Sunday, July 31, 2016

The Eco Guide to Clean Beauty

The US Environmental Working Group has created the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, which lists 78,000 toxic ingredients found in products, but sustainability expert and chemist Dr Richard Blackburn at Leeds University is deeply concerned about our approach to the new global apothecary. “Not all things from nature are safe and not all synthetics are bad,” he says. He’s worried that we confuse organic and natural with non-toxic. Some brands advertise the use of natural ingredients when they are not sustainable. He singles out Aveda as a brand that balances real sustainability with green chemistry. For clean beauty to be more than just a fad, it must be sustainable.

We’ll need more products like the Pure Super Grape skincare range developed by Blackburn’s University of Leeds spinoff, Keracol, with M&S. They contain 95% natural ingredients, sure, but the range uses waste grape skins from M&S English wine production so it has a sustainable supply chain. Clean beauty shouldn’t just be skin deep, but also planet deep.


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