EP136. Why buy natural beauty products?

It's Black Friday tomorrow. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that either. I'm sure you've been bombarded with emails and offers and discounts and adverts everywhere you look. And last week here on the podcast, Anna Green and I discussed various alternative options for Black Friday. But the main message that we shared, which came back time and time again, is that we want you to support small businesses. And that's not always easy to do when you're being bombarded with Amazon emails and exciting looking discounts. It's also not always easy to do when you're constantly being told that natural skincare doesn't work. Now, I'll be honest with you, I work in a bit of a bubble nowadays. The people around me tend to be complete converts on the natural way of life, so we don't typically have to spend much time trying to convince them otherwise. So it was a bit of a shock to the system when we recently ran our first ever ads on TikTok and were told by many people that they did not want to use natural skincare. Well, that response was certainly unexpected and not something that we'd seen before. So today I want to run you through some of those comments and talk to you about why natural skincare is so amazing and why you should be supporting small natural indie beauty brands this Black Friday. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmeyer, chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica Online. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I share my main takeaways from the podcast interview we released last week and set you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So let's talk about some of those comments we recently received on TikTok. Our very short ad focused on the benefits of botanical skincare because we don't fear monger about synthetics here at Formula Botanica. So in the video ad that we recorded, I talk about the fact that many mainstream cosmetics are a bit bland and boring and that botanical skincare can be colorful and exciting to work with because it contains lots of amazing plant extracts that can benefit the skin. But the feedback we received on TikTok was that some people just don't care about what's in their cosmetics. They told us very clearly that they don't care if they're boring, they don't care if they're bland. All they care about is that it works. I have so much to say about this. Firstly, what makes people believe that mainstream cosmetics work better than their natural counterparts? Because that's what underpins the responses we received. However, there are no studies that will tell you that mainstream cosmetics work better. And let's not forget that most mainstream brands have been scrambling around to add naturals to their formulations for the last decade as they've realized it's something that their customers want. The issue there though, is that they add these naturals in teeny tiny quantities to to just say that they're natural rather than because they can actually benefit your skin. Even this morning I received an email with a blog post from a well known cosmetic chemist who said that extracts are often just added to the formulation for the marketing story. So this myth of mainstream cosmetics being superior really all boils down to the fact that many shoppers still think that you should only buy skincare that's been made by scientists because they think that's the only way it will work. They, of course, don't know the history of the beauty industry, which I covered recently in episodes 129 and 130 on this podcast in which we discussed how the pioneers of today's beauty giants, who weren't always scientists, wore white lab coats in their adverts to make us feel like skincare had to be a very scientific subject. So this really is a belief system rather than a fact that mainstream cosmetics work better. But on the flip side, what makes some people believe that natural cosmetics don't work as well as mainstream cosmetics, if not better? After all, if you look at the creams and serums sold by the big brands, you'll generally see that their first ingredient is aqua or water, that they contain a tiny amount of an inexpensive emollient, some viscosity modifiers, some fragrance, and lots of stabilizers and preserving compounds to create a stable formulation with a pleasant texture and smell. Truly natural skincare can achieve exactly that same stability and texture, but will typically have significantly more potency. Higher percentages of plant oils, botanical extracts and flower waters, for instance. I've received countless messages from people over the years showing improvements in their skin health after using natural skincare. It's one of the big revelations that many of our students have as they're working through our award winning online formulation courses. They try out the products they make and realize that they're more potent, that they're simpler, and that they have a better effect on the skin. There's a reason that all of Our graduates are continuously love bombed by their customers, who are for the way that their skin responds to their natural formulations. In other words, there's no reason why natural skincare should be viewed as inferior to mainstream cosmetics. But there is a real trend at the moment from people embracing so called scientific skincare, which means that they want to know exactly which compounds, active compounds are inside their formulations and at what percentage they've been incorporated. They then believe that this active works at a particular concentration only, and that the rest of the formulation doesn't really matter. However, of course, the efficacy of a formulation depends on the whole, not the individual components. And shoppers then tend to be misled to think that a single specific active is responsible for the results of their skincare. If a formulation then isn't natural, it doesn't feel scientific or sciencey enough. And of course, many natural formulations don't rely on a specific active. So people are then hoodwinked by this scientific trend to think that naturals won't work as well as other cosmetics. Which of course isn't true because it is absolutely possible to formulate natural skincare that works and that contains actives. Thirdly, one nuance that we couldn't explore in our short TikTok ad, but which received a fair amount of scorn, is our claim that colorful cosmetics can be beneficial for the skin. But why do we say that? Well, virtually all of the mainstream creams and lotions that you can buy are white in color. The shelves of your local shops are packed full of white skincare. And let's face it, most people would be stunned if the creams they'd been purchasing for years suddenly turned green or pink or orange. And the reason for that is that many botanical ingredients are refined, deodorized and bleached in order to make sure that your cream looks as white as snow. This process then removes some of the most interesting chemical compounds that can be used for our skin. The same botanical compounds that provide the natural color to many plants. Carotenoids, xanthopyls, anthocyanins. The global beauty industry has been shaping our expectations for years by conditioning us to choose skincare that contains no color whatsoever. And shoppers have then been led to believe that white creams and lotions are pure and good for their skin. And yet, natural colorants are found in a multitude of cosmetic ingredients and can have a beneficial effect. The blue of chamomile essential oil comes from commazuline, a potent anti inflammatory compound. The orange red lycopene of rosehips can provide rejuvenating properties to the skin. The yellow orange beta carotene of sea buckthorn berries is rich in antioxidants. The list is endless. And that's why we believe that the natural and inherent color of a skincare formulation is proof of its authenticity. In other words, it's not bland and boring. So my challenge to you for this Black Friday is if you want to shop, go and buy from a natural skincare brand. And better yet, go and buy from a Formula Botanica graduate. The people who have gone through through our online formulation courses and started their own businesses. Head over to formulabotanica.com and click on Graduates at the top of the page. Go and treat yourself to something amazing in your part of the world and when you've bought it and received it, post about it online, Talk about why you love it, tag the brand, tell your friends and family why you love that natural brand so much, and then bit by bit, we will together chip away at the myths that still underpin the way people approach their beauty products. Thank you for listening to my Green beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you haven't yet subscribed to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favourite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode. Sam.