I am not one to follow trends. Following this disclaimer, I will admit that I quickly jumped on the “clean beauty” bandwagon when Sephora launched their best lines of natural skincare and makeup product. Years of waking up with to find breakouts on my cheeks and chins or small patches of hair that fell out, I was convinced “clean” was the solution. Drunk Elephant’s B-Hydra at $48 may not have cleared my spots, but it sure made my face feel refresh; Briogo’s Don’t Despair Hair Mask at $36 may not have restored my baldness, but it made my scalp tingle with pleasure. There is way many too many products to list here… (and I think you would prefer that I get to the point). While these products were not the miracle solutions I was hoping for, I don’t regret buying them. They are, in fact, good products. However, the truth of the matter is that they could only help so far.
Obviously, no one wants to use “nasty,” “risky” and “shady” chemicals cooked up in a lab.
So, it is important to know what you’re slathering on your skin and hair. Still, isn’t “toxic-free” better makeup and skincare just another marketing ploy? Convincing buyers that this face wash is good and that shampoo is bad, allows companies to charge a lot extra for the safer, cleaner stuff. And consumers get the added free gift of conscious living; feeling that they somehow helped reduce some environmental threat.
If you can find the time to enter the names of every product you use and scroll through the list of harmful parabens and SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulphate), most of which are too confusing to help you make sense of it all, then “Think Dirty” is the app for you. It is one of many apps helping consumers feel less guilty about the products they buy. When I downloaded the app a while back, most of the products I use (ex. the Bobbi Brown skin foundation) were not listed. It is likely that by this date their product database has increased, but I don’t think it will be worth my time to check. I still can’t read the language of parabens.
As write this blog, I am reminded instead of my grandmother’s remedies. My grandmother, whose name, LaMercie, echoed all the kindness and care she had on the inside, swore by castor oil. (I suppose all Haitian people do). As a child, I used to sit at my grandmother’s feet while she kneaded droplets of castor oil into my scalp and braided my hair. I readily gave myself over to her fingers, those of a seamstress who was used to threading needles and sewing a skirt hem in no time, nimbly and firmly spreading the oil. The scent of pure castor oil was comforting and it worked. And today, whenever I crave the feeling of her administration and need to stop my hair from falling, I take out the small jar of castor oil stashed under my bathroom sink.
So how did we get from “clean beauty” to my grandmother’s castor oil. I think that people prefer to use good products, or at least what they think are good products, and avoid bad products with chemical ingredients they don’t understand. But forasmuchas they think they are choosing the safer bet even clean products can cause allergic reactions. And besides, back in my grandmother’s time, people did not worry about such things. They did not need Laneige’s $20 overnight lip mask and used Vaseline instead. “Clean beauty” is the project of a modern consumerism culture.
Haitian people have always known the benefits of castor oil. They just lacked in the marketing department. Nowadays, you can pretty much buy castor oil everywhere...
Considering my Haitian heritage, I will no doubt continue to reach for products with castor, coconut and avocado oil. Lush Cosmetic’s Revive is an amazing hair treatment at $48 for 8 oz. But just as amazing is this no name Jamaican castor and avocado oil hair moisturizer that I purchased for less than $10 at my local beauty store. Needless to say, I prefer the latter (and the price is not too bad).
So, if we are equating “clean” with “natural,” then the choice of which product to use is yours. Don’t buy the hype. Choose wisely… Some traditions are worth keeping.
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