Recently there’s been a huge argument towards all natural or “organic” products against man-made or synthetic ingredients (IE: preservatives).

But, we have an issue, I mean, what even makes a product organic or all natural?  Bare Escentuals and many other mineral cosmetics claim their products are all-natural, and while bismuth oxychloride may made up of natural elements, the process it takes to get to the end result that is in your cosmetic is far from natural.

Preservatives seem to be the biggest complaint regarding all-natural cosmetics.  Many organic cosmetics still contain preservatives.  Why?  Obviously to preserve your make up!  They’re there to keep your make up from  having an expiration date (Bare Escentuals has an expiration date, I’m sure other mineral brands do as well).  There’s no definitive shelf-life for a cosmetic containing preservatives, so they tend to last a lot longer.

“But mL, what about all the allergies they say we have to synthetic ingredients like preservatives?!”

Less than 5% of people in any study I’ve read about showed any sign of a reaction to preservatives.  That’s considerably less than the over-all number of people who have a negative reaction to mineral make up.

Plus, look how many people who are allergic to things like mold, and pollen — those are all natural, yet people still have allergies to them.  There’s no way to say that a product being all-natural will keep you from getting an allergic reaction.  How about poison ivy?  That’s a natural plant, yet the oils from this plant cause major irritation to skin.

Speaking of mold, the preservatives are there to keep things like that, fungus, and bacteria at bay.  There’s no natural ingredient that’s able to do all of that!  Without preservatives, organic ingredients -especially in a liquid compound- would be very, very, very unstable.

Please feel free to read my blog about parabens (preservatives) just by clicking here.

Then of course there’s the ever-present issue that any product can claim to be organic, or all-natural, and there’s no regulations on it.  It’d be really hard to put a regulation on it though, because would you include compounds that were made of all-natural materials, but had a very unnatural process of getting to the end result, or would that not be included?  Our options for what could be in make up would be very, very minimal.

“mL!  You’re forgetting about the environment and that those ingredients are BAD for it!”

No, I’m not.  Realistically the “harmful” ingredients in cosmetics, as long as they are used and disposed of as directed, there’s no harm.  Really, there’s no argument in it at all.

Skin irritants are everywhere, both in natural and “unnatural” products (though, the unnatural products are made of natural things, through an “unnatural” process that takes it to the end result).  It seems that many products that claim to be all-natural and organic are the ones that have more skin irritating ingredients than the rest.  I’ve had very few issues with many liquid foundations, aside from whether or not they keep my oilies at bay and how well they wear, I’ve never had a horrid allergic reaction to them the way I have with “all natural” products such as mineral cosmetics.

“How can I tell if my product is REALLY organic and natural?”

Google the ingredients, see the process those ingredients go through to get to where they’re at — chances are, the process is very unnatural.  Just because it says it contains organic and natural materials doesn’t mean that any of it is good for your skin.  There’s a lot of fruit and vegetables we could just put on our skin, because it’s organic and natural, but it doesn’t mean they’re really going to do anything for it.  “Organic” and “natural” have little, if anything, to do with good skincare.

I only need one source for this (seeing as this article sites sources).  Thanks, Paula!