Are there good reasons to use a natural skin care cream or will any old skin care do?

Hmm, why would you use a natural skin care cream? It seems that the whole  world is going natural, in so many areas, but are there good reasons to use a skin care product that is “natural”?

Firstly what does natural mean when it applies to skin care? Good question, and one with no formal answer. You see although there are many natural skin care products on the market there is no one formal definition of what they are.

What, for example, is the difference between natural skin care and organic skin care? How about herbal skin care? How about botanical skin care?

Whilst there is no formal definition that doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. It just means that the industry has no real way of establishing clearly what is natural and what is not.

In this case we tend to apply our own definition. To do this you need to consider the reasons why there is any need for a “natural” skin care product. After all why shouldn’t people just buy ordinary “non natural” skin care products?

The reason is simple. The traditional skin care products that you usually see on the shelves of the stores are made up of many ingredients that are manufactured. They aren’t found growing in a tree or a plant, they are a synthesized chemical ingredient that a scientist somewhere has worked out performs a certain function.

One of the reasons for this is that it is often much cheaper to manufacture chemical ingredients than it is to take ingredients from nature.

Parabens is an example. These are a range of chemicals that are used in many products, not just skin care products, as preservatives. Why? Because they are very cheap to manufacture. But there’s a problem with finding Parabens in your products. Many consider that they are dangerous if used extensively and could cause cancer. But they’re cheap.

In fact there are a lot of chemical (and petrochemical) ingredients in many skin care products that are considered suspect or even dangerous. That’s why there is a big and growing market for “natural” skin care products.

So if people are turning to natural, or organic, or botanical, or herbal skin care product, it’s usually because they are worried about the chemicals found in mainstream skin care products, and the risks they may pose to their health.

So we can make a definition of our own. A natural skin care product is a product composed of ingredients found in nature and which are known to be safe for people to use. I would also include the following as well.

Natural skin care products should work as well or much better than mainstream skin care products. (That’s often not that hard as many mainstream skin care products don’t work very well.)

It’s not essential for the definition that they work well, but for our purposes we consider that if anyone is interested in using a natural skin care product it should at worst be safe but at best be a really effective product.

So as you can see there is no formal definition of what a natural skin care cream is. But that doesn’t mean that there is no reason to use one. There are in fact powerful reasons to use one.

The best are safer to use than mainstream products. The very best are both safer to use and work better than mainstream products.

Which is the very best natural skin care cream? Click here to find out.

The market for natural skin care products is growing fast, and is probably the fastest growing segment of the skin care market. That’s why L’Oreal bought The Body Shop in 2005, to get a foothold in what it sees as the future of skin care marketing. Read the rest of this entry

We’ve talked about natural skin care, what does it mean?

Skin care products contain many ingredients, and it’s these ingredients that go into making up the product. A skin care products is the sum total of it’s ingredients. And natural skin care products are too.

Of course there are thousands of ingredients that go into making up skin care products, and many companies that make skin care and anti aging products, as well as lots of other personal products like hair care products, body care products, and all those other beauty, hair, body and skin products that we all use day to day.

And most don’t disclose what goes into their products, except as far as they have to put it on the label. And even then they disclose as little as they can get away with.

Unfortunately, however, many of these ingredients are not what we would call natural. They are chemicals, sometimes made in a lab, and sometimes a chemical produced as a by product of the manufacturing process.

Where the company manufacturing the anti aging and skin care products uses a chemical it does so for a reason. Perhaps it produces a hair color, or maybe it assists in hair removal, or maybe it does this, or that. Perhaps it’s just cheaper than using a natural alternative.

Bottom line for us though, is that many of these chemicals used in our skin care products are not good for out health. Here’s an example. Recent tests showed lead in more than 50% of the big brand name lipsticks.

The lead will be there for a reason, it will do something, and the companies that manufacture the lipstick don’t have a culture of paying attention to making safe skin care products or cosmetics. They just want to make products that sell, and if they are allowed to put lead in their products they will.

There’s many other examples, including chemicals called Phthalates that have been found in many skin care, beauty and common household personal care products like shampoos and hair products. Phthalates have been shown to have reproductive implications for human beings as well as other effects. But they are still in many of our personal products and aren’t listed on the label.

But as a consumer you have a choice, and you can choose to buy natural skin care products instead. Natural and organic skin care products are made from ingredients that are both naturally occurring and also are known to be safe for human use.

Here’s some examples of natural skin care ingredients used by Xtend Life, the best, manufacturer of natural skincare products in our view.

Shea butter. Extracted from the nut of the Shea tree from Africa, an excellent natural skin moisturizer.

Jojoba oil extracted from the seeds of the Jojoba plant, very high in good anti oxidants.

Grape seed oil extracted from the seeds of various grape varieties, high in important fatty acids and also full of anti oxidants, and also very effective as a skin moisturizer.

Phytessence Wakame, a Japanese seaweed. Very rich in essential vitamins and minerals, high in anti oxidants and with an enzyme that helps improve skin health.

Xtend TK extracted from the wool of sheep. Containing keratin, an important part of the makeup of skin, and important in the regrowth of collagen and elastin, both essential for skin health.

And many more. These are the type of organic, or natural, ingredients in the makeup of natural skin care products.

And it’s not just the ingredients of the skincare products that go into making up an effective and safe skin care regime. It’s also the philosophy of the company that makes the products that is important too.

Xtend Life have a commitment to making products that are safe enough to eat. That was their brief to their scientists making up the products, that as well as being the most effective on the market the skin products must also be safe enough to eat.

Try getting a commitment like that from Revlon, or Proctor and Gamble, or Christian Dior, or the company that sells the skin care products you are probably using now.

So there are a number of things that go into making up natural skin care products. It’s the ingredients found in the products, and where they are sourced, and it’s the philosophy of the company that makes the products. Read the rest of this entry