http://www.care2.com/greenliving/top-10-beauty-products-for-the-face.html
Top 10 Beauty Products for the Face
Twenty years ago, if a woman wanted to “go natural” with her beauty routine, she had just a few choices: Hitting the local health food store and scavenging through a meager offering of products, making lotions herself, or doing without. The times have changed, and what was a fledgling market has turned into a thriving $800 million industry.
Natural Solutions magazine felt that nowadays so many companies are making good, clean beauty products that it was time for an official shout-out, and they have created an annual Beauty With a Conscience Awards–debuting now. (They also have a nifty contest for readers who submit their favorite natural beauty picks.)
But finding truly pure skincare proved no easy task. Unfortunately, even products marketed as “natural” can come packed with hormone disrupters, carcinogens, toxic by-products, and heavy metals. In fact, the average woman applies more than 150 chemicals through her skincare daily. Knowing the link between this unnecessary toxin exposure and serious health concerns, they made the decision to honor companies that use only the cleanest, healthiest ingredients available.
But how did they decide what to allow and what needed the boot? Some ingredients, like parabens, were no-brainers to banish, but other ingredients were hard to even just pronounce. Fortunately they discovered Whole Foods Market’s Premium Body Care standard, which deems over 250 toxins unacceptable in personal care products. They used their research as a basis for the award criteria. And the winners of the Beauty With a Conscience Awards for Face are:
1. Best Cleanser, Dry to Normal Skin: Talulah Vanilla Bean Cleanser.
We’re hooked on this exotic cleanser with vanilla bean, jasmine rice, rose hips, hempseed, and nettles. ($22, 4 oz; talulahskincare.com)
2. Best Cleanser, Oily to Normal Skin: Amala Purify Gel Cleanser.
Amala means “most pure” in Sanskrit, a fitting description of this luxurious white clay, blue lotus, and green tea cleanser. ($21, 1.7 oz; amalabeauty.com)
3. Best Toner: Terressentials Exfoliating Facial Toner.
This bouquet of flower extracts brightened and de-blotched our office-drained skin. ($17, 4 oz; terressentials.com)
4. Best Moisturizer: Kimberly Sayer Daily Moisturizing Cream.
Not too thick or greasy, this antioxidant-packed moisturizer with SPF 25 left us feeling protected and ready for anything. ($32, 2 oz; kimberlysayer.com)
5. Best Serum: Aqua Dessa Super Potent Antioxidant Serum.
Our skin drank in the Napa Valley-grown grape seed oil and the gamma-linoleic acid in the black currant oil. ($50, 1.65 oz; aquadessa.com)
6. Best Mask: Nude Miracle Mask.
Enriched with probiotics, this clear mask left our skin completely refreshed–perfect to use before a Saturday night out. ($70, 1.4 oz; nudeskincare.com)
7. Best Night Cream: Jurlique Biodynamic Beauty Night Lotion.
Made from biodynamic herbs grown on Jurlique’s Australian farm, this lotion got our faces through the night becalmed and rejuvenated. ($55, 1.3 oz; jurlique.com)
8. Best Eye Cream: Talulah Luna Undereye Cream.
Drenched fine lines with hydrating macadamia nut and avocado oils, then nourished our over-40 under-eye area with botanical infusions of chrysanthemum, borage, and green tea. ($29, 0.5 oz; talulahskincare.com)
9. Best Exfoliant: Simply Divine Botanicals Skin Polish.
Honey, raspberries, and apple pectin make for a jammy texture that eats away dead skin cells. ($30, 4 oz; simplydivinebotanicals.com)
10. Best Lip Balm: Better Botanicals Ayurvedic Lip Balm.
We’re addicted to these ayurvedic balms that come in invigorating cardamom and ginger and also sweet-smelling nectarine, mango, rose-mint, and passionfruit. They even helped us stave off cold sores with the amino acid L-lysine. ($5, 0.15 oz; betterbotanicals.com)
Natural Solutions: Vibrant Health, Balanced Living offers its readers the latest news on health conditions, herbs and supplements, natural beauty products, healing foods and conscious living. Click here for a free sample issue.
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add your comment »AYUERVEDA is a term from india. for the most pure ayurvedic ancient indian body recipes you must visit Kama Ayurveda. kumkumadi serum is the only ancient recipe which they do. its my passion to find the most reliable solutions for my body and i love talking about it.
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i am currently using earthbound organics from wales. they are so simple in composition that it will never leave you in a doubt of their homemade, uncomplicated nature. whatever they put inside is lying in our kitchens.
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if you are interested in natural, caring and effective products you must check out gratefulbody - www.gratefulbody.com
they really are the best for the environment and for your skin
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And for internal use for good skin, use Grapeseed Oil, Hylauronic acid, DMEA, Vitamins A, B C, Alpha Hydroxy and Omega Fish oils- to name a few. The more anti-oxidants the better.
I find them at my fav health food store.
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From what I understand, Tracey, the ingredients are very healthy. Yves Rocher has been around for over 50 years and they claim to test everything thoroughly on humans (no animal testing, of course!) And, of course, everything is guaranteed to be 100% botanical with no "hidden" animal products in the mixture.
As I said, I've used many, many of their products (shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, mascara, lipsticks, make-up remover, blush, deodorant, lotion, soap, etc.) for over 30 years. I've never had any problems with any of them.
Of course, I do admit that some things aren't of the same quality say, as the big cosmetics companies like Revlon or Maybelline. When a company refuses to use products tested on animals or animal-derived ingredients sometimes it can affect the quality (i.e., the lipsticks don't last as long on the lips as Revlon's do - they can't because YR refuses to use the ingredients which cause that long-lasting effect - that's a tradeoff for getting cruelty-free products, rather like saying that soyburgers don't taste as good as beef burgers - true, but it's a reasonable price to pay for not killing an animal.) However, the vast majority of their products I've used ARE just as good.
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Thanks again Lindsey! That is a really good point. If I do any ordering I will make sure to order online and search out more discounts. Just a quick question though...I know that they use some botanical ingredients, but are the rest of the ingredients fairly healthy? They didn't list the ingredients on the website. Thanks for your help and for the great tips!
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Tracey, if you want to save money at Yves Rocher, it's best to do it through the internet. Because that's where you can use all those coupon codes I mentioned. I always order from them on the internet and I've gotten as much as 45% off by using coupon codes. Sometimes less, of course. But ALWAYS at least 10% and usually more. And the codes can't be used on catalog purchases or phone orders - only on the internet site.
Right now you can get $10 off $45+ purchase with code "10OFF" (that's the number 10 and the word OFF), expires Oct. 14. Or get free shipping on $10+ order, code "FREESHIPTODAY", exp. Oct. 14. Or $5 off $25+ order, "5OFF25", unknown exp. And 15% off $50+ order, "15OFF NOW", exp. Oct. 14. And there are others out there that I haven't checked yet.
Also, if you want to buy something from them that isn't on sale - just wait a few weeks. They ALWAYS have sales and it will probably be put at half price (or buy one get one free) within a matter of weeks.
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Thanks for the tip Lindsey! I just signed up for a catalog.
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I've used cruelty-free/all-botanical products from Yves Rocher for over 30 years (everything from cosmetics to lotion to soap to skincare). They are of high quality and have a lot of great fragrances. And they are MUCH less expensive than other cruelty-free products I've found, especially since they always have loads of discount coupon codes to be found on various internet coupon sites (just google "coupon code Yves Rocher" and lots of sites will pop up with coupon codes).
Check them out at: http://www.yvesrocherusa.com/control/main/
They also have a separate Canadian site.
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Those are some really good tips. I have a couple of cheap ones as well:
http://buzz.prevention.com/community/miss-nosipho/skin-aglow
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