Category: Beautycounter

Beautycounter, cancer, Healthy Living, personal care products

Lowering Your Risk Of Cancer

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month so here are some of the tips I’ve found that can help decrease your cancer risk. Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP) provided some of the following tips regarding Safer Food Packaging, Cleaning Products, Cosmetics and Beauty Products. I’ve added a few of my own based on my research and experience as a Beautycounter Consultant.
1) Choose fresh, frozen or dried food to avoid eating food from cans. Most canned food companies continue to use BPA an estrogenic chemical. It can also disrupt your insulin response and is considered an “obesegen.”  BPA Insulin Article
2) Choose glass, ceramic and stainless steel food storage to avoid leaching of BPA and phthalates into your food and beverages. For an interesting lesson on how dangerous some plastics can be listen to this podcast by Dr. Anthony Jay Robb Wolf Podcast Estrogenics It changed forever how I look at water bottles, most food packaging and even fleece fabric.
3) Cook in cast iron, glass and anodized aluminum cookware whenever possible. Ditch Teflon pots and pans.
4) Watch your soy intake as too much can increase your breast cancer risk. I eat none, but that’s mostly due to it being a legume and well, Montsanto.
5) Use the EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning to find safer cleaning products that don’t contain harmful chemicals that can be cancer causing or endocrine disrupting. EWG Cleaning Guide
6) If you don’t know what is in it don’t use it. Companies should be transparent with their ingredients so we can avoid possible exposure to harmful chemicals.
7) FRAGRANCE is a NO in cleaning and personal care products! Unless the companies list the ingredients. “Fragrance” can be a mix of dozens of potentially harmful chemicals. Companies don’t have to list the ingredients in fragrance due to proprietary information. Many are petroleum based. Dangers of Fragrance
8) Use baking soda, white vinegar, and essential oils for cleaning and freshening. I use a TBLS of white vinegar instead of fabric softener to avoid chemicals and ‘fragrance.’ More vinegar can be used to brighten whites, lift stains and odors.
9) READ INGREDIENT LABELS and expect full transparency regarding ingredients and the ingredient selection process when it comes to anything you or your family use on your bodies. Sad fact, the U.S. only bans 30 ingredients from use in personal care products and that legislation was passed in 1938. To compare the E.U. has a list of 1400 banned ingredients, and Canada 600 banned ingredients. Use the EWG Skin Deep Database EWG Skin Deep Database to find companies that that adhere to higher safety standards than is required by law.
10) Don’t be fooled by incomplete ingredient lists, claims of “natural” or “organic.” These labels can be achieved even if only 1 out multiple ingredients is natural or organic. FULL TRANSPARENCY is what your want! (Yes, those are shouting caps 🙂 )  Some companies like Beautycounter, and other’s you can find on EWG’s Skin Deep database, go above and beyond to achieve a “Verified” status so you can know effort has gone into vetting the ingredients and their safety. Beautycounter has a Never List that has 1500 banned ingredients Beautycounter’s Never List and they push at the federal & state level to get safer legislation for all of us.

My hope is that this list will help you make changes that improve your life and lower your exposure to potential cancer causing toxic chemicals and other harmful ingredients. If you are interested in using Beautycounter to help clean up your personal care products, here is the link to my website Heather’s Beautycounter Website or just go to Beautycounter.com if you prefer to shop without a consultant.

Beautycounter, cancer, health, Healthy Living, makeup, personal care products, safer beauty

Confessions of a Beautycounter Consultant

I have a confession to make. I signed up to sell Beautycounter before I even tried their products.

Beautycounter lured me into the life of sales with their strong message of education and advocacy. Their belief that each consultant has the power to share the message of safer beauty and personal care products is empowering. Their work in Washington D.C. to actually make this happen is admirable. When I heard their mission statement- “Our mission is to get safer products into the hands of everyone.”- I was sold.  It is powerful in its accuracy and simplicity. How many of you know how safe the products you are putting on your body are? I wasn’t aware that the U.S. only bans 30 ingredients out of 80,000 that are used in personal products before I went to a Beautycounter social. Did you? The E.U. bans 1400 and Canada 600. This bothered our CEO Gregg Renfrew and she decided to do something about it. Beginning with a list of 1500 ingredients that Beautycounter will never use. More importantly, she along with a few other beauty industry executives are sharing the need for stronger regulations in their own industry with members of Congress. Why does this matter you ask? You could currently be slathering on known carcinogenic (cancer causing) or endocrine disrupting (hormone levels) products in the form of soap, lotion, shampoo or makeup on your body. Beautycounter helps provide alternatives that are safer and if you don’t want Beautycounter they will provide you with resources to determine what other brands might be safer. Personally, I’ve never used any safer products that perform as beautifully as Beautycounter’s do.

Another quality I enjoy about Beautycounter is that it is a B Certified Corporation which means it values people, planet and profit equally. Working for a company that believes it can help solve social problems, help the environment and voluntarily meet higher standards of transparency (you KNOW what is in BC products), accountability, and performance is inspiring.

I’m delighted to be a part of a company that values my health and wellness and provides me with the opportunity to share and educate family and friends about the products they use. I’m part of a movement through Beautycounter to educate, advocate and provide fantastic beauty and personal care products. And I like it. 

 

Beautycounter, cancer, health, Healthy Living, makeup, Paleo, personal care products, safer beauty, Uncategorized

My Beautycounter Life So Far

Dew___Tint_Skin

It has been three months since I joined the ranks of Beautycounter  as a customer and  consultant and I wanted to briefly share my experience.

In one word it has been positive. The improvement to my skin through the use of their Essential Nourishing line and their No.1 Brightening Facial Oil has been extremely encouraging. I’ve learned to love facial mists and oils, two products I never knew existed.  I’ve been using the makeup from their Flawless in Five collection and have never felt so put together in my life. The best part about all of these products is that they last. Beautycounter has made safer beauty super high performing so it takes a small amount to get results. I am still using all my original purchases three months in and from what my mentor is telling me I can count on around six months for most of the products in my regimen.

As a consultant I feel encouraged, valued and empowered by Beautycounter as a company and the mission they are on. Yes it is direct retail, because they feel their message is best shared one on one. Honestly as soon as I started using their products and learning about how much vigilance goes into the procuring and testing of ingredients, I wanted to share it with my family and friends. Having a little extra income is great, but knowing that I am helping to spread the word about using cleaner & safer personal care products gives me a sense of satisfaction. Doing drop offs so people can use before they buy is fantastic. Seriously, once you use these products you’ll be sold.

The best part about Beautycounter is their belief in the importance of transparency in regards to their ingredients. You should be able to find out from companies before you use their products if they avoid using ingredients linked to cancer. While it seems like common sense, companies are allowed to use endocrine disruptive and toxic chemicals in personal care products you use every day. Beautycounter is working to change that and has created a Never List to demonstrate that devotion to selling safer beauty & personal care products.

 

Beautycounter, conditioner, makeup, personal care products, safer beauty, shampoo

My Favorite BEAUTYCOUNTER Products Reviewed

With so many fantastic Beautycounter products to choose from it is difficult to pick some favorites. However I’ll do it for you guys. First I want to tell you WHY I use Beautycounter. Their intentional attention to the safety of their products continues to impress me. As I learn more about what beauty companies can get away with when it comes to the consumers safety, and how Beautycounter purposefully avoids those practices, I want all my family and friends to try it. I care about my health and longevity and I want to use the highest performing, safest products I can find. Beautycounter fits the bill.

First favorite Beautycounter product: Dew Skin Moisturizer $45   This light weight moisturizer is a 2015 Allure Magazine award winner and with good reason. I don’t notice it on my skin, it gives me plenty of protection from the sun (and my 50-year-old face needs that) and it lasts a really long time. I’ve been using the same tube since the middle of July and have given out two considerable samples to clients and it still feels over half full. Beautycounter invests a huge amount of time not only into the safety of its products, but the performance of them. Win win.

Second product that gives me a little thrill every time I use it: Volumizing Mascara $29 My eyelashes have grown thinner as I get older, fact. This mascara, in two coats, gave them so much volume my friend thought I had gotten eyelash extensions. And it stays put during the day, but is removed easily when I wash my face.

Third and final Beautycounter treat I’ll tell you about here: Repair & Nourish Shampoo and Repair & Nourish Conditioner each $25 These two products changed my opinion of what shampoo and conditioner can and should do. I washed my hair with a surprisingly small amount of shampoo that lathered impressively, conditioned with a smaller than usual amount and rinsed thoroughly. The spa like smell and luxurious lather was fantastic. How my hair dried and styled was awesome. The softness and how well the style held with absolutely no additional product completely wowed me. Seriously, my friends all heard about it.

Are these products worth the price. Absolutely and I’m a bit of a cheap skate. They last so long! And you can feel confident they are vetted for safety and performance. Never tested on animals, only people. Education driven, mission focused, environmentally conscious, Beautycounter is a company to support and believe in.

Feel free to comment or email me with questions about any Beautycounter products  or for more information about the state of the beauty and personal care industry in the USA. 2017-09-23-18-24-45

Beautycounter

Beautycounter Review

Believe me when I tell you that I am a skeptic when it comes to  the performance of personal care and beauty products. For years I’ve been trying to find healthy lotion, shampoo and makeup that was up to my expectations regarding ingredients and how well they worked.  I’m admittedly a bit of a high maintenance person when it comes to my health as I eat sustainably raised, local, organic food as much as I can. I cook in cast iron and stainless steel and store food in glass rather than plastic. And I make my own mayo and eat gluten and dairy free.  I put a lot of time and energy into optimizing my time on the planet. Finding more “natural” “safe” beauty care products was hard. They either were chemical free and sucked, or had all ingredients I could read and were okay.  Then I was invited to a Beautycounter social.

I was greatly intrigued by Beautycounter’s mission to get safer products into everyone’s hands and the fact that the first social I went to was extremely low pressure to buy. The main message was educating yourself about what you are using on your own body as well as your family members. I went right home and used the Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep database the Beautycounter consultant mentioned to see how the products I was using ranked. I had to throw away two of my chapsticks based on their lower safety rating and one of them was a brand marketed as “natural.” Then I ordered three Beautycounter products and waited. They were the Citrus Mimosa Body Bar, Citrus Mimosa Body Lotion and the Dew Skin Tinted Moisturizer.

  1. The Citrus Mimosa Body Bar smells great, but isn’t too strong and the smell doesn’t linger which I liked. The soap has a nice creamy feeling texture as you use it and soaps up just the right amount. I used it for shaving while in the shower too.
  2. The Citrus Mimosa Body Lotion again has the light citrusy floral smell that you enjoy while applying, but it doesn’t leave your skin perfumed. It spreads well and absorbs quickly and provides non-sticky moisture to your skin. I would say it is perfect for normal skin. If you super dry skin you may need a heavier product. Which would be the Citrus Mimosa Body Butter 🙂  This lotion was perfect for me.
  3. The Dew Skin Moisturizer was the one that most surprised me. I used it on fresh washed skin and after my regular moisturizer as my face is dry (and getting old) so I find I have a higher moisture requirement. This glided on, provided excellent sun protection and felt so light I didn’t even know I had it on. It doesn’t really provide coverage, but my skin looks better after a week of using it. Less dry and softer looking.

My sister, who has extremely sensitive skin that will rash up at the wrong input (lotion, soap or laundry detergent) tried both the Citrus Mimosa products and not only liked them, but said her skin was fine and she would be able to use them.

Since then I have become a Beautycounter consultant, ordered more products and have been genuinely impressed with what I’ve tried. The Nourish & Protect Shampoo and Conditioner leaves my hair clean and I can dry it without any other product and it holds its style. My hair feels so soft and healthy and it smells salon fresh. The Color Outline Eye Pencil goes on smoothly, precisely and doesn’t smear and run which is why I had quit wearing eyeliner. The Peppermint Lip Conditioner got rid of the unsightly dry skin flakes on my lips. The Protect Lip Balm kept my lips moisturized and soft even after several days in the Texas heat.

The takeaway? Try it! You’ll be surprised and impressed. At the very least your contact with the company will leave you better informed as a consumer going forward. I can be reached for comments or questions either through this site or through at:  Beautycounter by Heather Clark And even if you don’t want to buy anything, look at the Never List of chemicals Beautycounter avoids as well as learn about what the company is doing on a national level to advocate for all of us consumers.