OK – This is going to be a long, but worthwhile post, so I hope all you beauty junkies read and take note!
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| Image Courtesy www.bellahomescents.com |
In the last few months, thanks to Arbonne, I have really started to be conscious of what I have been putting on my face, and skin in general, and the ingredients in each item.
After learning about what “animal by-product” means (Google animal rendering if you have the stomach), I started using only products that were cruelty-free and vegan (ie. not tested on my furry friends and not MADE with my furry friends). I know what all of you are thinking right now; but Davida, Arbonne is both of these things!
Yes, I know – which is why I love Arbonne, however, I have been trying to find enough products to replace my entire professional makeup kit. Unfortunately with Arbonne’s amazing 400 products, they just dont have enough shadows in bright colours or “out there” makeup for a pro artist kit. 
Everything that I can use, I have, but sometimes you just need a neon pink, ya know?!
Soooo, back to my quest, as I researched what was cruelty-free and vegan, I started to look at what was “natural” and “botanical” (note – Arbonne is botanical, not natural) – I read up on ingredients and what were common chemicals found in makeup and skin care.
Man – did it ever get confusing! There are items that are natural, but not cruelty-free…vegan, but not botanical, and on and on and on and on. What I have learned is that YOU HAVE TO READ THE LABEL. Something that says “natural” may just have ONE natural ingredient somewhere in there, but the rest could be icky, pore clogging ingredients. Even worse, “natural” is often used on a label when the ingredient is an animal product. Pretty sneaky huh? Or a vegan product may be full of yucky chemicals made from science, but they dont use animal products (hence they can be called vegan). Enter PARABENS.
Side note, Arbonne is formulated without any of the following:
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• Animal products or animal by-products
• Formaldehyde donating preservatives
• Petroleum based ingredients
o Benzene
o Mineral Oil
o Petrolatum
o Phthalates
o Toluene
• PABA
• Parabens
• Added Fragrances
• Added Colours or Dyes
Back to Parabens, there are few ingredients that are big red flags, as I’ve now learned, and one of these is parabens. Parabens are a preservative used in North America in almost everything (and I mean everything!). They are cheap and easy and help keep our skin care and makeup from going bad. They are also a known carcinogen, aka something that is cancer-causing or linked to cancer.
Parabens have been linked to breast cancer, but the beauty industry still puts them in our products! Can you believe that? Recently, there have been studies of women that have had breast cancer and tissue samples have been taken and every sample came back with traces of parabens.
So, needless to say, this ingredient has gone to the top of my “cannot be in my products” list. Unfortunately, because our beauty industry is unregulated I have been having a heck of a time finding products that dont have parabens AND are cruelty-free, vegan, without mineral oil, etc. I have found a few really great brands that check almost all the boxes, and then right at the end of their ingredient list they’ll list a paraben, or two, or five! Seriously, I have seen eyeshadows with up to five parabens. This blows my mind; the skin around your eye is the thinest skin on your body. Ingredients put on your skin enter the blood stream ten-times faster than things we eat. So why would companies put five cancer-causing ingredients in something that is supposed to go on the thinest skin on our body!
Parabens aren’t hard to spot; they all have different chemical beginings and then end in “paraben”.
This has become a bit of hot topic for me and I hope you will all take note and read your labels more carefully. There is a really great video circulating on the internet right now about all the toxins that are in our products called The Story of Stuff; you can find it here.
Check your cosmetic cupboard, you’ll be shocked at what you find.
Annnnnnnnd… rant is over!
Thanks for reading. I hope you learned something, and if you’d like to know more about the Pure, Safe, Beneficial (and paraben-free) products that Arbonne offers, feel free to contact me!
xoxo,
dg
