What is in a Natural Skin Care Product?

So you’ve discovered that not all natural skin care products are in fact 100% natural. You’re right, many, if not most, do contain ingredients that are far from natural and include artificial colours, synthetic fragrances, synthetic emulsifiers, and much more that is less than natural.

So what should be in truly natural skin care products, or rather what should not in them?

Here’s the problem. Firstly, most skin care products contain a certain amount of water, and they also contain oils. Now we all know that water and oil does not mix. So, there has to be some mechanism that provides a solution to mixing water and oil. The solution is an emulsifier.

What is an emulsifier?
Good question. Basically it is a chemical compound that facilitates the mixing of water and oil. Such emulsifying compounds are sourced either from nature or made synthetically in a laboratory in order to facilitate the mixing of oil with water.

Natural emulsifiers generally take the form of 2 or 3 ingredients such as: Glyceryl stearate, cetearyl alcohol and sodium stearoyl lactylate. These are natural ester and alcohol compounds sourced from vegetable oils such as Palm, Olive and Coconut oils. These ester and alcohol compounds allow dispersion of oil into water and prevent separation of the oil and water phases of the product.

The next issue is the colour and fragrance of the product. Colour is probably less important, but if the product does not have a pleasing odour, most people would not use it. So there are basically two ways of making a product smell nice - you can use a synthetic/artificial fragrance or you can use a natural fragrance. Natural fragrances are generally essential oils that are added to the product to enhance the fragrance and usually the effectiveness of the product. Mostly, using essential oils is intended to benefit not just the smell of a product, but also its effectiveness.

The problem however is that essential oils can be very expensive. Jasmine, Rose and others cost more than Gold, weight for weight, so it’s not surprising that some companies opt for synthetic versions of these oils rather then including the real thing.

When it comes to truly natural skin care products, you should expect no artificial or synthetic ingredients. You should expect pure Rose oil if the ingredients list states that Rose oil is in the product. You should also be able to expect natural preservatives to be used, which leads me to the next issue.

You see, just because a substance is natural does not mean that it is necessarily harmless. For example, there is strong scientific evidence that parabens (naturally sourced) are potentially harmful. Studies by Japanese researchers have shown that parabens may play a part in causing breast cancer. So the question you have to ask yourself is, do you want to take the risk? Maybe you do, but I don’t and I don’t expect our customers to take this risk either. So what’s the alternative?

I’m glad you asked. The alternative is quite simple, although more expensive. Firstly, there is an extract called Grapefruit Seed Extract, which is well known, safe, and a natural preservative. Secondly, the essential oils, if they are 100% pure essential oils, are themselves highly antiseptic and many are anti-bacterial, anti-viral and/or anti-fungal. So, the solution is to include a few essential oils in sufficient quantities that have a multitude of functions beneficial to the skin and that act as preservatives.

Lemon oil, for example, is highly antiseptic and is great if you happen to have oily skin. Similarly using Lavender oil is soothing to irritated skin and is highly antiseptic and antimicrobial (kills bugs).

The upshot is that making truly natural skin care products is not impossible, but usually results in a more expensive product, especially if the products contain 100% pure essential oils, natural emulsifiers and natural, safe preservatives.

Truly natural skin care products don’t contain anything that’s artificial, nothing that is potentially toxic, natural or otherwise, and they provide effective, wholesome care for your skin.

At Wildcrafted Herbal Products we provide you with pure, natural, safe and effective skin care products that live up to your expectations.