The Benefits of Natural DIY Skincare

Since when did skincare, even natural skin care, become so complicated. From anti-aging creams to pore minimising serums, we lather ourselves in creams, oils, scrubs and treatments promoting dubious claims but at the end of the day, are we just giving away our money to large profit driven companies?

Preying on people’s vulnerabilities and insecurities is an age-old marketing tactic that rakes in billions of dollars for global and Australian profit driven skin and beauty care corporations, for which most people fall victim to their marketing hype, fancy advertising campaigns and costly celebrity endorsements. We are promised eternal youth by big brands and fork out thousands of dollars for products with dubious claims in the hope of looking younger, but what we are truly paying for is the expensive promotional campaigns and not just the skin care products themselves.

A Global Industry Analysts report estimates the global anti-aging products market will peak at $120 billion by 2030. The multi-national corporations producing these products don’t truly care about you, your health or the environment. They only care about developing the next ‘miracle cream’ to boost their bottom line. Their products are mostly made from synthetic ingredients and are mass produced - some still test on animals.  

They present pseudo-scientific claims that make the product benefits believable to most people, increasing sales and demand, and because it’s a billion-dollar industry with mutually dependent industries such as manufacturing, retail and advertising, these claims are often misleading and rarely questioned or tested. The most empowering thing you can do as an independent consumer is to stop using the commercial skin care products and start making your own natural skin care products at home.

Biome's Naked Beauty Bar to make your own natural skin care products was formulated to combat this issue and offer a natural and environmentally friendly alternative to chemical produced products. 

The Naked Beauty Bar takes a back to basics approach, allowing you to truly understand the ingredients in your products. Instead of purchasing expensive creams produced by global brands, you can make your own at home from a few simple natural ingredients. From lip balm and body scrub to natural deodorant and toothpaste, you can make various beauty products from naturally derived ingredients including clay, salt, avocado oil, ground coffee, shea and cocoa butter, honey, vinegar, sugar, soap berries, charcoal, essential oils, petals and herbs. These ingredients possess beneficial properties that nourish and heal the skin naturally. 

Don’t fall victim to large corporations elaborate promotional campaigns and pseudoscientific claims. Save money by making your own natural skin care products at home.

There is a growing trend to market 'special skin care' to the tween age or pre-teens (10 to 12 years old).   It really is unnecessary to introduce children so young to a skin care routine with special packaged tween skin care such as cleaners and moisturisers.  It is good for tweens to use gentle cleaners (such as a natural moisturising hand made olive oil soap) and washer. Tweens rarely need a moisturiser, but should wear a sunscreen on days they will be outside.


Related: Natural toxin free deodorant; Cutting chemicals out of cosmetics; What is in your sunscreen?  How to Nourish Your Body with Hemp Oil

Continue Reading..

The benefits of activated charcoal

Activated charcoal is a powerhouse ingredient touted for its purifying and absorption properties making it a perfect ingredient for natural skin and body care. It is a highly absorbent and porous substance commonly made from wood, peat, bamboo, and coconut materials. Regularly used in hospitals for poison control, when ingested it binds to chemicals and toxins in the body and flushes them out. The activated charcoal made for ingesting is commonly made from coconut. To produce activated charcoal, the substance is heated to high temperatures and treated with oxygen to produce highly absorbent pores in the substance. When used for oral care, the activated charcoal absorbs the stains, bacteria and toxins on your teeth, and restores the pH balance in your mouth. Take a look at the various ways you can use charcoal in your daily routine to naturally cleanse and purify your skin, hair and body.

Filter water

Most tap water contains numerous toxins and chemicals. To avoid ingesting these on a daily basis, add a charcoal stick to filter, alkalise and mineralise your water. The porous properties of the sticks absorb the toxins leaving you with fresh filtered drinking water.

Whiten teeth

Activated charcoal powder can be used to whiten teeth and promote good oral health. Its absorption properties draw out oils and stains from the teeth commonly caused by coffee, tea, spices, wine and berries. It also helps to balance the pH levels in your mouth, which prevents bad breath, gum disease and cavities. Use activated charcoal powder, toothpaste and a toothbrush to deeply cleans and remove toxins from your mouth.

Absorb odours

You can use activated charcoal in your homemade deodorant recipes. When combined with other highly absorbent ingredients such as bentonite clay and bi-carb soda, it helps to absorb odour, moisture and toxins.

Cleanse skin and hair

Cleanse your skin and unclog pores with a homemade activated charcoal facemask, soap or hair treatment. It will draw out any impurities in your skin or hair, leaving it feeling soft and clean.

Detox the body

The purifying and absorption properties of activated charcoal make it a great ingredient to help detox your body. It will absorb toxins inside your body and will help with all-over body health.

Relieve bloating and gas discomfort

Activated charcoal can be taken to relieve bloating and gas discomfort. When ingested, the ingredient absorbs internal gas that promotes bloating. You can purchase activated charcoal capsules for this purpose.

Continue Reading..

Teenage skin care

It's hard to find Certified Organic, Australian-made skin care for teenagers that is also palm oil free.

Brands for teenage skin care are often developed by parents out of concern for the chemicals their teen children are exposed to.  Parents want personal care choices that are gentle yet effective, without compromising on fashion or fun.

Natural products for teens should provide a safe and sustainable alternatives to chemical cosmetics for teenage skin care.  Openness in the beauty industry and inspiring girls to make smarter choices for their bodies and the environment.

To appeal to teenagers, a skin care range needs to 'emotionally 'teen', functionally 'green'.   

Teenagers and chemicals

Research by Dr Rebecca Sutton who has studied the effects of four chemical families on girls aged 14-19 as part of her research for the American Environmental Working Group (EWG), produced in September 2008, showed that teenage girls’ bodies contained residual traces of 16 chemicals commonly found in everyday personal care products.

There are so many products in use around the home that identifying the exact source of these chemicals is difficult. But we can minimise these chemicals in our bodies by choosing beauty products that do not contain chemicals and are certified organic.


Australian Certified Organic (ACO) is Australia’s largest certifier for organic and biodynamic produce. ACO endorsement for any commercial product stipulates that food and other products must contain 95 percent organic ingredients, with the remaining five percent restricted to natural ingredients meeting stringent requirements. The product must adhere to strict national production standards, undergo annual audits, and show total transparency - allowing any person to trace the origin of every ingredient.

Continue Reading..

Pure and Green - achieving "real" organic skin care

We have looked closely at many natural skin care brands and as you may know many are just “bulk purchased bases” that are custom branded.  Further, many brands claiming to be organic are either not certified, or they use a certification that allows fairly small quantities of organic ingredients.

Unique skin care formulations are few in number and certified organic choices with close to 100% organic content are rare.   Newcomer Pure and Green Organics is an exceptional Australian creation that has ticked all the eco-credentials, led by an enterprising young businessperson wanting to achieve something special.

In June 2009, Pure and Green was the first company in the world to have every product in its range from face, body, dental and hair care to be certified organic.  You can usually tell when an eco company is "for real" by the extra steps taken that set them apart.  Pure and Green has shown deep consideration the whole way through to the packaging, using innovative ingredients and mixing their own formulations in a custom built kitchen.

ACO certification
We have learned that there are very different standards applied by organic certification bodies.  Pure and Green chose to be certified by Australian Certified Organic (ACO), the gold standard for high-level cosmetics certification.  It requires:

• at least 95% of ingredients by mass to be certified organic (other certifiers accept as little as 20%);
• no use of synthetic vitamins (eg. pro-vitamin B5) or synthetic surfactants (eg. coco glucoside, coco betaine), which other Australian certifiers will allow; and
  
• no toxic solvents to be used as ingredients or used in the extraction of any other ingredients. Other certifiers may not check, creating a loophole for toxins to silently enter products which still get labelled 'certified organic'.

Palm oil free
Palm oil is often hidden in derivatives like sodium lauryl sulphate, sodium palmate, stearic acid and glycerine without mentioning it on the label, or it is labelled as palmitate or simply "vegetable" oil.  Pure and Green has gone to lengths to ensure there is no palm oil in any ingredient.

Certified vegan and cruelty-free
The products carry independent certification of this, again taking it that extra step.

World leading packaging

• The first cosmetic company in the world to use 100% post-consumer recycled cardboard caps for its bottles. Not just recycled, but they have even ensured it is post-consumer, which is the true standard for recycled paper.
  
• The first company in Australia to use BIOpack bottles made from plant sugar.  This was not an "off the shelf" packaging option -- they achieved this with persistence, and they are custom manufactured for Pure and Green in a carbon-neutral factory.
  

We have been so impressed by the creators of Pure and Green with their responsiveness and openness to questions.  They are small business people who have fought every step of the way to make things happen that most others accept are not possible, like the BIOpack plastic bottles and eliminating palm oil.

Take a wholistic approach to your skin care by choosing safe mineral makeup.  We have selected the three best mineral makeup brands for Biome - read more about Inika, Sante and Musq mineral makeup.

National Organics Week will take place from October 16 - 25.  Stay tuned for organic-themed events and specials in the Biome stores. 

Continue Reading..

Mineral makeup and natural skin care favourites

We recently held an event at our Biome city store to introduce our customers to the new natural and mineral makeup ranges: MUSQ mineral makeup and Sante natural cosmetics.

Our experienced makeover person, Hayley, shares these 12 favourites.  All great for those who want natural, safe cosmetics that look as good and last as well (or better) than conventional make-up.  

1. Musq mineral powder foundation
After seeing how well this foundation evens skin-tone and lifts and brightens the eye area, I'm hooked. So many people ask for low effort foundation, and this is so easy to apply (just brush a little over your face and neck, layer for more coverage as required). This powder is also great if you prefer a cream or liquid foundation (such as our MUSQ cream foundation) as these need setting so they last the day.  For those worried about a powdery look, consider our next favourite...

2. Bod rose hydrosol toner
By spritzing this nourishing spray over your entire face after applying your powder make-up (including blush and eye shadow, but before mascara), you'll end up with a wonderfully dewy, natural look.  This certified organic damask rose hydrosol is such a treat.

3. Olieve vanilla lip balm
The first step in your make-up routine should be to put on some lip balm (this one is packed with olive oil and tastes amazing). This will give the lip balm a chance to work it's magic while you are applying foundation etc, then blot off and apply lipstick. Your lips will be smoother and your lipstick will look the better for it.

4. Sante eye shadow pencils
For easy, even eye makeup even in those bleary-eyed morning applications with a foggy bathroom mirror these are it. They are easy to blend and gentle on your eyelids. For a more intense finish top with Sante eyeshadow trios in complimentary colours.

5. Musq mineral eyeliner
So soft on your delicate eye area, but with intense colour. No barely-there, scratchy pencil with this eyeliner around. To make this pencil long-lasting on the inner rim of your eye, use our EcoTools bamboo angled eyeliner brush with a matching eyeshadow and dab it over with the flat of the brush.

6. Sante rouge blush
Great natural colours, and what's more looks flawless on. Simple as that!

7. EcoTools bamboo makeup brush set
A good all-round makeup brushes set. The blush brush doubles as a great mineral powder applicator (as it is denser than the EcoTools powder brush so more economical with your mineral make up). The concealer brush is also great for applying or blending cream eyeshadow like our Sante eyeshadow pencil sticks.

8. Musq mascara
For defined lashes with no nasties, this is an excellent choice. Apply to tips, allow to dry and then apply to whole length of lashes. Available in black and brown.

9. Sante lip contour and gloss lip duo
Customers loved the colours, and I loved the easy application. Just sharpen with Sante's sharpener, apply the liner all over lips (and leave at that for long-lasting matt colour) and top with matching gloss at the other end.

10. Sante dipliner liquid eye liners
So long lasting for a liquid liner. If you like a little retro flick, always apply from the outer of the lid to the inner for more control and you'll get them even. I love the sparkling brown dipliner (No. 1), it is such a contemporary yet unusual shade.

11. Sante cover/concealer sticks
In the last range, these were a favourite, and now come in 4 shades. Apply a little just over the little dark patches of your inner under eye (if you go to close to the outer eye it may gather in creases and you generally never need it near smile lines for dark circles anyway).

12. Tinderbox Fennel and Yarrow cleanser
At the end of the day (or night!) take it all off with this effective, yet uber-natural cleanser from WA company Tinderbox. You'll be impressed at how fast it works on mascara and eyeliner.

Continue Reading..

Cadbury bows to the power of the people!

Further to our last post about palm oil...

From stuff.nz.co: Cadbury has bowed to consumer pressure and stopped using palm oil in its dairy milk chocolate. The confectionery giant caused a furore when it was revealed it had substituted cocoa butter with vegetable fat including palm oil. Read the rest of the article Cadbury stops using palm oil in its chocolate.

To better understand this issue, the links in our post below are worth looking at, particularly the article from the NZ Sunday Star Times.

At Biome we are trying to dig out any of our products that may contain palm oil. We then contact the manufacturer to find out their plans for removing palm oil. When we tackled this issue last year with Beauty & the Bees natural skincare, we were thrilled that they made the leap to replacing palm oil, including in the much-loved Beauty & the Bees beer shampoo bar. Changing their recipes and packaging was a costly step and we hope everyone gives this fantastic Australian brand even more support because of their leadership.

Palm oil has made its way into almost all conventional processed products (from food to skin care). Here are some of the ingredients to look out for that can be palm oil in disguise:

In food
cocoa butter substitute, palm olein, palm stearine, vegetable oil

Non-food
cetyl alcohol, fatty alcohol sulphates, glyceryl stearate, isopropyl, sleareth, sodium laurel/lauryl, sodium lauryl sulphate, sodium palmate, sodium stearate, stearic acid

Continue Reading..

Nothing but plants in this soap

Watching TV can be quite stressful as I can't help but watch the claims from mass commercial brands. Tonight, an advertisement for a "real soap" with 1/4 moisturising cream. Actually, real soap has 100% moisturisers - just pure plant oils, like these gorgeous soaps from Est. Conventional soaps need to "put back" the moisturiser because they take it out in the first place. Many soap makers strip out the moisturising glycerine because it is more valuable to sell it to the cosmetics industry. With many commercial brands, the moisturisers are also actually from petrol, not plants.

These lovingly hand moulded Est soaps are made from olive oil. Est mix herbs, grains and oils in huge stainless steel bowls in their lovely old shop kitchen. Even better, they are free from palm oil (widely used in soap making because it's cheap), so they are not contributing to the deforestation of orangutan habitat. They last forever too -- my Nanna says we'll go broke selling them because people don't need to come back for months! natural beauty

Continue Reading..

Misleading claims hurt true greenies

The company that manufactures “Natural Instinct” has been found guilty of deliberately failing to list all ingredients such as Sodium Laureth Sulphate, listing some chemicals by incorrect names, and claiming that some products are "made from 100% pure oils and certified organic herbs" when in fact, only a very minor proportion of the product uses these. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has told it to publish corrective notices. Thank you to the Cleanlife blog for their story with all the details.

When I see a "natural" brand that is so low cost, it puzzles me how they can make the products so cheaply - either they contain a lot of fillers/bulking agents (like water and salt) or the ingredients are perhaps not as they say.
Not that a natural brand has to be expensive. There are some beautiful, reasonably priced natural beauty brands that use high quality ingredients to nourish your skin - like Bod and Sanctum.
Before I trust a company or its products, I like to know who are the people behind it, their story and their inspiration. With N.I., I was always concerned that I could not find any information about who they were. We all need to be sceptical consumers, try to garner as much information as we can to make an informed choice and, ultimately, rely on our own (dare I say) instinct.

Continue Reading..