HOW WE SOURCE

Research lead to the work of the ‘Campaign for Safe Cosmetics' in America, and the sister group ‘The Womens Environmental Network' in the UK. Both groups have been researching and campaigning for legislation to regulate the beauty industry and ban toxic chemicals from consumer products.

Most importantly they have created the ‘Compact for the Global Production of Safe Health and Beauty Products', which includes a pledge that any participating company will ensure their products will meet EU standards within three years, and be free of chemicals known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation, or birth defects.
This campaign has been signed by 175 companies, and forms the basis for an ongoing future supply of brands that meet CONTENT requirements.

Alarmingly, the cosmetic industry does not have a governing regulatory body. It is left to the individual companies to test their own products, which is often done as individual components instead of an end product.

An estimated 100,000 synthetic chemicals are currently registered for use in the US, and fewer than 10 percent of them have been tested for their effects on human health. These chemicals are finding their way into everyday cosmetics.

Although the small amounts that appear in individual products seem unlikely to have any effect - it is the accumulated effect of the, on average, 12 - 20 products a woman uses before she leaves the house every day, this is the real concern.

A staggering 89% of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products, have never even been evaluated for safety by the FDA, Luckily the EU have taken the international lead in addressing this problem and in 2003 the European Parliament banned reproductive toxicant such as DEHP and DBP, as well as other carcinogens and mutagens, in both domestic and imported cosmetics.

You might wonder why we don't have the term chemical free spashed across our website, a term commonly used in natural skincare.

It's simple, we find it misleading. Why?, well because a common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen. An essential component to human life is infact a chemical.

Instead we prefer to use the more accurate term, synthetic chemical.

We have listed the ingredients we avoid. We like to base this on research and have provided links to this, in particular entries. You can find them in the INGREDIENTS section. Not everything we stock is 100% natural. Some use small amounts of synthetic preservatives such as phenoxyethanol which is used under some organic certification regulations. We choose to allow these ingredients where we deem the percentages used to be a low risk to your health. They are easy to avoid by referring to the ingredients lists.

Research is continually being updated, we will endeavour to do the same with this resource area.

Most of the ingredients we do not stock are obvious choices, but many can still be found in 'organic' brands, even those sold in health food stores. Our list is edited, as research and ingredients change.

Some things in life we have little control over - the skincare we use is one area we do.