What's in your Skincare?

Now that I'm 26 years old I find myself much more interested in skincare than I've ever been. It's not that I'm afraid of aging, I just want to grow old gracefully. Wrinkles aren't really anything that ever really concerned me but I've noticed some people around the same age as me with some serious wrinkling going on. And that's just too early for me. Especially since my grandma only just recently got her first wrinkle and she's nearly 80 years old. Hopefully I get those genes. But I know that I manipulate my skin much more than she ever did because I wear makeup. And I've probably put a million more chemicals on my face than she ever did too.

But I can't give up the makeup. However, I can take better care of my skin.

I used to just go into the drugstore and pick up whatever cleanser. I wanted to pick popular commercial options so that way I could do a review that would be helpful to a larger amount of people. I would always check the ingredients and not be entirely satisfied with them BUT use it anyway. Now that's not flying so much. I realize these ingredients are really not doing very much for my skin...and natural ingredients seem to help my skin much more than the filler junk in drugstore skincare. 

Let's do a quick ingredient comparison between the highly recommended Cetaphil and a natural bar I found at TJ's for $3.99.

Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser, Normal to Oily 

Water- Great for the skin 

Sodium Lauroyl is an ionic surfactant derived from sarcosine used as a foaming and cleansing agent in shampoo, shaving foam, toothpaste, and foam wash products.^[1] In molecular biologyexperiments, sarkosyl is used to inhibit the initiation of DNA transcription.

Acrylates/Steareth 20 Methacrylate Crosspolymer- a copolymer of steareth-20 methacrylate and one or more monomers consisting of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or one of their simple esters, crosslinked with an allyl ether of pentaerythritol or an allyl ether of trimethylolpropane 

Glycerin- natural humectant that draws moisture from the air into the skin

PEG 200 Hydrogenated Glyceryl Palmate- Can't find much on this ingredient

Sodium Laureth Sulfate- detergent and surfuctant which essentially means that it breaks surface tension and separates molecules in order to allow better interaction between the product and your hair. 

Butylene Glycol-a colorless organic alcohol

PEG 7 Glyceryl Cocoate-polyethylene glycol ethers of Glyceryl Cocoate

Phenoxyethanol-is a preservative used in cosmetics and personal care products.

Masking Fragrance (Parfum)-  What are they masking?

Panthenol-the alcohol analog of pantothenic acid (vitamin B₅), and is thus a provitamin of B₅.

PEG 60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil-a polyethylene glycol derivative of Hydrogenated CastorOil (q.v.) with an average of 60 moles of ethylene oxide.

Disodium EDTAs- a preservative, chelator and stabilizer, but has also been shown to enhance the foaming and cleaning capabilities of a cosmetic solution

Methylparaben- is in the paraben family of preservatives used by the food, pharmaceutical, and personal care product industries. Parabens mimic estrogen and can act as potential hormone (endocrine) system disruptors.

Plantlife Argan Skin Bar

Water- Again, fabulous for the skin

Organic Argan Oil-is a plant oil produced from the kernels of the argan tree (Argania spinosa L.) that is endemic to Morocco.

Olive Oil-a fat obtained from the olive (the fruit of Olea europaea; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin.

Coconut Oil-is an edible oil extracted from the kernel or meat of matured coconuts harvested from the coconut palm 

Palm Kernel Oil- an edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis.

 Soybean Oil-a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean

Organic Calendula Extract- Calendula Extract is produced from the calendula flower-heads.

Chamomile Extract- extract from Chamomile flowers

Blend of Essential Oils-Therapeutic and make the product smell great

Take a look at both ingredients and tell me which one you would rather put on your skin. I know which one I would choose. No hesitation, I would pick the Argan Skin Bar. I know what each of those ingredients are. They are all healthy and beneficial to the skin. Now look at Cetaphil- mostly cheap fillers. And just for your information, the words hypoallergenic and dermatologist recommended mean nothing. Everyone has different allergies and one product can never meet the requirement of not breaking a single person out ever. And a company can find one dermatologist to recommend their product and slap that on the label. There really is no regulation to that claim.

I'm not only picking on drugstore products though. You can see the same cheap fillers in a lot of high end skincare thanks to marketing. Not all high end skincare is junk, but a lot of it is. I've tried a few high end serums/cleansers/eye creams/moisturizers because I had some samples. Some of these products are upwards up $50 for a single product/ounce. For that price you would expect miracles but no such luck. 

Take this mask for instance. I got a sample of the La Mer Intense Revitalizing Mask which will run you $160 for 2.5 ounces. And no, that was not a typo. I used it as directed and my skin looked HORRIBLE. The third and fourth time I used it as a moisturizer and it worked like any other decent moisturizer you can get from the drugstore. 

Then I had a sample of an eye cream from La Mer. It was the same size as the one above so I got a couple uses from it. It was the eye balm intense. Before that I was using a sample of Fresh Black Tea Age Delay Eye Cream. I'm not sure which of these two products did it but about a week after I finished using the La Mer I noticed two light wrinkles under my eyes when I smile. As you can imagine I'm not happy at all and I don't think there is any way for me to undo it.

I had the Clinique dark spot correct that costs $50for an ounce (I got it from my Mom who won it in a giveaway) and that stuff didn't fade anything. 

I'm not saying all high end skin care is a waste of money but I'm convinced a good majority of it is. Marketing is a powerful thing sometimes. 

Anyway, I'm learning that the best place to find great skincare is the health food store. But still read your ingredients because sometimes they sneak not so wonderful stuff in products too. I still use makeup (which is full of junk!), which is why I wanted to cut back on the bad stuff in my skincare products.

Plus I find it my skin looks more radiant when I use better ingredients.One struggle of getting older is that the skin loses it's natural radiance and can start to look dull and dry. Nowadays they make millions of highlighting powders so you can apply your glow but who doesn't want to have glowy skin naturally?  Drinking plenty of water and eating the right foods can go a long way to the natural radiance in your skin but great skincare helps out too. 

That's just this girls opinion on the matter. What do you think? Would you consider switching to all natural skincare? Do you already use all natural skincare? 

Let me know in the comments.