarily because about 75% of each magazine’s contents is dedicated to advertising or product placement/promotion thinly disguised as advice and recommendation. These ads are their bread and butter and without them there would be no publication. Until more natural lines have the cha-ching and the clout to compete with big name ads, the revolution will continue to remain underground. Such a pity too. So many woman have the same complaints and concerns about their skin, hair, health and yet only the truly dedicated ones find alternatives and solutions.
However, I remain hopeful, after all the organic food/eating local/healthy eating movements were one underground as well and look at how they’ve taken off, at least where I live, and it remains a hot topic because of Michelle Obama.
I think we may have the beginnings of a change, but might not be to the revolution stage yet. I did see an article yesterday that Bliss Spa is going to carry the Pomega5 skincare line. They’ve brought it in because they have so many requests for natural products. I see that I as great sign when such a large scale and main stream vendor is hearing enough frequent for natural that they act on it. At the same time, the Nordstrom near me used to have a natural section, but now its gone. I love what @mumsyjr says about the revolution really having made it when we aren’t sheepish about clean recipes for personal care, I know I don’t volunteer the fact that I don’t use shampoo! I think we’ll really know clean is taking off when clean products and maybe even ingredients for making your own products are readily available at mainstream grocers and drug stores.
I think it’s coming, definitely. It says a lot when giant retailers like Walgreens, Walmart, and Target carry clean-er brands (Burts Bees, Yes To Carrots, Avalon Organics) and stock them on a regular basis and when big cosmetics and personal care producers (Neutrogena!) start formulating lines to attempt to appeal to those of us seeking clean products. You can argue ad nauseum about the motives behind this positioning of these big retailers and producers and whether or not their cleaned up (but not squeaky clean) products are greenwashing.. but it’s a great step in the right direction. We might not be able to get to everyone through the internet and online purchasing, but if they stumble across these offerings on the shelves, maybe it’ll spark something.
Having just been at New York Fashion Week, I am happy to report that Tata Harper skincare was being used to prep the models at a few of the smaller shows like Porter Gray and Bodkin (they also used ABBA hair products). As well, I interviewed Rose Marie Swift of RMS Beauty back in November and she told me many of the models are demanding cleaner products so it’s forcing the makeup artists to look into alternatives. Finally, there’s Kristin Arnett (greenbeautyteam.com) who is spearheading a movement by making her kit as green as possible when working on set. All encouraging signs!!
I’ve seen a lot of women’s magazines feature “green” pages or features on green products, though most of the time it’s either ecofriendly home products or semi-greened up cosmetics. and I’ve never seen them mention anything about harmful ingredients, just, “be good to yourself and the environment!” stuff.
I did see burt’s bees lip tints, nvey eco and kahina giving beauty in the latest issue of lucky and I know they’ve featured some vapour products in the past, too. spirit beauty lounge seems to be sending them samples? as they always give spirit beauty lounge as the place to buy them and the SBL site has scans of everything on their site too. it’s nice to see the products recommended alongside not-so-clean options, but they’re also more expensive than the others and I would’ve just gone for the drugstore options in the past (I’m a college kid with a lame job that mainly just pays for classes and my car, so I’m a cheapskate :/). it’s a step in the right direction but I doubt mainstream mags will cover the health issues due to all the big name brands advertising.
I love it!!!
As I read all of this it brings me full circle back to the article about LYFE’s Kitchen. Big corporate chains are not embracing natural unless it equals big profits. The demand for natural products is being heard by some and will be carried more and more as consumers are heard. However, as with LYFE’s Kitchen, this will also mean cheap pseudo-natural to take advantage of this market niche and squeeze more profit from the rubes they think we are; alas, we will all have to continue to be hyper-vigilent.
Sadly, no. I was at my local drugstore to pick up a prescirption just yesterday and wandered the aisles idly to while away the time. I couldn’t find a single clean product – although I found a lot of pseudo clean products that were very cunningly disguised and would have fooled me if I had not become an obsessive ingredient reader (I’m really the only person I know who actually reads the ingredient list on cosmetics). One of the brands even had the cheek to call itself LiveClean and claim it was eco-friendly, just because it used botanicals in addition to a bunch of synthetics. I did notice there were much more pseudo clean products than I’d ever seen before, so it’s probably fair to say there’s a pseudo-clean revolution. Will it turn into the real thing? Maybe. Hopefully these fake natural products will encourage people to start thinking about cosmetics and personal care products differently, at the very least.
I told a lady at work I was going “no ‘poo” and she 1) knew what I was talking about and 2) didn’t think I was a freak. Yay!
I’m from Australia, and have noticed that there’s a little bit of a move towards tox-free living, but I still have people roll their eyes and say “everything in life causes cancer!” if I talk about how I don’t wash my hair, use soap, or use natural deodorants (yeah, they’re kinda missing the point). Having said that, I’m finding more and more people who out themselves as part of the tox-free sisterhood and actually had a work colleague and her husband jump on board the no shampoo bandwagon after a discussion with her and a few website links thrown her way. So it’s still a bit of a mixed bag.
But I agree with earlier responses about the increase in the number of fake green/healthy products out there. It really is astounding that these companies can masquerade as being health-conscious, and then you have a look at the ingredients list and it’s something you’d brew up in chem class. My latest disappointment was Loreal’s ‘Ever Pure’ No-Sulfate Color Care range, whose big “NO SULFATE” labelling drew me in, only to disappoint me when a scan of the ingredients list revealed no ingredient less than three syllables, including prop glycol and parabens. Yeah, very pure.
Yes, new to the U.S. company NYR Organic is going to be featured at the Oscars as well!
Amazing!
How’s this for a sign? Several months ago, a friend sent me a round up of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ chemicals that Martha Stewart’s mag Whole Living ran (here: http://www.wholeliving.com/article/beauty-basics-the-bad-stuff)
Since that time, I’ve read y’alls book, completely changed my beauty routine, and best of all, when I’ve written a few posts about this on my own blog, the feedback from readers has been either “Thank you, I’ve been wanting more info on this!” or very “Duh, clean beauty, where have YOU been?” No one seemed overly shocked by the info that many of our products had been made with pure junk. So I think the tide is definitely turning! It’s not at its tipping point yet, but we’re working our way to it.