“If you can’t eat it, don’t use it.” is the Ayurvedic brand’s mantra. Forest essentials creates all its products from plants and its extracts, striking a perfect balance between providing your skin with natural beauty, while keeping the environment healthy. Besides being cruelty free, the brand also sources ingredients from local farmers who practice sustainable farming and efficient waste management.
Recommended product: Forest Essentials Sun Fluid ayurvedic sunscreen made with a bunch of natural products such as basil leaf infusions, coconut water, and Yashada Bhasma (zinc oxide) protect you from the harshest of rays without leaving a white residue on the skin and harming the environment.
The chemical structure of parabens resembles that of estrogen. And, since they are not water-soluble, they get absorbed into your skin. So, parabens can mimic the effects of estrogen by binding to estrogen receptors on cells. The influx of estrogen in your body (beyond what’s normal) can cause reactions, such as the growth of tumors. All of us may have different reactions to parabens, and the most common is skin irritation. Other serious side effects include early menopause in women, hormonal dysfunction, early puberty in children, and breast cancer.
Animals such as rabbits, rats, mice, and guinea pigs are sometimes forced to eat or inhale substances, or have a cosmetic ingredient rubbed onto their shaved skin, eyes or ears every day for 28 or 90 days to see if they have an allergic reaction. Then they are killed and cut open to examine the effects the ingredient has on internal organs. These tests are also done with pregnant animals who, after much suffering, are killed along with the fetus. In more prolonged carcinogen tests, rats are force-fed a cosmetic ingredient over two years, monitored for cancer, and then killed.
Many chemicals today are known or suspected to be links to cancer, early puberty, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obesity, autism, and other serious health issues. “As we look at protecting children’s health, we need to look not just at nutrition, diet, and physical activity, but also exposure to chemicals,” says Jason Rano, director of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group. The Safe Chemicals Act, which passed out of committee for the first time this year, would require chemical companies to prove that their products are safe. “In the U.S., we are a toxic dumping ground for unsafe products,” says Katy Farber, founder of Non-Toxic Kids (Non-ToxicKids.net). “Many parents are exhausted by trying to keep up with what to avoid and what to do. The Safe Chemicals Act would shift the burden to where it belongs.” Your family doesn’t have to live like ascetics to minimize your children’s exposure to chemical dangers; there are simple ways to reduce contact.
Firstly, it’s important to recognize the the term “natural” can mean just about anything! There’s absolutely no regulation of the use of the term in the US or anywhere else in the world (as far as our research shows).
Also, there are some awfully poisonous and dangerous substances that occur naturally in nature. So, marketing a product or ingredient as “natural” is something that should be viewed with a healthy amount of suspicion in our opinion.
When it comes to food, everyone knows that organic produce is better for you, but it seems this logic hasn’t yet hit the same critical mass in the skin care industry.