Written by: Phindile Le Bris Sithole-Spong
During the month of March, we delved a little deeper into green, conscious and sustainable living. So I thought I would try to incorporate that theme into one of my favourite topics here on She Evolves – Skincare. As a self-proclaimed skincare junkie, I can admit that I spend so much time and money on everything skincare related. I firmly believe that prevention is better than cure when it comes to good skin. I would much rather spend a considerable amount of money on what goes on my skin than on shoes or even clothes. Since I started working for She Evolves and thanks to our founder Christina, I started thinking and writing more frequently about green, conscious and sustainable living. This encouraged me to do more research about “clean skincare.”
While I must admit that in the beginning, “clean skincare” was always a bit of a mystery to me and sounded like a gimmick. It wasn’t until I was pregnant that I started to buy into the hype. Before I continue, I want to define “clean skincare”. Based on my understanding, “clean skincare” is skincare products made with very little or no chemicals in them. Of course, each clean beauty product is somewhat different, but the basic principles are the same. And that is creating products that are not known to be harmful to humans and the environment. This is why the move to clean beauty has gone up so much over the past few years. Especially as we have been thinking more and more about how much impact our lives have on the environment.
Over the years, as I have tried clean beauty brands myself, one thing has stood true time and time again. And that is that clean beauty brands definitely work. One way to measure this is to see how my skin has faired when using clean products versus non-clean products. While some brands will have us believe that for skincare to work, we need all these crazy chemicals in them. A few months of clean beauty and the results are the same, if not better. This is because most clean beauty brands use the natural derivative of something to get results. For instance, using detoxing natural clay for masks, algae for proper skin hydration, and vitamins to aid the skin’s healing process.
And while I would love to say that all clean beauty brands are the same, the reality is that they are not. So before you start, do some research on what brands actually work because some clean products are sadly are just all talk and no action. Also, give products time to actually work before dismissing them. For me, that means trying out a product for 2-3 months to see if there is any noticeable change.
Have you tried any clean, non-toxic skincare brands? And if so, what were your thoughts?
