Have you ever wondered how I go about researching the ingredients I use in my skincare? Well, wonder no more and read on! If you've been reading these blog posts you'll know that I put a lot of thought into what goes into all of my products. Rather than jumping on the latest skincare ingredient trend, I like to choose ingredients that fit with my values and the ethics of the brand I've created. From the start I was clear that all Natur Cosmetics products needed to be vegan, cruelty-free and as natural, sustainable and ethical as I could make them. But what do these terms really mean? Vegan is fairly easy to define in this context, but it meant excluding many ingredients commonly found in skincare, including beeswax, honey, silk protein and milk (the latter being particularly common in soaps). Therefore, many tried and tested formulations used and shared by other formulators would have to be adapted to account for differences in plant-based alternatives. Making sure my products were cruelty-free sounds simple, because obviously I wasn't about to set up an animal-testing facility, even if it were legal to do so here in the UK, which thankfully it isn't. However, in many countries, animal testing of cosmetics is still permitted and even required in some territories, and this requirement can spill over into the individual ingredients. When importing into the UK or EU, manufacturers have to declare that their products have not been tested on animals, but it is a self-made declaration, with no external verification. For this reason, I ensure that all my ingredients are either manufactured in the EU or are certified by a third party as being cruelty-free. I never buy ingredients from countries like China, where animal testing was until very recently a legal requirement for cosmetics and so there is too much risk of this occurring with ingredients manufactured there. Now we come to the more difficult-to-define terms. What exactly does 'natural' mean? The formulation school where I did most of my training distinguishes three 'shades' of natural: direct from nature (e.g. cold-pressed seed oil), naturally derived (an ingredient collected from nature that has undergone some kind of chemical processing) and nature identical (an ingredient created in a laboratory that is chemically identical to its natural counterpart). Whilst it may seem the obvious choice to use entirely direct from nature ingredients, this would mean only creating a very limited range of products. It would include my clay masks, multi-purpose powders and Goddess Luxury Serum, and that's about it. In order to make the kinds of products that many people want, including lotions (which require an emulsifier and preservative) and gels and cleansers that contain water (which need a preservative), it is necessary to include some ingredients from the second category. The third 'shade' of natural is an interesting one. I tend to avoid these nature identical ingredients in my products, but there are times when it is the most sustainable choice. For example, if I need to use sorbic acid as part of my preservative system, it wouldn't be sustainable to harvest the amount of rowan berries needed to cater to global demand for this ingredient, so a nature identical alternative is the better choice for the planet. This brings me onto my next criterion for ingredients: sustainability. This is even murkier territory, because there are just so many factors that go into the growing, harvesting, mining, processing, distribution and so on of the various ingredients that it simply doesn't make sense to try to label an ingredient (or a product or a company for that matter) as 'sustainable' or 'unsustainable'. Instead, we need to consider a spectrum of sustainability, where we strive to make everything we do as sustainable as possible, whilst acknowledging that we will never be perfect in this regard and there is always room for improvement and moving things a little further along the spectrum. When choosing my ingredients, I consider each one in isolation, and weigh up factors such as its country of origin, its certification, the methods of acquiring and processing the ingredient, its function within the product and the packaging used by the suppliers. Finally, there is the ethical dimension of ingredients. Many popular ingredients in skincare, including shea butter, mica and candelilla wax are harvested exclusively from countries with very high levels of poverty and are rife with exploitation of vulnerable communities. As you can see, I've written in more detail about these particular ingredients already, but there are also many more. Essentially there are two options to deal with this problem: boycott the ingredient entirely or find a certified scheme promoting fair wages and a high level of protection for the communities in question. Of the two, the second option is by far the most preferable, so I try to go with this option where it exists. When I can't find a suitable scheme, or there is a perfectly adequate alternative ingredient that comes from much nearer to home, I'll go with this option. So where do I find the information to make all of these decisions? Well, stay tuned for Part Two where we'll talk about this.
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