First, anything with parabens and SLES had to go. I found myself spending hours reading labels, studying ingredients, and identifying the best product for each skin types. I learned so much and I’m still learning to this day. It was difficult to give up my old skincare products though; I used some of these products for a long time, and they became a part of me and my identity, so it was quite overwhelming to decide to throw them away.
Transitioning to natural and organic skincare can be an overwhelming experience. Here, I give you five tips I wish I knew before starting to transition to clean safe beauty.
1. Transitioning to natural skincare is not a race, it’s marathon. It’s all about finding what products work for you. Trying to switch all our products at once can quickly become a very overwhelming experience. Actually, we don’t see results right away when we switch to natural and organic skincare products; there is a detoxifying period. Natural and organic skincare products work with the skin instead of forcing it into becoming different like regular commercial products. It takes two weeks for the toxins that were accumulated in our skin to be released. I would say that it takes four weeks to see actual change in the skin when using natural and organic skincare. So, changing all our products at once would be a big mistake. Start small with one product at a time; we created the CFB's swap it out section to help you switch to natural/organic products. There, we gave you natural alternatives to different products.
2. Find out about ingredients. You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with potentially toxic ingredients used in the skincare industry. Did you that there are 75,000 industrial chemicals and at least 5,000 of these chemicals are used in the cosmetic industry? Yes, 5000 and several of these chemicals have been classified as harmful to our health. It is essential to know about ingredients in our products. You probably already know that we need to avoid parabens (Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben, Methylparaben, Propylparaben); they are the most common preservatives used in skin care. Many scientific studies have confirmed that parabens have the potential to cause cancer because of their estrogenic activity. We created a dirty 10 list to give you quick access to the most commonly used potentially harmful ingredients. Check it here to get our dirty 10 list.
Did you transition to natural beauty? What was your experience?