Beauty Counter – Beauty Minus 1500 Chemicals!
I never really thought about what went into the stuff I put on my body or my face. I never cared what ingredients were in the products I used. And at a certain point, I cared a lot about the food I ate, and how it was grown and what went on it or in it, though what went into my skin products did not occur to me
But the things we put on our skin take 26 seconds to be absorbed into our bloodstream. Think about that. Probably faster than it takes fries to clog your arteries. Yet, for the most part, we continue to use things that are high in toxins and are cruel to animals.
I went cruelty-free first and then I started caring about purity.
I happened upon the Beauty Counter line after hearing its founder Gregg Renfrew on #girlboss podcast.
Gregg Renfrew who was a successful entrepreneur launched BeautyCounter when she realized how many chemicals we were not only putting on our own skin but on our kids.
According to the info section on Beauty Counter which I advise you to read, “There are more than eighty thousand chemicals on the market today that are used in our cosmetics and household products.”
“The United States has not passed a major federal law to regulate the safety of ingredients used in personal care products since 1938. Over the past two decades, the European Union has banned more than 1,300 chemicals in the product formulas of personal care products and restricted the levels of over 250 more in such products. The United States has only partially banned 30 to date.”
Beauty Counter has a Never List which consists of fifteen hundred products they have removed from their line. So, if they have removed fifteen hundred, think of how many there are in the average lipstick which we essentially eat. That really makes you think about chemicals and their effect on animals when they test on them. It’s hard to keep the same perspective when you start really absorbing this information.
I’ve been trying their products for about three months now. I started with their Flawless in Five kit. Which gives you five products for $150.oo. A foundation, which has won an award from Allure, a concealer, a mascara, an eyeshadow and a lipgloss.
I was not sold at first. But part of the problem was I went too light in my selections. I gave them to my daughter Lucy to try and she loved them. She loved the foundation as she said it did not clog her pores and it felt really good. She is much fairer than I and she is 42 years younger, too.
I didn’t think the pigment in the eyeshadow was strong enough, but I didn’t want to give up on them. So I decided to order more, motivated to like a line minus fifteen hundred chemicals.
The first product I really used was their Charcoal Mist. I spray my face with mist all day to keep it moist, many mists have a tendency to burn your eyes, Beauty Counter’s did not. A perk of not having chemicals.
I keep their hand cream at the office and use it when I’m working. Not sticky and it works!! And I’m a hand cream nut.
I tried one of their masks, The plumping one they call The Plumping Peony Mask, granted they had me at Peony, but I like it a lot.
You do lose some strength when you take out chemicals. You can’t see the results with a mask that has chemicals compared to one that does not. But do you see results? Yes. Is it worth cutting down on how many chemicals we expose ourselves to? You bet.
I use their toner pads and they have a real zing to them. And I tried their Vitamin C Serum which in a comparison of six vitamin C serums I conducted and will write about next week, it came in third. That is pretty good. Spoiler alert!
I love, love, love their big eyeshadow palette. It’s not cheap, no big palette is, but it is literally all you need if you buy it. You do not need a drawer full of colors.
And I use their blush. Not every day. But I use it. I like it and I feel better when I do.
I use a lot of people’s products. So, I’m not going to lie and say I’ve gone totally chemical free. I can’t. Though I wish I could. I wish I had the devotion to being chemical free with my body the way I am with my household cleaning products which are all natrual. But I am too interested in trying new things and seeing what works. But I would say that much of what I buy, try and use is way, way down on the chemical spectrum. Beauty Counter just happens to be one of the two or three exemplary brands.
Their lipstick is very good and if you were going to start with a product I might start there. Look, does it stay on all day? No. So you reapply. And that stuff that does looks fake and feels and tastes like glue. Their lipgloss is soothing and comes in pretty colors.
It’s a company with the pull of many purposes – it’s involved in charities and lobbying in Washington to have chemicals removed from our lives.
Beauty Counter is about female empowerment, you can become a rep and sell the products in a modern day Avon Lady way and make money and help people at the same time.
No, I am not a Beauty Counter rep. But I am a user and I will use more of them. I have advised several women I know who are going through health issues or under treatment to switch over to them as the fewer chemicals we have in our bodies the better off we are. And Beauty Counter makes it so you can have that and look pretty too.
