Now might be an opportune time to ponder where some of your favorite beauty products actually come from. After all, your skin is a living, breathing, massive organ covering your entire body. Up to 60 percent of whatever it absorbs finds its way into your bloodstream and immediately begins circulating. Let’s not underestimate just how impactful that could be to your overall health in the long run and take a look at how the products you trust evolve from concept to consumer.
When choosing the right skincare line to trust with your complexion, consider just how many ingredients can potentially comprise any given product. Many manufacturers maintain constant contact with cosmetic pharmacy teams to source effective, enthralling ingredients from leading laboratories. Organic brands often favor active botanicals, herbs and minerals such as geranium, horsetail and MSM bought in bulk from local organic farms to round out their recipes. Choose any product from any store shelf. Chances are, it contains anywhere from 25 to 75 ingredients.
No reputable beauty product makes its way to store shelves without being put through some stringent paces. Diligent formulation and testing help manufacturers narrow down each ingredient’s optimal concentration in order to balance an effective formula with little-to-no irritation. A beauty product that meets both the customer’s expectations and the manufacturer’s described effects is worthless if it irritates the skin to no end. Although skin profiles and unique sensitivities will always vary from one customer to the next, many manufacturers favor employing as many organic ingredients as possible to limit interactions with potentially abrasive, toxic chemicals capable of producing similar aesthetic effects.
Once a beauty product’s ingredients have been locally sourced and the recipe has passed rigorous testing, it’s time to cook. Processes will always vary both according to the product itself and the ingredients. For example, emulsions such as liquid foundations, lotions or creams with water or oil bases have to cook at temperatures high enough to solubilize ingredients while being vigorously mixed before then can cool gradually to a smooth, uniform consistency. Obviously, this differs from dry products such as powder blush or eye shadow. These products are anhydrous, meaning they contain no water and are made by blending together ingredients such as starch, talc and silicates into a fine powder using specialized machinery. However, these are only two out of 10 recognized general categories for cosmetic recipes, each of which entails its own optimal cooking method tailored to the ingredients’ properties and the product’s ideal use. Those categories are:
• Solutions
• Creams/Emulsions
• Lotions
• Ointments / Pastes
• Suspensions
• Tablets
• Powders
• Gels
• Sticks
• Aerosols
The distinctive benefits are nearly impossible to ignore. Instead of man-made synthetic chemicals and toxins proven to cause hormonal imbalances, organ toxicity, skin irritation and potentially cancer, organic beauty products mostly contain recognizable ingredients derived from plants grown without pesticides, herbicides or other additives and other naturally occurring sources. When you remove harsh chemicals from the equation, your skin comes into contact with strictly natural ingredients less prone to causing inflammation, irritation or allergic reactions. Most importantly, up to 95 percent of many organic beauty products’ contents are active ingredients. Synthetic ingredients may act faster than organic materials, but they also cause more invasive harm the naked eye cannot always see until it worsens. By comparison, organic beauty products go beyond smoothing wrinkles and clearing blemishes to actually repair, moisturize, nourish and rejuvenate skin with real nutritional benefits from honey, aloe vera, shea butter and coconut oil, among other helpful components.
Plenty of thought and effort goes into your favorite beauty products, but the results achieved by the finest producers make spending hours researching just the right industrial mixer manufacturer for a new product or the perfect blend of minerals for a non-irritating eye shadow worth every second. Better ingredients, equipment, research and processes all yield better, healthier skin. It’s the ultimate fair trade.
Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer from Sacramento, California. A mother of two, Hannah enjoys writing on blogs of all niches.