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• Magick Botanicals Hairspray
• Yes To Carrots Shampoo and Conditioner
• Alima Pure Summer Stargazing Collection (Giveaway)
• Badger Certified Organic Lip Balms
• Dear GBG: Jane Iredale Products

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We get a lot of questions regarding hair spray.   I wish I was one of those people that didn’t really need to use any sort of styling product that didn’t make my hair feel like a helmet, but these are the perils of having fine, naturally curly hair.  Sure, my hair has natural curl, but by the end of the day, I look like a drowned golden retriever.  Not exactly the look I go for, so I do need a little something.   I was using Giovanni, mainly because it was readily available at my local Target, but I wasn’t in love with it.   For one, it was expensive.  A 5.5 ounce bottle was about 8 bucks, and I felt like I was buying a bottle a week, even though I wasn’t using that much.   And then Target stopped carrying it, so I was forced to find something else.  I stumbled across Magick Botanicals Hairspray.   While the majority of their products contain at least two parabens in it, I can’t really recommend anything else, but the hair spray has two ingredients, so I feel a bit better about recommending the hair spray.

Overall, it does the trick.  I don’t use a lot, and my hair stays somewhat soft.  I can still feel it a bit (I mean, there IS hair spray in my hair after all), but it’s not overly dry, sticky, or stiff.  The bottle is a bit bigger for the price, which is nice.   Out of everything I perused, this one seemed to be the best option.  I do, though, miss the chemically bad for you hairspray that didn’t give my hair the slightly hay-like feel.

Get it: You can find Magick Botanicals hair spray in some Whole Foods locations, or you can order it directly from magickbotanicals.com

We’ve gotten quite a few inquiries from people asking us whether or not we had tried Yes To Carrots products.   I get the interest.  It’s readily available at most Target stores, and the price isn’t bad either.   But I was skeptical.  I know that in the grand scheme of things, this shampoo isn’t the best for you, but overall, it’s a much safer option.   I’m a die hard John Master’s fan, but, it’s expensive and I have to go out of my way to get it, usually leaving me running out of shampoo and conditioner.   I’ve tried countless other kinds of shampoo and conditioner on my ornery hair, most with crappy results.   So truthfully, I didn’t hold out much hope for Yes To Carrots, either.

I base my liking of hair products based on the comb test.   Does it get the knots out easily?  Is my head sore from getting said knots out?  If the answer is yes to both of those questions, then we have a winner.  And I think we have a winner here.   Both the shampoo and conditioner smell good, it washes and conditions well, and my hair doesn’t look like it was stuck in a light socket.   For about $7.99 per bottle, I can’t really ask more of a shampoo at that price.   Better yet, there’s more in the bottle than other shampoos that I’ve tried for the same price.

Older versions of the shampoo have propylene glycol as well as dimethicone, however, from what I can tell, they’ve eliminated those ingredients from the product.   The conditioner however, still contains dimethicone.  Overall, not the worst ingredient ever, but one that isn’t a favorite on our list, and one we try to avoid if we can.

Get it:  You can pick up Yes to Carrots at most Target stores, as well as some other bigger chain drug stores.

It’s no secret that we love Alima Pure’s Makeup.   Not only is it great a mineral makeup, but they have  A LOT of shades to choose from, which makes me happy.  I tend to stick with the browns, but you know, sometimes, I like something a little more snazzy, and a lot of other mineral eyeshadow falls short of the mark.  The best thing about Alima Pure is that they’ll send you samples for a fraction of the price.  A sample of mineral foundation might only last you one or two uses, but the same size sample of their eye shadow will last you much much longer.  I must have 20 sample colors that I’ve had for a while, just because I rotate them and a little goes a long way.   I put a little bit of my favorite moisturizer on my lids to help the color last longer, since it is a loose powder and it lasts me all day.

Another great thing is that they’ve always got the latest hot colors with their seasonal collections.   I was excited to get their new Stargazing collection, as it has all lovely neutral colors that go great with this summer’s styles.

Get it: You can order the gift collection directly from Alimapure.com.  $2 from every sale will go towards the Global Fund for Women

Win it: We have one sample sized set of the Stargazing collection to give away.

To Enter:

Simply leave a comment with your favorite Alima product.   Winner will be drawn at random.  Contest ends on July 22th at 11:59PM.

To Get Extra Entries:

1. Put our Lovely SafeMama™ button (sidebar sidebar!) on your blog or website and leave a comment letting us know where it is!
2. Twitter this giveaway and get another entry (leave a comment so your entry gets counted!)

Hello, your friendly neighborhood lip balm addict here. I’ve come to a very important conclusion lately about lip balms and I need to share it with you. Lately, I’ve been lamenting about how many of my natural lip balms start out great, and then turn into lumpy bumpy sticks that aren’t that pleasing to apply. (And I type lip BLAM every single time…why can’t I get it right?). I always thought that maybe it got too hot in my bag and the ingredients were revolting against each other or something but I think I figured out the real reason. Shea Butter? Every lip balm I have that contains shea butter seems to eventually turn into a bumpy lip balm. I don’t know if it ’s the formulation or the ingredient itself or a lack of beeswax or if it’s even that at all, but it seem to be a common theme. If anyone can enlighten me, please do.

Anyway, I came to this conclusion because I have a couple lip balms that seem to stay intact… smooth and lip balmy just like I like them. One of those lip balms are Badger’s Certified Organic Lip Balm. The main ingredients are Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Beeswax and Castor Oil (all organic) which seem to keep these in their smooth state so applying them is like a lip balm should be.

They have a zillion yummy flavors, my favorites seem to be the citrus-y ones like Pink Grapefruit and Tangerine but they all perform. They use all Certified Organic ingredients when possible as well as fair trade cocoa butter. I just love the conscientiousness of this company and can’t stop singing their praises (as evident by my love for their sunscreen and anti-bug balm too).

Get Your Balm On: You can purchase Badger Lip Balms in many places, but if you want to grab one (or 10) online you can find them on their website BadgerBalm.com and on Amazon.com!

Q: Have you tried Jane Iredale products?  Any thoughts on the products?

So far neither of us have tried any of these products but in the interest of hopefully finding something new I went investigating.   I went hunting around on SkinBotanica.com to see what kind of ingredients we were dealing with.  So far, from what we can tell Jane Iredales products are free of some of the top nasties we usually avoid like parabens, phthalates, free of chemical dyes and preservatives, and are never tested on animals.  So her products are a better choice when it comes to make up.  Comparing a label off a Jane Iredale foundation to one of the “big ones” is a joke… you can actually pronounce the ingredients and they have less than 87 letters in each word.

Her products have won awards like Natural Health Beauty Awards Best Foundation Award so performance sounds like it’s not an issue.  I can’t say with 100% confidence that all her products are 100% chemical free if that’s what you’re looking for.  For example almost every product contains Dimethicone, and I have found one or two products that contain Phenoxyethanol, but in the grand scheme these are a much better choice. Compare hers to any L’Oreal product and you’ll see the difference.

Find Them: You can pick up Jane Iredale’s Cosmetics on SkinBotanica.com

Every once in a while I spend a little time browsing Etsy, as many of us do.  Etsy is such a great place to find safer bath goodies and we’ve reviewed some before. My newest find is a store full of handmade soap and spa goods made by Catherine Filippeli.  Her store is chock full of bar and guest soaps that look good enough to eat.  With scents like Oatmeal Lavender, Ginger Mint Fig Coconut Milk, and  Pomegranite Sage you are sure to find something that suits you.

I was attracted to her lovely Honey Lime Bee Soaps full of lime oil and honey to boost circulation and clear  congested pores.   Plus the unusual shape makes this great for guests or just for something new and fun.  Sometimes it’s nice to depart from the usual rectangle bar.  Along with lip balm, my other collection habit is bar soap – so I’ll be ordering a few to get me through the summer.  Nothing like a shower with a fresh bar of soap that smells like citrus, honey or herbs.

Many of her soaps are made with only essential oils but a few do use other scents. A quick note to Catherine and she confirmed that all of her scents and oils are phthalate free.  Sweet!

Get Soap: You can check out Catherine’s shop on Etsy at catherinefilippelli.etsy.com

I bumped into the new skincare line Potent & Pure from Kiss My Face during my morning errands and of course had to check it out.  I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Kiss My Face since I was young.  First it was because it’s all my parents bought.  I was shaving my legs with one of those funny round pink razors you give teenagers in 7th grade when they realize they have the fuzziest legs in gym class.  But now, mostly due to ingredient discrepancies.  I have in the past run into a few of their products that do contain parabens or “fragrance” and not known what to make of it.

However I think more of their newer lines, while not 100% chemical free, are a safer choice than some of the mainstream chemical cocktails available.  Potent & Pure is a new skincare line they’ve released boasts its free of parabens, phthalates, SLS, artificial colors and fragrances.  You could probably look up one or two ofhte synthetic ingredients and find something incriminating but I chose to share this for one simple reason.

Based on the volume of email we got asking about a daily moisturizer with sunscreen, as well as my own quest for something more natural in that area, I felt it warranted a mention.  They have a Facial Creme & Sunscreen with SPF 10 using titanium dioxide as the sunscreening element.

It’s not greasy, does have a sliiightly whiteish tint if not rubbed in totally and is a little more fragrant that I usually like but it’s not too overpowering.  Living in Florida I could use some better sun protection on a day to day basis so this might be something I can use for now without looking like an oil slick.

Find It: I found mine at Target but you can also order it and their other products online on KissMyFace.com

Back in February, we published a guide to safer nail polishes.   Now that sandal weather is upon us, I wanted to pick up a safer nail polish for the summer.  Since I can get Honeybee locally, I purchased a bottle and set out to get a much needed pedicure.  I have to admit, that I was a little bit leary about using a water based nail polish.  It seemed a little clumpier, but I figured this was the price I pay for wanting to avoid chemicals.

I will say that it went on smoothly.  Smoother than I expected and dried pretty quickly.  Because I didn’t have a safer base or topcoat, I declined the salon’s and just went with just the polish I brought with me, which is chipping.  I wouldn’t say its chipped any more or less than conventional polish, but I definitely think it would have had more staying power with a base and top coat.   Honeybee’s site has lots of information about wearing their polish and how to keep it lasting longer.

Two of the best things that I love about this nail polish, though, is that it’s low VOC (volatile organic compounds), and it comes off with regular rubbing alcohol.    I don’t have to use highly smelly acetone!  Overall?  I highly recommend Honeybee Garden’s nail polish.  But invest in a bottle of the clear nail polish too!

Get it: Order Honeybee Gardens directly from honeybeegardens.com.

Thanks to the SafeMama’s for inviting me to be a guest blogger!  I’m kicking this off with some research I’ve been dying to get out!  It’s all about the ingredient called “vegetable emulsifying wax.”

Both Statia and I have talked about how, although it’s a great starting point for learning about chemicals in personal care products, the Cosmetics Databse is not the end-all source for determining product safety.  Today, I’m going to show you how an ingredient that scores a “0” in the database, should really score much much higher.

Vegetable emulsifying wax is used in a lot of products, from lotions to conditioners–even makeup–to make oil and water combine in to a lotion form.  It’s the emulsifier of choice for home crafters and larger companies alike because it’s easy to work with and it’s relatively cheap.  At first glance it looks natural (after all, it’s made up from “vegetable” material, right?) but once you learn what it really is, it’s not so great after all.

I did some digging and found out what vegetable emulsifying wax is actually comprised of:

• Cetearyl Alcohol (a blend of cetyl and steareth alcohol)
• Polysorbate 60
• PEG-150 Stearate
• Steareth-20

Let’s look at these chemicals one by one.

Cetearyl Alcohol
Although cetearyl alcohol scores a “0″ risk score in the Cosmetics Database, the two ingredients that it’s made up of, Cetyl and Steareth Alcohol, both score a “1″ for a mild risk of skin irritation and tumor formation at high doses.  Not a terrible score, and I’m not particularly outraged by this ingredient.  However, is it a synthetically produced chemical?  Yes.  Is it truly natural?  No.

Polysorbate 60
Also scores a “1″ risk score for possibly being a reproductive toxin and for tumor formation at high doses.  When it’s in small amounts in a lotion, you’re probably pretty safe.  That said, it’s the same story as the cetearyl alcohol–it’s not truly natural and it’s still a chemical.

PEG-150 Stearate
This is where it gets hairy.  PEG is short for polyethylene glycol.  Polyethylene glycol is an ethoxylated compound, meaning that it’s been processed with ethylene oxide, a known human carcinogen.  Traces of this compound can be left in the product, along with byproducts such as 1,4-dioxane, also a known carcinogen.  (Read more about the latest 1,4-dioxane scandal here.) PEG-150 Stearate scores a 4-7 risk score in the cosmetics database, “depending on product usage.”  So, in a product that would remain on your skin, like lotion or deodorant, I’d imagine that they’d give it a “7″.

Steareth-20
Even though this ingredient only scores a “1″ in the database, it too is an ethoxylated compound, and can also contain traces of ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane.  It’s created by taking stearyl alcohol (a naturally-ocurring fatty alcohol) and combining it with ethylene oxide.  The number following the “steareth” is how many units of ethylene oxide reacted with the stearyl alcohol.  So, steareth-20 has been reacted with 20 units of ethylene oxide.  There are a lot of steareths that range from 2 on up.  Steareth-20 is the highest–meaning it’s been processed with the highest amount of ethylene oxide.

So, how does this happen? How does an ingredient with all these chemicals end up with a “0″ risk score in the Cosmetics Databse?  Tune in tomorrow to learn about how these ingredients slip through the cracks of the database, and learn how you can spot ethoxylated compounds on labels.  I’ll also give you some safer alternatives that contain no “vegetable emulsifying wax.”

About  Our Guest:  Stephanie Greenwood is the beauty and brains behind Bubble & Bee, an organic personal care product company based online and now in her own store in Utah.  Bubble & Bee specializes in pure organic products free of synthetic ingredients or  fragrances and uses as many organic ingredients as possible.  Learn more about her and Bubble & Bee on her website.

Thank you Stephanie!

I stumbled on Cactus & Ivy through another blog (Eco-OfficeGals.com I think?) and saw what a great looking line of products they carry.   So I looked deeper to check out the ingredients and found that they have an exceptional line that’s free of parabens, phthalates, PEG’s, propylene glycols, synthetic fragrances and SLS.  I ordered myself their cute little sampler kit to get acquainted with their products.

All the products I tried were really impressive.  They aren’t separated like some natural brands and apply and feel great on skin.  Sometimes with really natural products you feel like you’re putting food on your body.  Not so with Cactus & Ivy.   My favorites? The Key Lime Body Wash (I’m a sucker for citrus smells) and the Peppermint Tree Foot Balm that comes in a twist up applicator (like a deodorant!).

They have a really wide variety of products like lip balms, bar soap, and one thing I haven’t seen before, Nail Balm which looks totally intriguing!  Olive oil and horsetail strengthen and nourish brittle nails and cuticles… sounds divine!  One or two products do contain phenoxyethanol but if you look through carefully the vast majority of their products don’t contain it.  They publish the ingredients on their website for easier shopping.  I really tend to respect companies who do that more than the ones who don’t!

Get It: You can pick up a sampler set or any of their great products on their website Cactus & Ivy.

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