3 Steps To A Safe Beauty Bag

By Akua Auset

“Make Your Eyes Sparkle!”  “Sun-Kissed and Glowing!”  “Elements of Radiance!”  “Go Fresh!”

We as a community spend billions on beauty & body care products. Based on the campaign promises of the companies that provide these products, Hollywood’s Elite will gladly spend up to $2000 for a jar of moisturizer for the promise of eternal youth & beauty.

Hoping to achieve flawless, “luminescently” radiant skin, and maximize what God blessed us with, we invest in having our problems solved.

What would you say, if I told you that many of our most common beauty and body care products are causing the very problems you spend your money to solve?

Think about this as well, many of us who live a holistic and natural lifestyle go out of our way and spend more to put the best healthy and organic foods in our bodies while over-looking the demons in our makeup bag and medicine cabinet.

According to the 5 New Habits of Holistic Beauty, it is imperative to make sure that we only consume things that will add life and vitality to our bodies.

After all, the foods we eat must first go through the digestive process. While our skin (the most amazing eliminative organ in our body) works hard for us breathing in and breathing out everything we put on top of it. If it doesn’t clog or suffocate your pores first, every product you put on your skin is absorbed into your body and into your bloodstream in only moments. Ultimately, your health (and your physical beauty) is determined by the quality of the nutrients (life) or toxic (death) matter in your blood.

Burns, skin rashes and redness, dry, scaly skin, aging of the skin, headache, nausea, depression are just scratching the surface of the many effects of using (knowingly or unknowingly) beauty products containing UNsafe ingredients.

Could the rise in breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and various health crises be linked to the toxic and dangerous ingredients not only in our food but also what we are finding in our beauty & body care products?

Parabens (Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben) have actually been found in breast cancer tumor tissue. These toxic and synthetic chemicals are used to preserve cosmetics, foods and various substances. Some may argue to the contrary. The owner of one of the largest cosmetic companies actually said to me in a casual conversation that the amount of these toxic substances are so minute that it couldn’t be harmful.  Yes, of course, dosage is an important consideration as well as also taking into account the vitality of your immune system. Look at it this way: If you are using, let’s say a makeup foundation EVERYday for five years;

Are you comfortable ingesting a “trace” amount of a known  carcinogenic substance into your body daily for years?

Fortunately, you don’t have to. There are wonderful products available to us that are safe to use; not only safe, but also incredibly effective and luxurious.  I can easily find many pure and safe alternatives that would kick the butt of these UNsafe, toxic versions of the same.

One of my most prized tools for making sure I am steering clear of dangerous and toxic ingredients in my beauty bag is The Most Common TOXIC Beauty Product Ingredients list* compiled and published by The Healing Beauty Arts Council in May 2008.

3 Steps To A Safe Beauty Bag

1. INSPECT the labels and expiration dates of your beauty & body care products for UNsafe or  questionable ingredients. Know exactly what’s in your products. Often product ingredients are listed on the boxes which are normally discarded soon after purchase.  In this case, you may be able to visit the company website to inquire about ingredients.

      2. DO A CLEAN SWEEP! Clean out your makeup bag and medicine cabinet.

Create three piles:

• KEEP: the safe and unexpired products.

• RETURN: If you still have a receipt and it’s within the return-period, return products to the place of purchase if you can. Perhaps let the store kindly know that you were not aware there were unsafe ingredients in the product. This will help the store to be aware of a new standard of customer product safety awareness.

• DUMP! Properly dispose of the product, recycling the packaging if possible.

       3. REPLENISH WITH THE LIST!* Replenish your beauty bag by shopping with your The Most Common TOXIC Beauty Product Ingredients List in hand. Now, you have a powerful tool to avoid purchasing UNsafe beauty and body care products. I love this comment from a friend of mine years ago about how she chooses her favorite hair care products. She said, “If I can’t eat it, I don’t put it on my hair.”  I passionately agree, because you ARE eating it, through your skin.

Voting doesn’t only happen at the polls in choosing our next president. After all is said and done, the only way to shift a paradigm or force change in what is being made available to us, the public, is to vote out business practices that are not in our best interest by not purchasing products that contain UNsafe, toxic & dangerous ingredients.

Corporations are created and in business for a profit. Reward your favorite companies by spending money on products that are pure, safe and that make you look beautiful and feel healthy for the rest of your life. It’s a new day and call for the integrity of beauty and body care product offerings. We are forcing that shift to occur each day we educate ourselves. We CAN have it all: PURITY, SAFETY and LUXURY!

* A FREE bookmark of The Most Common TOXIC Beauty Product Ingredients list is available by visiting: http://www.thehbac.org (The Healing Beauty Arts Council) I founded this advocacy organization in May of 2008 with the mission to educate the public on the effects of unsafe ingredients in beauty products.

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Holistic Beauty Advisor & Author Akua Auset is a celebrity makeup artist in TV & film, who’s worked intimately with the planet’s most famous and talented people specializing in what she terms, “the healing beauty arts.” A trained medicine woman she is the creator of 9 1/2 Weeks: The METAMOORPHOSE Project™ an epic journey of transformation. She is the author of SUPERWOMEN & GODDESSES: Workin’ Your Power & Magic and The Eight Elements of The Most Beautiful & Magnetic People On The Planet. akua-auset.com