January is the month of the Detox. A collective moment where we all decide to purge the guilt of festive indulgence by cleansing our bodies inside and out.
While I don’t really believe in fad diets or crazy regimes, I do think the new year is a great time to break bad habits and embrace better ones.
Try something new this year – rather than focussing on the contents of your kitchen cupboard, why not dedicate some time to your bathroom cabinet?
Here are my top five tips for cleaning your beauty regime, and guaranteeing glowing skin in 2013 as a result:
Jargon Buster
Take a look at the Ingredients Lists on your most-used beauty products. If you need a chemistry degree to decipher their contents, than chances are there are a few irritants and impurities lurking in there.
If in doubt, look up any unknown ingredients on the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database – while their hazard scoring can be a bit flawed (completely untested ingredients are allocated a zero harm score out of five), it’s nevertheless a helpful online guide.
Strip Back
While we beauty lovers tend to collect a plethora of products, chopping and changing too often can send the skin out of balance.
Sticking to a regime of tried and tested staples that are well-suited to your skin type will help regulate your oil production, and keep skin even, clear and perfectly hydrated.
Sell-By Scrutiny
Like foods, cosmetics have sell-by dates too. Natural beauty products tend to use fewer synthetic preservatives – so often have slighter shorter shelf-lives ranging from 12-24 months.
It’s unlikely that using products just outside their best-by date will harm your skin, but they’ll certainly not work to their best effect. Oils are particularly fragile and prone to oxidisation, read my previous post to find out how you can tell if your beauty oils have gone rancid.
Look for logos
I say this all the time but in a beauty industry with no labelling regulations over the terms ‘natural’ and ‘organic’, certification logos are key.
If you’re serious about the purity of your products, then always look for a Soil Association, Ecocert or USDA (USA body) logo before you buy.
What about the rest?
So you’ve cracked organic skincare, but what about the rest of your beauty regime? There’s a whole world of fantastic natural make-up and personal care products out there.
If you want to start small, how about thinking about the things you ingest, such as toothpaste, lip balms and lipsticks? Aloe Dent make great toothpaste, Inika has a wide range of lipstick shades, and you know where to come for a lip balm….Pai Bergamot Organic Lip Balm.
Are you cleaning up your beauty regime for 2013? If so, I’d love to hear your top tips.
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