When I was in Texas last month for SXSW Eco, I did all kinds of fun things: I ate tacos, visited our friends at W3LL People, met up with writer friends, stayed up way too late then woke early to attend some really interesting (and dismaying) discussions about our burning planet…
Being the natural beauty dork I am, though, another highlight was my impromptu visit to Whole Foods’ 80,000 square foot flagship near downtown Austin. This is not just a love letter to Whole Foods, though. Hear me out…
Anyone who’s read the book or the blog will know we love Whole Body, sure. We admire their tough organic standards, and how widely available they’ve made safe, high-quality beauty choices. We like their team, and their scale. But because Whole Bodys differ from region to region, and store to store, you sort of never know what you’re going to find when you visit one. Here in New York, the WB section at Columbus Circle, for instance, is gorgeously laid out, and there’s a nice selection of makeup to play with. At Union Square, my go-to because I tend to work out and play in the lower quadrants of the city, the makeup is crammed in hallway. I still love it, don’t get me wrong, but the shopping experience matters. And if we want to bring organic beauty out of the hippie fringes, nice-looking stores—like Evolue in Los Angeles, and the Apothecary at ABC Home here in New York—are a must.
Of course, small shops devoted to natural beauty are few and far between—and understandably. They’re expensive and the demand for organic beauty products in this kind of setting needs to catch up with the supply. We know that anyone who switches to natural beauty sees their life and their skin and their hair transform. It happened to us, and our friends, our moms and our boyfriends. And we get letters from people all the time telling us as much. Of course, spreading the message is hard—and changing people’s buying habits even harder.
There’s still so much the average American shampoo-buyer doesn’t know about her products—and it’s going to be hard for her to learn if her only options are the confusing, greenwashed aisles of pharmacies.
That’s why we think everyone should read our book, or books like it. And it’s also why we want to see natural beauty scaled way, way up.
When we were writing the book, we had fantasies about curating Sephora’s naturals section: How great would it be, we thought, if you could go in to any Sephora and know with confidence that the products with a green leaf on it (or whatever) had actually been vetted by people informed and passionate about ingredient safety—and effectiveness?
Of course we like the little guys best. We want to support small retailers, several of which are online, and are our favorites—there’s Spirit Beauty Lounge, Nubonau, Nature of Beauty and others. We will continue to support them first and foremost, but if this natural beauty thing is going to get really big, exposure is key. Call me pie-in-the-sky, but we want to see safe, effective and appealing options made available, at reasonable prices, to women and men all over the country, too.
Which bring me to Austin. What blew my mind, and I texted Alexandra as much when I was there, is that I finally saw in person the potential for this whole natural beauty thing—at scale. Here is a giant store (really, it’s almost obscenely big) with a zillion kinds of kale chips and organic quinoa and chickens who lived better lives than we do, and front and center—not as an afterthought, and not shoved in a corner—was a gigantic section, beautifully laid out, well lit with samples galore, teeming with natural and organic beauty products we can feel good about.
I’m not saying Whole Foods is the answer, though it’s certainly part of it. It showed me what was possible.
Now we’d like to hear from you. What do you think natural beauty movement needs in order to grow? More stores? More education? And if the latter, how do you propose we all go about it?
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When my sister finds a hair product she loves she’s the type to seriously stockpile—I’m talking supplies for months! She’s no hoarder, though: As fellow curlies can attest, there’s just nothing worse than running out of your formula. It’s a habit that’s only intensified since she went clean, given that certain products aren’t easily found up in Canada. Knowing this, and also that we would be sharing a bathroom on a recent visit to our parents’ house, I opted to travel sans hair product.
I was surprised—but also excited—to see that she’d recently taken up with the new Harmonic Conditioner from Intelligent Nutrients. I was also surprised—but excited—when I read the ingredients label: The phenoxyethanol is gone! (The old formula is still out there though, so be sure to doublecheck when purchasing… That’s the update.)
See, we’d steered clear of this line at first because it contained the ever-controversial phenoxyethanol. We have nothing but the highest regard for Horst Rechelbacher—founder of Aveda, current head honcho at Intelligent Nutrients, and all-around genius; the man practically starred in our book! So we figured he had his reasons for going with phenoxyethanol and that we’d just have to live without this line…
Alas, good news for everyone: it’s out! I’m not entirely sure when they reformulated but phenoxyethanol wasn’t listed on my sister’s bottle, nor is it on their site. What’s more is that I absolutely loved the conditioner: It was just the right thickness for my taste, smelled great, and detangled brilliantly. At $24 it’s not exactly a steal, but it’s a big bottle and I think it will complement my more expensive but still beloved Rare Elements. I’ve copped to an expensive conditioner habit in the past—being that it’s pretty much my only hair product most days.
For the same reason (dirty hair) I also cannot report on the shampoo. We’ll have to get Siobhan to try it, but in the meantime: have any of you given it a whirl? What about the conditioner? Or were you, too, holding back on this?
If you’re wanting to try the line, you can often find Intelligent Nutrients products at Whole Foods (also know as our Sephora) and it’s available at NuboNau as well—regular partners in our Friday Deal bonanzas. Both NuboNau and the IN store also ship to Canada, just in case you’re wondering. :)
Image via Intelligent Nutrients
OK, so who’s been here: You all of a sudden have plans but you don’t feel quite day-to-night (or gym-to-out) equipped because, well, it’s Sunday and you didn’t think you’d need your red lipstick or whatever, and even though you don’t really wear perfume, you feel you could use a little pick-me-up but you don’t have that on you, either? So you book it to Sephora and wait semi-patiently while other girls in your predicament use those badly lit mirrors to apply germ-filled samples to their day faces until they feel going-out ready? Then, when it’s finally your turn, you fold over a cotton pad and think “This will double as a blush brush, sure!” and you smear some pink on your cheeks, and it looks ridiculous, and you are reminded, again, why this is never a good idea?
(Please don’t tell me I am alone here.)
Anyway, here’s a much better idea: Go to Whole Foods.
When I stopped using conventional cosmetics, I also stopped doing last-minute makeup application at Sephora. But I also thought I’d never find a replacement since there’s no natural-beauty chain (yet) and the very few places in New York where you can buy clean cosmetics in person aren’t centrally located, making the dash-in-dash-out move impossible.
Yesterday I’d gone to my usual Sunday morning class and showered at the studio, leaving me with soaking wet hair, no conditioner, no makeup, and a lunch (and then museum) date. It wasn’t like I was going out-out, but I was feeling a little blah and hadn’t brought anything with me except—and this was an accident—bright red lipstick and—and this wasn’t an accident—my new Lotus Wei aromatherapy sample.
I had a bit of time to kill so I went into Whole Foods to browse when it occurred to me: Whole Body! I love Whole Body! Some Whole Body sections are amazing (looking at you, Columbus Circle) but they’re all good enough if you ask me. I am wild about their new organics standards, they carry a great selection of many of my favorite lines, they have samples out of everything under the sun, including makeup, and the people who work the section are nice about letting you try anything you want. Genius. [UPDATE: I heard it from the horse's mouth that for anything in Whole Body, if there isn't a sample available you can just ask and they'll open one for you!]
So I popped into my regular, at Union Square, and when no one was looking, I sprayed my face with an Evan Healy toner, moisturized with some Juice Beauty, sprayed some John Masters Organics Sea Salt Spray in my hair, dabbed some vanilla on my wrists, and played with a just-opened sample of Dr. Hauschka blush, which I ended up buying because I liked it so much.
Now, I’m generally wary of store samples for obvious reasons (germs, and it’s weirdly embarrassing to apply things in public), but sometimes it’s just what you need. If nothing else, primping a little bit can change your mindset from “It’s downward-dog time” to “It’s interact-with-human-beings time” and you don’t need makeup to do this; I was wearing basically none at all. But the mere act of spraying something on my hair made me feel ready for anything. It’s pretty cool how these things work.
But back to the headline: We want to know from you: Where do you buy your natural makeup? Online? In person? If so where? Are you lucky enough to have an actual physical STORE in your town, like Los Angeles with our beloved Evolue?
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We’ve been talking a lot about animals this week, from animal testing to vegan cappuccinos. Then this morning I came across an interview with Dr. T. Colin Campbell, one of the authors of The China Study.
Full disclosure: I only heard about this best-selling nutrition book, written by a father-son doctor duo, a few weeks ago. But since then it’s been following me everywhere: in the books and articles I read, in conversations I have, and at the Whole Foods checkout counter. Strange how that goes, isn’t it?
Needless to say, I’m intrigued. From the article:
The book focuses on the knowledge gained from the China Study, a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine that showed high consumption of animal-based foods is associated with more chronic disease, while those who ate primarily a plant-based diet were the healthiest.
Apparently, even Bill Clinton, now a most-of-the-time vegan, has cited the book in reference to his new lifestyle choice. In the interview, I really appreciate how Campbell Senior talks about food and health in a holistic way—something very important to another writing duo I know. A few highlights:
“The problem is that we study one nutrient out of context. That’s the way we did research — one vitamin at a time, one mineral, one fat. It was always in a reductionist, narrowly focused way.”
“What loomed large for me was that we shouldn’t be thinking in a linear way that A causes B. We should be thinking about how things work together. It’s a very complex biological system.”
“I don’t use the word “vegan” or “vegetarian.” I don’t like those words. People who chose to eat that way chose to because of ideological reasons. I don’t want to denigrate their reasons for doing so, but I want people to talk about plant-based nutrition and to think about these ideas in a very empirical scientific sense, and not with an ideological bent to it.
The idea is that we should be consuming whole foods. We should not be relying on the idea that genes are determinants of our health. We should not be relying on the idea that nutrient supplementation is the way to get nutrition, because it’s not. I’m talking about whole, plant-based foods. The effect it produces is broad for treatment and prevention of a wide variety of ailments, from cancer to heart disease to diabetes.”
Love that. And then, on their decision to go with a smaller publisher:
“I went to a small publisher in Texas who let us do what we wanted to do. I didn’t want to proselytize and preach. I didn’t want to write a book that says, “This is the way it has to be.” It’s a chronology. Here’s how I learned it, and let the reader decide. I say, “If you don’t believe me, just try it.” They do, and they get results. And then they tell everybody else.”
Had you heard about the book? Have you read it? The introduction is up on their site, so I’m going to start there.
The awesome Jody Villecco from Whole Foods has written another really instructive piece over at GOOD for our No More Dirty Looks series. This one offers a primer on how to read labels, and some advice as to why that’s important.
Get out your loupe, because it’s time to read some labels.
This is by far the hardest thing to do when it comes to choosing personal care products, but it’s also the most instructive, and the most important.
Because of lax cosmetics laws, it can be very hard to know if a product you’re using is as clean and safe as you want it to be. There are laws about ingredient disclosure, however, which means that the list of things listed in your product have to be true. To help you on your way, here are some tips.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Alternativemeans
For all of you aspiring clean girls (and boys), we’re running a sweepstakes on our FB fan page to get things rolling! All you have to do is “like” us and you’ll have the chance to win $300 worth of product, chosen by yours truly, from Whole Foods. Easy enough, right?
Yesterday, Whole Foods guest blogger Jody Villeco pondered the question. Here’s some of what she had to say.
“Most of us use shampoo every day, or at least a few times a week. We grab for the bottle, squirt a dollop into our hands, lather, and voilà: Clean hair. But do you know what’s actually in it? Let’s take a look at the basic anatomy of a shampoo by breaking down the “recipe” of ingredients: surfactants, actives, preservatives, color, and fragrance. We’ll look at what is used in conventional shampoos—aside from water, which makes up 50 percent of most of them—and what is used in cleaner alternatives.
Deciphering the key components of the shampoos we use on a regular basis helps makes the long names found on their ingredient lists less confusing—and may also give you something to think about when choosing your next one.”
Read more at GOOD
When you start down the path to clean beauty, product labels can be both your only friend and your worst enemy. We devote a lot of time to decoding them in the book… But that’s not what I’m going to do here.
Since 1975 the law says that if a product contains an ingredient that hasn’t been tested for safety, the FDA will require that it feature a warning label saying: “Warning: The safety of this product has not been determined.” Ever seen one of those? Yeah, us neither.
Know this: Companies are required to list intended ingredients—which leaves room for that giant loophole of unintended ingredients that result from manufacturing or when different ingredients interact with each other.
Meanwhile, there are many—but not one overarching—certifiers of “green” products. So unless it’s USDA Certified Organic, promises of organic and “natural” are about as reliable as the promises that you’ll look younger and hotter—which is to say not at all.
As this Green Guide’s post on labeling points out, only 11% of the 10,500 cosmetic ingredients listed by the FDA have been tested for safety. The same article says that back in 2004, the FDA sent a letter to the cosmetics industry warning that they were going to get serious about enforcing this law. Yeah, well the F in FDA doesn’t stand for Fast.
Here’s a more promising promise: Whole Foods has announced that it’s taking on fake organic claims. From a recent guest-post from Jeremiah McElwee, at Whole Body:
We have recently announced official guidelines that any company wishing to sell products labeled with the word “organic” in Whole Body must meet a similarly strict criteria, and must be able to prove it.
We love it and plan to support this initiative in any way possible. Because, whether or not you believe it’s the role of business (in this case responsible business) to fill in where the government is failing, it sure as hell beats waiting for another letter from the FDA.
