Gone are the days when a cocktail of cosmetic chemicals was the only route to looking
gorgeous. Lucy Siegle reports on a new trend for naturally made beauty products that’s changing the industry for good
B
eauty myths swirl about us in the manner of an age-defying facial mist. A dozen will envelop you on the way to the bathroom mirror of a morning. From facial scrubs to cellulite-busting foams, products are billed as ‘smart’. They embrace nanotechnology, containing tiny particles that promise to eff ect change below the epidermis (beauty is no longer skin-deep) and a zillion diff erent
ingredients to tighten, liſt and polish skin. It’s precisely these smart-aleck products that make me nervous. Aſt er all, do I really want to be outwitted by my mascara? And let’s face it, there is oſt en a huge distance between the
rhetoric of products (particularly mascara wands, it should be noted) and the prosaic reality of what they actually achieve. All of this can leave you lusting aſt er something with a little more wholesome integrity. There is something to be said for clear ingredient lists and more humble objectives, for products that acknowledge their roots and off er transparency of supply chain, that are carefully harvested from forest rather than produced in laboratories. Enter a reworked, more sophisticated beauty movement, making a seductive play for our bathroom cabinets. ‘I wouldn’t put anything on my face that I wouldn’t eat,’ says
Jane, a devotee to naturally produced cosmetics. She means it, taking a dim view of the cocktail of synthetic chemicals that we habitually ingest. Research by the Women’s Environmental Network, which has campaigned against the wholesale use of bioaccumulative chemicals such as parabens in everyday cosmetic products, found that the average woman eats the equivalent of eight entire lipsticks each year. Eco-beauty products therefore avoid toxins and favour ingredients such as beeswax and essential oils. Brands such as Weleda and Green People are stalwarts of the ethical beauty movement. If you haven’t tried their products in a while, they’re worth a revisit: the perfect antidote to over-perfumed, over-engineered skincare.≥
> Lucy Siegle is the ethical living columnist for The Observer and a reporter for BBC’s The One Show<