Natural Beauty: Cheat-Sheet for Understanding the Tremendous ‘Healthier’ Product Options

(VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Natural Beauty Cheat Sheet)

Hi there. Are you interested in natural beauty, but totally overwhelmed by all the options that are out there? Well, I have a cheat sheet for you.

I want to help you understand the tremendous list of healthier, natural beauty options out there (and give you some great options on what to choose).

Hi, I’m Nichole Banducci and I am an MBA turned health coach, and I basically have been obsessed with stalking grocery stores, drug stores, etcetera, my entire life for finding the best products, reading the ingredients, and really trying to find out what is best for me.

But I will tell you this space of natural beauty has always been a bit of a mystery to me because anytime you feel like you’re making the right choice, you often doubt yourself.

Or even worse, you spend a ton of money on a product and it ends up completely sucking.

What we’re going to walk through here today is natural beauty and how you can really not be overwhelmed by all the options and information out there.

This is not going to be something you have to memorize going to keep it simple, because this is a cheat sheet and keeping it nice and easy for you.

So let’s chat. I’m going to quickly go through a lot of the definitions we have here. Why natural beauty is important. Some watch out ingredients to look for.

But don’t worry, you’re not going to have to carry around an index card with you with all of this information because I have a shortcut for you.

Let’s keep going here. First of all, there are tons of definitions around what is natural beauty, and you can really break it up into three key areas. And I have them in the columns here.

One is non-toxic. Meaning it doesn’t have any toxic ingredients that could do bad things to you. Secondary is organic so important. There is, it has to be 95% organic to be able to carry an organic label or listed ingredient as organic.

But this is really tough because the certification super expensive and sometimes people will be organic, but just not be able to afford to have the certification. So definitely keep an eye out on that. Organic also means there’s no GMOs. So just check the labels.

The next area is about the environment. You’ll see green or sustainable. And it’s all about environmental based benefits. A lot of times it’s about packaging and ingredients that do no environmental harm.

Finally, the last area is around cruelty-free and vegan. These are either not tested on animals or totally vegan, so there’s no animal byproducts or ingredients. And a lot of times it will come down to honey and other bee-based products as well. They won’t be included within there.

That’s interesting, right? Like a lot of different areas within there that alone can help set you forth in terms of what kind of beauty products you want to be going for. If it’s important for you from a vegan standpoint, look for that option within there from a health standpoint, critical is the non-toxic and organic.

I’m going to walk you through a little bit more in terms of why that is really just so critical. So we think here, so why natural beauty really shouldn’t be a luxury for people is because what goes on your body gets into your body.

A lot of the toxic, non clean ingredients are actually shown to cause some pretty scary stuff, cancer, hormone, disruption, diabetes, obesity, and organ, and gland issues.

I could actually write probably a white paper on all of the details behind all of this, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. I really think that it’s most important here to be able to understand that it is important to have healthier products for you because of the risks of cancer, especially for women and those of us [hello] nearing or in menopause, the hormone disruptors can really impact you.

Even for folks that are trying to get pregnant. It can make a big difference on what products they’re choosing and the ability to have a kid so important to think about their watch out ingredients. And as I mentioned here, there’s a long list.

Heck, if I don’t have my glasses on other grocery store, I’m trying to see. Does it include these items and what really is bad? And why is it bad? This is your basic naughty list from parabens down to silicone dioxide. Most of them cause cancer, hormone, disruption, diabetes, obesity, or some sort of organ and gland issues.

So regardless of which of those dirty ingredients, it’s just best to try to steer clear of them. And that’s really where I have found that the biggest challenges I mentioned before is trying to keep up with what ingredients are in the products and is it, you know, truly clean and what label can you trust the label? (And if it’s a really small start-up company, maybe they can’t afford the organic label yet. So it’s really hard to tell.)

This is my cheat sheet to really make it easier for you. I have shortcuts. I love shortcuts. My life is about shortcuts. Not to shortcut yourself short, but shortcuts to get yourself ahead.

Within here and you see there are two apps that I use all the time: ‘Think Dirty. Shop Clean’ and ‘The Good Face Project.’ Both of these allow you to buy products directly through them. (I’ve actually never done that. I’m not certain actually by buying products through them, I’d have to check the pricing if it’s more expensive than trying to find a better resource or a lower cost option.) But it’s definitely something to look into. You can search these sites and sometimes you can scan a barcode or just key in the brand and the product. It’ll give you scoring for how clean it really is or how non-toxic or where they’re rated in different areas.

Another great way, is just like going direct to the stores. And I mean, who doesn’t like shopping at Target and Sephora? Both have done a really good job of curating lists of green or natural or better for you kind of beauty products in the marketplace.

At Target, there’s a clean section or a natural beauty section. And I found a lot of really great brands there.

‘Clean at Sephora’ does a really good job as well.

There’s another company called Credo. It’s a website where you can buy products similar to Sephora and a hundred percent of the products on there are good for you. I have not actually shot from them yet. It’s something I need to need to check out further, but it’s definitely worth looking at.

Sometimes I’ll find a product at Target and then I’ll pass it through’Think Dirty’ or ‘The Good Face Project’ to see how they’re doing. Is it really a good product? And, does it really makes sense for me?

So where do you start?

I know this actually could be super overwhelming. If I were to look at non-toxic or natural beauty or natural products within my house, that could cost a lot of money (to kick all the bad out and bring all the good in).

There’s a list where you could really look and see, okay, what should I do first? Actually for me, the first area I went all natural and organic on is moisturizer and body lotions. I have psoriasis and as I’m lathering something all over my body, I want to make sure it’s something that isn’t going to exasperate the issue.

A lot of times, you can think about volume of use. Your number one priority should be your moisturizer, leave on treatments, daily, sunscreen, hand, soap, body lotion, body wash and deodorant.

That’s really a great place to start. And if you start there, you’re really knocking out a lot of the down and dirty stuff. But when I think about putting mascara on or lipstick, I think about how much lipstick I eat during the day, and really looking to make that more of a non-toxic option.

So anything regarding to shampoo, conditioners, skincare and makeup would be really the next one to play into. (Yet secretly it’s kind of fun to have the natural lipstick and stuff.) So you can easily hop over there and back and forth within the list.

Hopefully this was helpful. I’m looking forward to doing more of these videos. Historically, I’ve done a lot of blogs, but I really want to try out doing more of these videos. So hopefully it’s helpful would love to hear from you on my website. You’ll be able to comment below. I’ll also be posting this on YouTube and looking forward to getting some activity going over there.

And then also I will be doing Facebook lives and Instagram lives that relate to the subject directly within there. So hopefully you enjoyed thank you so much for being here. And if you liked what you saw, feel free to check out my website, follow me on Instagram, Facebook, as I mentioned, building a YouTube channel as well.

So thanks so much and have a wonderful day. Take care.