Whether you are looking for an affordable drugstore product or you’re getting ready to spend the entirety of your next paycheck on the latest in beauty, there are a few things you have to ask yourself. What am I putting on my skin? What is this made of? Will it hurt my skin? How do I know what is best for my skin?
All these questions may seem overwhelming and go way past what you intended for your beauty products but it is important to understand and find clean beauty products to incorporate into your lifestyle.
Here lies the painful reality of false advertising. Brands will promote their skincare or beauty products without really telling you the truth. A product could tell you it will “exfoliate and remove impurities” but what it really could be saying is “this will damage your skin barrier.”
Although there is a lot of false advertising to sift through on beauty products, there is also advertising that can be really helpful in your clean beauty product decision-making process. Most brands, primarily clean brands, will put their best foot forward on their labels. Seeing key phrases like “no fragrance, dyes or alcohol,” can be an immediate green light to narrow down your search.
Get to know the beauty products you are looking to buy in the future. Beauty brands are always coming out with the next big thing but it is only as good as its cleanliness. Clean beauty products can help any skin mood be the best version of itself!
It is no secret that no one enjoys reading the fine print. It is typically annoying and extremely daunting at first glance. However, if there are key things you already know to look for, it should go by a lot smoother when you pick up your next beauty product.
The ingredients list is really the missing puzzle piece to understanding your skin. Applying how to decipher which ingredients are best for you can allow you to quickly spot them on the back label of any product.
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Fragrance, in particular, is a big red flag in beauty products. Fragrances, especially in skincare products, can be harsh on your skin and cause more irritation than a solution. Luckily, there is only one weird name for “fragrance” on any ingredients list, which is “parfum,” so it should be pretty easy to spot if it isn’t already advertised on the front label. What is most important is that you find out what general ingredients are best for your skin mood and do research to find products that work for you.
Knowing where and how to find and evaluate clean beauty products can seem like a breeze with these easy tips and resources:
EWG, Environmental Working Group, is a cosmetic database that rates and evaluates products so that you don’t have to. If you are shopping for the next trending beauty product and you want quick answers for your skin mood, EWG can be very helpful to understand whether or not your product of choice is clean or not.
By using their search engine, you can get access to any beauty product and get a detailed list of information on the product. Product information can include ingredient concerns, detailed ratings on each ingredient, animal testing policies, and more. Consider EWG the Google of clean beauty products. This beauty product rating system can often go unnoticed when buying something new but it can be an instant tell if you are about to purchase a dirty or clean beauty product. (1)
Certain brands have developed a clean reputation that can help eliminate the struggle of finding tons of products from different brands. Brand loyalty is very popular in beauty products and finding ones that are notably clean will help narrow down products that are best for your skin mood. Here are some top clean beauty products from each category:
While there are a lot of safe brands and good ingredients that can help achieve perfect skin, there are also some instant “red flag” ingredients that you should stay away from regardless of your skin mood. Aside from staying away from fragrance at all costs, there are some other things to look out for.
St Ives in particular has recently become a major skincare don’t in the world of facial cleansers. Although their bottles advertise acne prevention through salicylic acid, this acid is very strong and when used in tangent with a harsh exfoliatior, can cause major damage to the skin’s natural barrier.
Some ingredients that could help your skin (depending on your skin mood) can be Niacinamide, Bisabobol, and Allantoin. These words may seem like a foreign language at first glance but researching them in relation to your skin mood can yield great results.
Hopefully, this information helped guide you to clean beauty products without having you rethink your entire life as you know it. Finding clean beauty products may start out as a challenge but, especially with these resources in mind, you may come to find there are plenty of options that are right for you.
Written by Daniela Rodriguez
