As I mentioned in previous posts, I am very interested in the content of products and I like to choose "pure products" by that I mean just as the chefs refer to "pure ingredients" i.e. original raw materials of good quality. A clean food product can, for example, be freshly squeezed juice consisting of 100% fruit, berries or vegetables. When it comes to skin care, a pure product can for example be a pure oil such as argan oil, almond oil or rosehip seed oil. But I also choose products with mixed pure ingredients or what we have come to call natural skin care products. Which leads to the concept of Natural skin care.
WHAT IS NATURAL SKIN CARE? Natural skin care contains a high proportion of ingredients derived from nature. Examples of natural ingredients are lavender, aloe vera, shea butter and bakuchiol. Bakuchiol is also called "Nature's retinol" and is mainly obtained by extraction from the seeds or leaves of the shrub Psoralea corylifolia, a plant also known as babchi or babchi seed. Bakuchiol is considered by many to be a real one star ingredient because the cold-pressed oil shares similar properties to vitamin A ie retinol.
WHAT ARE SYNTHETIC INGREDIENTS? In short, it can be said that synthetic ingredients are produced in a laboratory. Many of the synthetic ingredients are not found in nature and are therefore called synthetic. But synthetic ingredients can also be copies of the natural variant but which are instead produced synthetically, i.e. in a lab. These are called nature-identical ingredients, some examples are e.g. hyaluronic acid, vitamin A and vitamin C.
If you summarize, there are those who advocate natural skin care and those who believe that synthetically produced products are safer. Actually, I can't say 100% that one is better than the other. It is perhaps more of a personal choice and what you think suits your lifestyle.
But it's always boring not to have an opinion and I have opinions :) I prefer natural skin and hair care for a reason. And that is because new chemicals and substances are constantly being developed, the legislation is not keeping up and we do not know the long-term consequences of all the chemicals/synthetic compounds we are exposed to on a daily basis. For me personally, it feels better to choose "less is more". And that there are many substances in beauty and skin care products that have been noticed for example: creating an imbalance in the skin, being environmentally disruptive and affecting the ecosystems in e.g. our lakes and waterways, as well as substances that are suspected of being hormone disruptors, allergy-causing and even cancer-causing .
The topics I therefore avoid are:
- Silicones
- Mineral oils
- Parabens
- SLS
- PEG
- Artificial fragrances
- PFAS substances*
- Plastic particles
And to avoid reading content lists, I therefore choose products of more natural origin and preferably also organic. It feels better to me, especially now that I am pregnant and am careful about what I both eat and lubricate myself with. :) Again I can delve much more into this topic. But I'll settle for this for now.
In the next post, I will show you my skin care routine right now!
*PFAS examples: Ammonium C6-16 Perfluoroalkylethyl Phosphate, Polyperfluoroethoxymethoxy difluoroethyl PEG phosphate, Polyperfluoromethylisopropyl ether, Perfluorononyl dimethicone, and Polytef (PTFE).
Sources: skincity.com , drsannas.se
