Day 196 / 365
To date, there are more people eating organic food than there are people using non-toxic beauty products, partially because of convenience, and partially due of lack of education.
Our bodies acquire nutrients in two ways: through our mouths and through our skin, so much so that 60% of the substances we put on our skin are eventually absorbed into our bloodstream. This is one of many reasons we need to be conscious about what we consume as most beauty products are not produced with your health or the planet in mind. Currently, beauty brands are allowed to use known toxins in their product ingredients which have been linked to cancer, reproductive issues, hormone disrupters and so on, without informing customers of the health risks. The average woman uses 12 beauty products in the morning alone, which adds up to 100s of chemicals every single day, many of which are potentially harmful. In the past two decades, the EU has banned or restricted more than 1,300 ingredients where the US has only banned 11.
One of the reasons such a corrupt industry is able to still flourish is that it is hard to find brands that successfully balance products which are made with natural, organic, ethically and sustainably sourced ingredients. Around the time I was coming to the end of a Dr. Hauschka‘s cleansing cream scrub I’d gotten as a gift last Christmas, the luxury beauty brand Nature & Nurture contacted me and asked me if I’d be interested in trying their creations. Before I agreed, I made sure they ticked all the boxes I’ve created since beginning this #GoneGreen2016 series, what I’m calling my:
– BEAUTY BRAND YAY / NAY 10 POINT LIST –
ONE. Organic & Natural Ingredients
I always talk about the pesticides used to grow things like cotton, but I don’t often talk about beauty products in the same way. Just like with tea and food and coffee, if it’s not grown organically, that means there are pesticides and toxins on and in the product, which means if you put it on or in you, those toxins and pesticides have to be digested too. Nature & Nurture produces their entire range with completely organic ingredients, so that leaves one less thing to worry about.
TWO. Ethically and Sustainably Sourced
There are many brands who use natural and organic ingredients but they don’t come from people paid fair wages or farms which provide protection to the planet. Nature & Nurture sources from ethical suppliers which full under their strict standards. They use ethical, sustainable and organically sourced ingredients from the UK where possible, or from Fairtrade sources abroad.
THREE. Palm-Oil Free
Nature & Nurture doesn’t use the stuff in any of their products, which is super important to me. The eco and ethical issues of palm-oil are vast and I’ve been working on removing any products with it in from my life. Though Indonesia isn’t the only country burning down forests to make way for plantations, their rate of deforestation surpasses that of any other country. Thus far, they’ve cleared an area of rainforest as large as Germany. And as if the ecological issues and damage to wildlife isn’t enough, oil-palm workers are clubbing orangutans to death in exchange for this product. Most large companies we get our beauty products from ignore this issue and most consumers aren’t aware they’re even supporting this level of mistreatment. It’s estimated palm oil is found in half the manufactured goods in any supermarket or drug store, from chocolate to beauty products. You can look up the names Palm-Oil is often disguised as on this site. The magazine Selva Beat and any writings by Jacalyn Beales are also great resources for replacement products and information. There’s also a Go Palm-Oil Free in 28 Day Challenge which will educate you on the products you use day by day and help you escape from the grips of this ingredient and all the harms it causes.
FOUR. NO ANIMAL TESTING
Nature & Nurture is against animal testing. This is a super important thing ethically for me (and many others) as cruelty is not my thing. We’ve advanced our use of technology enough that we shouldn’t need to test on animals, especially when using products produced with natural organic ingredients.
FIVE. VEGAN / CRUELTY-FREE
Nature & Nurture products are vegan, which is awesome. I try to avoid animal products if I can, it’s better for the planet if we don’t mass produce products from animals and insects because it requires us to mass produce them, which messes with our biosphere and the species. Plus animals aren’t here to serve us, they’re here as our buddy pal friends.
SIX. SAFE INGREDIENTS WHICH CHECK OUT ON EWG
EWG is the not for profit I support most financially and their app and platform I use regularly.I basically check out the ingredients I don’t know on EWC to find out the personal health risks my beauty products (cleaning products and food) pose to me. When any brand, including Nature & Nurture contact me, I vet them before responding to make sure their to make sure their ingredients won’t harm me and align with my beliefs. You can search the brands you’re using by clicking HERE, if they’re not listed, search the individual ingredients like I did.
SEVEN. SHARABLE WITH MY HUSFRIEND
I understand men and women have different skin but I don’t think men need different products than women as their skin will respond all the same. These Nature & Nurture products can be used by for both sexes, Shane (my husfriend) was more interested in the facewash and gels than the serum, where as for me, the serum is my favourite thing.
EIGHT. PHILANTHROPIC
Because profits are meant to be shared, I prefer to support companies which do so. Nature & Nurture donate a percentage of every sale they make to the Orangutan Foundation, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the conservation of wild orangutans and their rainforest habitat.
NINE. STORED IN GLASS CONTAINERS
NINE. STORED IN GLASS CONTAINERS
I’m trying to live a plastic-free life as it is one of the worst products we use and takes longer than our lifetime to biodegrade. Nature & Nurture products come in a glass bottle from a supplier who matches their ethos only 12 miles from their house , which means they can be refilled and reused for other things (like homemade toothpaste, body cream, or deodorant) again and again.
TEN. WORKS WELL ON MY SKIN
Obviously, the only way to discern whether something works well on ones skin is to try it, which I did. I tested all three of the products in Nature & Nurture’s range the product for nearly a month, using it twice daily. You can kind of see in the photos how much I’ve used as I had to reshoot them just now, after losing my first round of photos. You don’t need much to get the job done. There are four products in the range:
– REVIEW –
Face Wash
I normally only wash my face at night because I find face washes dry out my skin, but the Nature Nurture’s cleanser is cream-based and has the opposite effect. It has vitamin E, aloe vera, castor oil, extracts of blueberry, orange and peppermint, and little ground apricot kernels which super gently exfoliate the skin. If you’re used to microbeads (which are bad!) or intense scrubs it will take a few days to get used to the non-abrasiveness of the wash (I was using Dr. Hauschka‘s cleansing cream scrub before and it was way too hard core), but it made my skin tone more even and in the mornings brightened up my skin.
Wrinkle-Repair Night Serum
Wrinkle-Repair Night Serum
I’m a sucker for face oils, so this was my favourite product of the bunch. It combines marula oil, argan oil and naturally derived hexapeptides and smells like watermelon. It is meant as a night serum because it takes about 60-90 minutes to seep into the skin, but as I don’t wear makeup on my skin apart from bronzer, I used the serum day and night as I find it gives me a dewy glow day out and day in. I do an ayurvedic massage on my face twice a day and found the serum outshines the coconut oil ten fold.
Youth-Protect Moisturizer
Youth-Protect Moisturizer
This is the first time I’ve encountered a moisturizer which isn’t creamy, the youth-protect moisturizer is more like a gel, which makes it super absorbent to the skin. It has a sort of tightening effect which combined with the brightness brought by the exfoliator and the glow of the serum evens out your skin. It has organic buriti oil which gives you natural protection as well as roasted coffee bean oil and vanilla extract which help with anti-aging and give the product a subtle fruity scent.
Instant Lift Eye Gel I’ve been using eye creams since I was in my late teens and this is the first time I’ve encountered a gel, apart from vitamin E capsules which I used to break open and slather under my eyes. I used the gel both day and night as I’m in my early 30s and find every ounce of moisture under my eyes helps. I noticed straight away that like the moisturizer it tightened up under my eyes making the few wrinkles I have less noticeable, even when I smiled.
I’d wholeheartedly encourage you to give their collection a try. I’m super happy with their products in terms of effectiveness and quality, which when it comes to beauty / my skin on a vanity level is super important to me. I’d recommend the products just based on vanity pleasure alone even if they weren’t from such a conscious company, but the fact that Nature & Nurture’s ethics, ingredients, sourcing and ethos align with my own makes them, in my eyes, a pretty perfect company to support.
Instant Lift Eye Gel I’ve been using eye creams since I was in my late teens and this is the first time I’ve encountered a gel, apart from vitamin E capsules which I used to break open and slather under my eyes. I used the gel both day and night as I’m in my early 30s and find every ounce of moisture under my eyes helps. I noticed straight away that like the moisturizer it tightened up under my eyes making the few wrinkles I have less noticeable, even when I smiled.
I’d wholeheartedly encourage you to give their collection a try. I’m super happy with their products in terms of effectiveness and quality, which when it comes to beauty / my skin on a vanity level is super important to me. I’d recommend the products just based on vanity pleasure alone even if they weren’t from such a conscious company, but the fact that Nature & Nurture’s ethics, ingredients, sourcing and ethos align with my own makes them, in my eyes, a pretty perfect company to support.
You’ll find Nature & Nurture’s entire collection and try it out for yourself online HERE
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