Why this Earth Mama Chose Beautycounter for Safety

In an effort to keep this blog and my independent journalism efforts sustainable, I’ve recently become an independent Beautycounter consultant.  You have the opportunity to show your support by shopping with me here.

I grew up digging in the dirt on the family farm, making mud pies and still cleaning up for Sunday School every week.  How about you?

My mom worked long hours managing the farm with my dad, then she still took a little time to feel pretty before heading out to teach Sunday School or sing in the church choir.  She was always on good terms with latest neighborhood Avon lady, making a regular order from the brightly printed catalog.  When I was old enough to become interested in makeup, I was intrigued that my piano teacher also sold Mary Kay.  So, I treasured the prettiest pink compact with special lip colors inside, all my own, when my mother agreed I was old enough to have one!

Even for tomboys like me with frequent dirt under my fingernails, being allowed to wear lipgloss and blush and eventually eye makeup was a rite of passage.  No one talked about what was in the makeup, just that it made us look pretty and feminine!

Fast forward to adulthood, and for various reasons I started to question what was in the products I used every day.  Parenthood especially convinced me that no one in the world would advocate for my children’s health the way a mother could, and so I started noticing details.  I shared my concerns about even certain preservatives with you in an earlier article.

In this age of growing awareness about environmental health, I’ve befriended many beautiful people who choose not to wear makeup at all, for some of the same reasons I’ve become more cautious about ingredients.  Once you learn, for instance, that some commonly used ingredients in cosmetics could be disrupting your body’s natural hormonal system and even increase your risk of cancer, it makes you really skeptical about the pink ribbon grandstanding about fighting cancer and mindful of what’s inside the products themselves.  I’m as much Earth Mother as anyone else who respects God’s Creation, but I wouldn’t describe myself as crunchy enough to forego cosmetics altogether. While I enjoy making some natural skincare products from scratch, it’s not something I always find time for.

Why must we choose dirt or diva, Earth Mother or Aphrodite?  Why can’t we be both?

Did you know eight out of ten ingredients in your typical cosmetics haven’t even been tested for safety?  It may surprise you to learn that the government does very, very little to ensure any real, long-term safety of what’s inside your cleansers or lotions or mascara.  I’m not so willing to go all-natural that I’ll forego every modern cosmetic.  But I want to look and feel pretty while respecting my own health enough to use only the safest products, don’t you?

That’s why I’m impressed by this list by Beautycounter:

It’s all the ingredients that this incredibly transparent cosmetics company vows to never use it its products.  You might want to check what’s in your makeup bag today to see how many of these are in your cosmetics.  Or plug your current cosmetic brand into the database of watchdog group Environmental Working Group to see what it can tell you.

Even Beautycounter will admit its products aren’t perfect.  There is no perfect.  I’m not 100% satisfied that they say they have to include a few carefully selected amounts of preservatives in their aqua-based products, but I can appreciate the delicate balance being made.  I breathed a big sigh of relief once my children were able to sample the Kids Counter line and not have any skin reactions, although we had experienced reactions to some other so-called natural products.  I’m also impressed that, while there is no such US requirement, Beautycounter is leading the way with third-party heavy metal contaminant testing of its color cosmetics.

“Beautycounter is on a mission to get safe products into the hands of everyone.” — the company’s explicit mission cuts right through any sort of pretention.  There it is.  It’s why more and more people across the United States are falling in love with this US-based company.  That, and perhaps its growing popularity in Hollywood among the beauty elite.

As a new Beautycounter consultant, I was supposed to insert a photo of a perfectly flawless model in this article instead of my own photo.  But I won’t testify to the quality of this product unless you can see that it works for average, flawed, beautiful women with smile lines like you and me.  No miracles promised here — just effective, luxurious skincare created with safety in mind.

Beautycounter being a US-based company created by a mompreneur was another reason I chose it over some cosmetics lines based overseas.  I needed to add a product I could be transparent about, that is in line with the values conveyed on this blog and in my life.  So, I feel good about asking for your support in order to help my independent journalism remain sustainable.  If you choose to try Beautycounter products with me, I will be forever grateful for your support.  If you, too, are intrigued by this combination of beauty and safety, I hope you’ll give it a try.