Safe Cosmetics that Work – Is Beautycounter a Unicorn?

I’ve been a cosmetics slut since I saw my first Macy’s counter.  Here’s my product graveyard to prove it.  No slam on any of the products pictured. I’ve loved them for a while, some I didn’t so much.  What I’ve definitely done is spent a small fortune.  My skin is generally good, though it had some acne when I was young, and sensitivity for most of my life with a lot of ruddy in it. It’s sensitive and dry.  I live in dry, dry, dry Colorado, and I’m 57.  I’m okay with looking 57, I just don’t want to look older than that because my skin looks like a dessert.

So the skin care I used tended to work okay for a couple of weeks to a month, then my skin started getting more ruddiness back in it, which is the sign of irritation.  So I’d use my cosmetics less to cut down on the irritation. In my head, I accepted the notion that sensitive skin had to be irritated by the products you slathered on to help them.  Then I would use them less, my skin got more dry, then I’d switch to new products, my skin would be better for a while, then it got ruddy and irritated, I’d stop using them as much, and the cycle continued

Huh.  Yeah, I know.

Safe skin care that works

A friend of mine introduced me to Beautycounter, talking about this nontoxic skin care.  I thought that was just dumb – skin care HAS to have stuff in it that may potentially irritate your skin to be effective.  After trying organics in the past, what I had used seemed to be lovely, but not particularly effective on my aging, dry as dirt skin.

After another spell of using nothing rather than irritating my face more, I finally decide to explore this “safe” skin care.

It was a revelation.  Safe skin care (meaning there are NO potentially toxic ingredients in it) that is also effective.  It’s been three months since I start using it daily.  And my skin has no ruddiness in it. The low-level ruddy sensitive areas have almost disappeared.   Beautycounter is not only not irritating my skin, it’s rolling back some of the sensitivity I had.

Can I Trust them?

After seeing stories here and there about “all natural” skin care companies that weren’t that natural, I really wasn’t sure who I could trust.  So, yeah, Beautycounter was working great for me, but was it really safe?  Or were they just using buzzwords?

Beautycounter is completely transparent, they publish ALL the ingredients in all of their products, and if there are ever any problems, they immediately fix them.  It is a company completely committed to using safe ingredients. They aren’t completely natural, but the synthetics they use are safe and do not use any of the potentially toxic ingredients. I’m okay with that, I just think sometimes you need a couple of synthetics to make stuff work.

Why does this matter?

Some interesting things about the beauty industry:

• There have been NO federal laws passed regulating the cosmetics industry since 1938.    Yeah, read that again.  Think about everything we now know about ingredients and toxicity.
• FDA requires no approval for cosmetics  before they go on the market, nor does it have any power to issue a recall on cosmetics.
• EU has banned nearly 1400 ingredients from cosmetics and personal care products while the U.S. has only banned or restricted 30 ingredients.
• Women will use about 12 personal care products a day (this seems low?) with about 168 unique ingredients in them.
• Men will use about 6 personal care products with about 85 unique ingredients every day
• Teenage girls use an average of 17 personal care products a day.
• Scientific studies over the past 40 years have suggested that exposure to toxic chemicals plays a role in the incidence and prevalence of many diseases and disorders in the United States.  Go to the Environmental Working Group and search the products you are using for safe ingredients.  It’s pretty shocking.  Yeah. some people say, well, it’s trace amounts.   Trace amounts used daily over and over on large swaths of our body is a lot more than trace.  Water dripping will eventually flood your basement. I know this. Don’t flood your skin with potentially harmful chemicals one drop at a time until it is flooded.
• Beautycounter has published the Never List – ingredients that will never be used in their products.

What is a Never List?

Beautycounter has banned more than 1,500 ingredients .  That’s all great, but can you do that and still make cosmetics that perform?  Yes, yes, you can.  I’m super picky about the things I used, and I stop using anything that isn’t working, no matter what price I paid for it.  They are rich and have performed better than many/all of my super luxe and expensive products.  More importantly, have done it without irritating my face, healing my perpetual low-level ruddiness caused from broken and irritated capillaries.  It’s been amazing.

You can go here to print out your own “Carry With You Never List” for easy reference when shopping.

Watch this short video to learn why I am so proud to be a part of this company.

What Beautycounter Products are My Favorites?

This is going to be long because, well, all of them!   There are a few, though, that I can not live without.

FOUNDATION

Best foundation ever.  And I have tried about everything and liked/loved them in varying degrees, including that ridiculously expensive Giorgio Armani. All of them start out great, but eventually seem to irritate my skin, leaving it a bit flaky with daily use. So I stop using it, then it works okay with intermittent use. I use Beautycounter foundation almost every.single.day.  It performs beautifully and leaves my skin better than it was.

Beautycounter’s Tint Skin is perfection for more coverage – when you want just a little more polish.  

My everyday foundation is the Beautycounter Tinted Moisturizer. It has SPF20, and is just a touch of light coverage that smooths out any color variation in your skin, and it feels like nothing!

MASCARA

Mascara is crazy awful for your eyes using most of the commercially available mascaras. Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, and Propylparaben (allergic reactions, skin rashes) parabens (endocrine disruptors) synthetic colors like FD&C Red No. 6, D&C Green No. 6 (carcinogenic), Polybutene (used for manufacturing glue).  

If you don’t change another cosmetic product to something safer, please change your mascara.  

Yeah, I need my mascara to work. too, and not wind up under my eyes by noon.  I’ve tried a ton of these, and the most effective ones would mostly stay put, but my eyes  were so annoyed by mid-day, I would just rub and fuss with it, helping move it all under my yes, rubbing all those toxic things into my skin a little more.  Yeah, I know. Beautycounter Mascara comes in lengthening and volumizing, and they are amazing. They perform, they feel great, don’t irritate my eyes, stay put, wash off easily, and, best of all, they use all safe ingredients.   I’ve gone from barely wearing mascara because of the irritation factor to wearing it daily. I use lengthening for my normal, everyday look and use volumizing for going out and wanting more. But I follow volumizing with lengthening so I get that longer lash with my fuller lash. Love these mascaras, they are perfect, perform better than any mascara I’ve ever used, and are completely safe for your precious peepers.

CONCEALER PEN

This Concealer Pen is the best. I’ve used a ton of concealers in my life, and most of them wind up too chalky, I look like I just put white chalk around my eyes.  Worse, they get chalky and fall into those lovely little small lines you’re trying to cover over so you then have even more emphasis on the thing you were trying to cover.  The Beautycounter concealer pen doesn’t do either of those things, and I am so picky about concealers. I’d rather not use them at all than have them underperfom. They blend in great, no chalky anything, they don’t overconceal and give you white headlights around your eyes.  

 

Hair Shampoo and Conditioner

Beautycounter just released a line of shampoos, conditioners and styling aids this summer.  There’s Volume & Shape, Smooth & Control and Repair & Nourish.

Changing my shampoo and conditioner was a leap of faith. I have been using Kerastase shampoos and masques for maybe a couple of decades. I stuck with them because they worked, didn’t build up in my hair and left it all smooth and silky.  

Well, all of that smooth and silky has some cost.  Look on the label for all the -icones to give you that. It’s silicones, Kerastase has silicones.  At first, after the switch to Beautycounter shampoo/conditioner, I didn’t think I was gonna be happy.  Where are my smooths!?!  Then I read somewhere that it can take like 20-30 shampoos to remove all of the chemicals in your hair from your previous product, so I waited.  

Then I noticed, even when I did no styling to my hair, just let it air dry, I had body on top.  Normally my hair is flat as a pancake and takes a ton of style products to get it to not stick to my scalp.  It had some lightness there.  Then, better yet, two days later (I do an every three days shampoo for my very thick, dry hair) I noticed that I still had that same body in my hair. I’d done nothing to it except run my fingers through it, and there was body on top almost exactly like what I had the first day after doing an air dry.  

That is impressive.  So, yeah, all those chemicals did matter, the silicones was making my thick, straight hair’s body problem worse.  Now I have bouncy, shiny hair.  I’m using the Smooth & Control and sometimes the Repair & Nourish.

Face Oils

If someone had told me I’d be slathering essential oils on my face twice a day even six months ago, I would have died laughing. Who puts oil on their face?!  Well, I do.  Twice a day. If you use essential oils, they soak right in. I not only use one oil twice a day, I use two oils twice a day.  We’re in summer, but when we get to our dry as desert Colorado winter, I may up that or just put on more.  Beautycounter facial oils are gorgeous – they work great, they are all essential oils, smell amazing.  My skin has never looked better since I started covering it in oil.

There’s a brightening oil, a plumping oil and a balancing oil. I always recommend the balancing oil for anyone with oily skin. My sister has oily skin with large pores, and she was a skeptic until she used it.  She loves it and just uses that because she claims moisturizers always get in her eyes.  Whatever, she’s weird.  But she loves the oil and uses it 2x a day.  On her OILY skin.  Doesn’t make it oily, just makes it soft and moisturized and plump and pretty.

If you’re really worried about too much oil, just add the Balancing masque a couple of times a week. It has kaolin clay and activated charcoal – helps remove excess oil and minimize pores. I don’t even have oily skin, and I use this, as well as the other two facial masques in the Beautycounter+ line.  Who doesn’t love a good masque?

 3 ways to get involved with Beautycounter

Become a customer.  This is easy. You don’t have to swap out all your products at once. Just start with a couple as you run out, like your cleanser or moisturizer or add the oil to your routine or swap out your shampoo when you run out of what you’re currently using.  In time, all of your products will be safe and nontoxic.

Check out the 5-minute face kits.  You get

Become a Band of Beauty Member

Your $29 Annual Membership Includes:

15% back in product credit to be used on future purchases

Free shipping on orders over $100 

Free Welcome Gift with your $50 purchase (a free product that varies each month)

Exclusive product offers 

JOIN the Band of Beauty HERE

*Make sure you select “Patty White” as your consultant

Join our Mission to put safe products into the hands of women. 

I would love to work with you creating your own business as a team. You’ll get the great 25% off (or more) discount on your own orders.  Anyone who you help pick out some great high-performing, safe products will also earn you a commission.  Become a voice for change!

You really have a choice on how you want to be a consultant. First, when you sign up, you get some even deeper discounts on kits (like 40% off!). This is why I became a consultant.  Then I fell so in love with the products and how much better they worked than anything I’ve used, I wanted to tell everyone about them.  You can just enjoy the discount as a consultant or you can build your own business.  Some Beautycounter consultants earn a full time income.  But that’s completely your choice, you don’t have to sell a thing ever if you don’t want.   Beautycounter is aslo open to retail opportunities. If you have a retail establishment, like a spa or other good fit, you can sell Beautycounter in your store.

Beautycounter is direct retail company.  The start-up fee is only $85, and that gets you great pricing on all of your beauty products for a year.

Beautycounter is growing fast because of the products it has. I mean, safe, effective beauty products?  Who doesn’t want that?

JOIN MY TEAM HERE

Here’s how to Join:  Click this link and enter your information required to create your account.  When it asks you to Choose a Mentor, pick me!  if it doesn’t already default to my name. Add the Enrollment Kit to your cart, then you can choose an Enrollment Product Package (not required), but 40% discount!! I mean, Lord, that was great.  You can also just choose the products you want if you don’t want a package, and you’ll get the 25% off then.

Beautycounter is making beauty safe. For all women.  Come join the movement while using fabulous, safe cosmetics.