There has been a huge explosion of ‘Green’, ‘Organic’, and ‘Natural’ beauty brands that all claim to be ‘pure’ and great for ‘sensitive skin’ in the past few years. Unfortunately many of these brands are not so, and are actually ‘Greenwashing’, which is when a brand claims to be natural to capitalise on the surge of consumers looking for better products for their sensitive skin. Essentially it’s fraud as they’re leading customers to believe they’re buying a product that will be gentler on their skin when actually it isn’t.
Today I want to tell you which brands are the ‘fakers’ within the industry and which ones you should avoid if you have sensitive skin and you’re looking for truly natural products, that don’t contain specific common ingredients that cause allergic reactions and aggravate your sensitive skin.
The problem is these companies are carrying out a dangerous business practice by tricking consumers into thinking their putting good chemicals on their skin, when actually they’re filled with the nasty chemicals that can cause eczema flare-ups.
Now, this list is quite long and will feature some brands that you will be shocked are on this list! Sadly though, I have found out the hard way that these brands do not care about you or your sensitive skin, and you should avoid them at all costs.
Simple
Simple are a brand I absolutely despise. I used them as a teenager because I’ve always had sensitive skin and I was led to believe they were – in their own words – ‘sensitive skin experts’, and that their products – again in their own words – contained ‘no harsh chemicals’, and were ‘kind to skin’. Unfortunately my skin was disastrous the whole time I used Simple products, and I could never figure it out. I was constantly breaking out, my skin was always red and blotchy, and my eye eczema flared up. Then I looked into ingredients and realised that my everyday face wipes contained a whole bunch of harmful and drying chemicals and synthetic ingredients.
The more I looked into their other products, the more chemicals I found. Just a few ingredients used in their products include; Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Mineral Oil, and Methylparaben. Many of their products also contain 2-Bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol which forms formaldehyde, a known toxin and carcinogenic ingredient.
LUSH Cosmetics
The entire branding of LUSH is all around being eco-friendly and green. However, whilst they are 100% cruelty free and have never tested on animals (this is illegal in the EU anyway), their products do contain Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Parabens, artificial dyes, a crazy amount of ‘parfum’, and a number of other ingredients that are harmful to those with sensitive skin. They have stated they’re working hard to remove all SLS’s etc from their products, but it’s still a work-in-progress.
Liz Earle
Liz Earle started out with the best intentions, but unfortunately the brand was sold to a much bigger company who changed the formulations and added in some harsh ingredients to their products. To be fair for the most part the products are fine, but some do contain parabens and phenoxyethanol so if you avoid those ingredients make sure to read the full ingredients list on the product first.
The Body Shop
The Body Shop products claim to be natural and ‘green’, yet they’re actually full of preservatives/parabens, petrochemicals, synthetic colours, and fragrances. They also claim that their products are filled with green botanical goodness, yet in many of their products they use only really small amounts of actual botanically-based ingredients. Some of the ingredients in The Body Shop products include mica and talc in their make-up, which as you’ll know from this blog post, are both incredibly drying on the skin.
Korres
First up, Korres are owned by chemical giant Johnson and Johnson. Doh. They do have some products that are almost 90% natural and naturally-derived ingredients, but as I sadly found out the other week when I accidentally purchased a bottle of their body wash and got home to discover that actually it contained both SLS and parabens. A number of Korres products also contain multiple types of alcohol, glycerin which can dry the skin from the inside out, and parfum (fragrance).
Kiehl’s
This is a hugely popular brand, however they’re not all they say they are. Firstly, they don’t disclose product ingredients on the website. Secondly, their products generally contain multiple parabens in each product, as well as sulfates, fragrances, dimethicone, and silicones. Also, Kiehl’s test on animals.
Aveeno
Aveeno is often assumed to be natural as it supposedly suits sensitive skin and doctors even recommend it for Eczema sufferers – especially children. However, their products contains triclosan, PEGs, paraffinum liquidum mineral oil, silicones, tetrasodium EDTA, and disodium EDTA.
Origins
Origins may be committed to excluding parabens, mineral oil and phthalates from their products, however they hide the potential risks of some of the harmful ingredients they use by not making the ingredients list for each product available on their website. This is always a huge warning sign! Origins regularly use the synthetic preservative phenoxyethanol, butylene glycol (which is derived from petroleum), polyethethylene which is basically plastic, and parfum (which can be made up of potentially hundreds of different chemicals).
Aveda
Aveda is similar to Liz Earle in that it was started with the best intentions, but when it was bought by Estee Lauder the ingredients in the products changed. Firstly, Aveda use Palm Oil from Indonesia which means buying their products directly contributes to the destruction of the rainforests and Orangutans. Second, their products are filled with multiple parabens as well as phenoxyethanol, mica, titanium dioxide, glycerin, and linalool.
You can find out here which brands are true organic brands that only include chemicals that are gentle on your skin! I’ll be updating this list regularly – so check back and see which brands are added.
