NO REPLY.
SUSTAINABILITY. ENVIRONMENT. EXPERIMENT.
0
2020_no_reply_colour_beauty_07.jpg

BEAUTY

WHAT IS ‘NATURAL’ BEAUTY? SKIN_ Nicola Brittin, PHOTOS_ Julia Kennedy, STYLE_ Toyo Tsuchiya

TALENT_ Shaden, Alfie and Louis all at Select Models. Special thanks to Dounia. Maddy, Eliot, Janelle @ Established with special thanks to Lauren. 

I have to be honest, I started this research assuming I would explain what toxins are in your cosmetics, how they can affect you, how ‘Green beauty’ differs and what you should look for on an ingredients list. Once I’d flown through that, I would get to the real nitty gritty of eco/conscious beauty and look at packaging, sustainability, shipping, storage and workers’ rights. Deciphering which brands are living up to their promises and which are just using the buzz words for their advertising.

How very wrong I was.

To start this whole body of work we need to decipher what ‘Natural’ means when it comes to cosmetics. There is no legal measure for words such as ‘Natural’, ‘Green’, ‘Sustainable’ or ‘Clean’ so many brands can use them and produce very different products.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 16128 outlines the different levels of cosmetics as this…

100% natural: ingredients obtained only from plants, animals, microbiological, or mineral origin, either by physical processes (e.g. grinding, drying, distillation, etc.), fermentation, reactions occurring in nature and leading to molecules which occur in nature, and other procedures of preparation including traditional ones (e.g. extraction using solvents) without intentional chemical modification. Ingredients from petrochemicals are excluded from this definition. Examples of 100% natural ingredients include essential oils and cold pressed plant seed oils. 

The cosmetic science industry generally agree that 100% natural limits you to essential oils, waxes and the like, that create sub par products. It would smell nice and might make a nice lip balm but definitely couldn’t hold up an entire international industry.

So what else do we have to work with?

Naturally derived: ingredients of greater than 50% by molecular weight natural origin, obtained through defined chemical and/or biological processes with the intention of chemical modification. This can be split up into two categories - end materials with (e.g. cocamidopropyl betaine or sodium lauryl sulfate) or without “synthetic” components (e.g. coco glucoside, squalane). 

This is where we start to see the products and ingredients we use. A brand may have slapped ‘Natural’ all over their bottle but the best we can hope for is that it’s naturally derived and this isn’t a bad thing. Take sand, the second most abundant mineral on earth. Chemically modifying it leaves us with Silicones. Silicones are vegan, cruelty free and no relation to palm oil or GMO’s.

I need to stop us right there for a second to say this… ‘EVERYTHING IS A CHEMICAL’. Everything you see, ingest, touch and breathe are ‘chemicals’. Don’t let this word bother you.

Next we have:

Natural Mineral: inorganic substances (i.e. non-carbon based) occurring naturally in the earth. For example, talc, sea salt.

Derived Mineral: ingredients obtained through chemical processing of inorganic substances which have the same chemical composition as natural mineral ingredients (i.e. nature-identical but synthetic). For example, iron oxides, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, mica.

Synthetic/non-natural:  Ingredients obtained from fossil fuel or ingredients having more than 50% of non-natural moiety: propylene glycol, mineral oil, dimethicone…

So there we have cosmetics broken down into the simplest of forms…

Glossier FuturedewVintage 1980s Rock Tee on Sid’s Vintage Co Etsy

Glossier Futuredew

Vintage 1980s Rock Tee on Sid’s Vintage Co Etsy

My next step was to break down what ‘Green Beauty’ meant to me. My assumptions would be organic, fair trade, animal cruelty free, non toxic, vegan, no parabens, no gmo’s, no palm oil and sustainable.

So lets look at Organic.

Firstly, there are a ton of different bodies worldwide that will give you organic certification but have very different requirements so research is required to determine which has the highest standards of assessment.

Then we have the question, how sustainable are organic ingredients? This is a question that needs its own article but as a take home….. Is using acres of land and water to produce your organics eco friendly? Is stripping an organic tree to make your essential oil sustainable when it takes 10 years to grow back to a harvestable crop again? And a few breath taking facts for you: approximately three pounds of lavender flowers are required to produce just 15ml of lavender essential oil and about 242,000 rose petals to distill approximately 5 ml of rose oil.

Now, non toxic…

In the EU it is illegal to use this wording (and others such as ‘safe’) on cosmetics because all products must be ‘non toxic’ when they hit the shelves. These words are redundant. In North America all products are also required to be ‘non toxic’ but it’s not illegal to use these words on your advertising and packaging.

GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms) and Parabens aka preservatives are a HUGE subject to tackle and I will in a separate article but somethings to think about….. All products need preservatives/parabens, otherwise they would not last a week.

Some GMO’s have some famously nasty owners who destroy livelihoods with their products. However GMO’s are also used to lessen starvation in third world countries and used to develop vaccines around the world.

no_reply_julia_kennedy_skin_20.jpg

Finally, why is natural better for you? If you suffer from hayfever or allergies you’ll know that natural can make your life a misery. Even not cursed with these, you know you’d not want to walk through stinging nettles, eat poison ivy or sit in a wasps nest. Naturally derived products like Iron Oxide (used as colouring agents in cosmetics) are a huge health risk when mined ‘naturally’ so we now produce it synthetically worldwide in labs. It’s the law.

From a Make up Artists point of view, I would never use raw 100% organic coconut oil as a moisturiser because it isn’t one. Skin is a barrier and oil just sits on it. Oil needs another ingredient to transport it into the skin, water is one! Then you need an emulsifier to stop them separating and then you see, we enter the world of naturally derived ingredients pretty quickly….

(Note, I would use it as a make up remover because oils breaks up make up)

So the words ‘100% natural’ leaves me confused and worried. There seems to be a lot of misinformation on this subject because of brands wanting to use all the buzz words. There is even more fear mongering about synthetic ingredients that in many cases could be better for the environment, workers and your health.

I finish this article with loads more questions then answers. I’m sure some people reading this will have their blood boiling at this point. It’s clearly not a black & white subject and each brand/ product has to be taken on a case by case basis but I hope you leave this page with a critical eye on branded ‘natural’ products. Like the current pandemic we are living through, we have to look to the science for answers and not blindly assume that because it’s from the earth it’s better for us or our environment.

Julia Kennedy