Reading Labels.

I regularly read food labels for calorie content, sodium, fat, etc., and now I am reading labels on my beauty products too.

As many beauty brands claim to be natural, natural based, or organic – how can one really tell? Many companies use a few healthy ingredients mixed in with mostly synthetic chemical and petroleum based colors, fragrances and preventives so they can call their product “natural based”. It is true, though, that many beauty care products can be made without the use of these synthetic and petroleum based ingredients.

What to easily look out for when reading your beauty product labels:

Petroleum Based Preservatives: There are most commonly found in the form of “parabens” such as methyl paraben, propylparaben and butylparaben. These are actually synthetic chemicals being used as preservatives.

Petroleum Surfactants – These are typically used as foaming agents to create lather. The most used ones are sodium lauryl sulfate and propylene glycol or cocamidopropyl betaine, which many claim to be derived from coconut oil, but it is actually produced with petroleum based chemicals to manufacture it.

It won’t take too long to get familiar with reading your ingredient labels and to tell which products are truly natural or organic.