Beauty Opinion: When the Cost of Beauty is Just Too High

I have been thinking a lot recently about the connection between health and wellness and beauty, or rather of what we think of as "beauty" in terms of beauty products and the beauty industry. No one wants to think of this, but the fact of the matter that is that which we use to cleanse, perfume, and paint our faces and bodies has larger implications to our physical well-being than we realize. For example, you hear the statistic of the average woman eating the equivalent of up to nine pounds of lipstick in her lifetime, and you see reports every now and again of there being a link to bladder cancer and the use of permanent hair dyes or certain ingredients in shower products having a negative impact on reproductive health.

Many of us take these possibilities seriously and endeavor to find products that are free (or freer) of known toxins or ingredients that could be potentially harmful on either an individual or universal level. Nowadays, many brand, particularly those in the more eco-friendly or Green Beauty space, are paying attention to the known or possible side effects of ingredients, especially in higher amounts or with long-term usage. Yet, so many beauty customers out there, myself well included, tend to not think so much of these possible risks when shopping for beauty. It is human nature to a degree to think, "oh, it's really not that bad" or "I'm sure that things happen once in a blue moon, but it won't hurt me." We all have a tendency to think we are infallible, but at the end of the day, we all know we are not. But even if something cataclysmic does not happen to us instantly after a beauty treatment or from using a product a few times (which, of course, most likely will not happen) it does not mean that exposure to some of these ingredients so common in makeup and even skincare and bodycare won't lead to negative health consequences after continued exposure. Think of it this way. Most of us beauty lovers started getting into our passion in adolescence, say, around 11 or 12 years old. If we live to the ripe old age of 72, that is over sixty years of usage and exposure to potentially harmful chemicals absorbed into our skin, going through our blood, possibly disrupting hormones, and so on.

Even with the the rise of more and more companies choosing to formulate without these "known offender" ingredients so to speak, they are still not the most mainstream and often not the most affordable brands out there, and we have to base our purchasing decisions on what we can most easily find and within our budget. This is especially true of those items we've grown accustomed to having in our lives whether we we may technically need them or not. Then there is also the common premise that many "more cleanly-formulated" brands and alternative formulas don't perform as well or lack something that their more conventional counterparts have. For example, in more natural-based makeup, the color shades, especially in eyeshadow, never seem as varietous, and mascaras are often not as high impact, and many of the formulas (usually being so oil-laden) are not as longlasting and are prone to smudging. Year by year, I find the clean or Green beauty industry on the whole addresses more of these concerns, and the quality and variety of the products is getting better and better, though there is most often still an issue of relative price and availability when you compare it to big box drugstore brands like Revlon and L'Oreal as examples. So to some extent, the question still plagues me-- if I cannot find a reliable and seemingly safer alternative to use in place of products that could be contributing negatively to my health, is it worth it to continue to use them? The answer is no for me, or at least it should be, My choices are never perfect, but I am making the concerted effort to be more aware.

I am not into fearmongering, and I do believe in everyone making the choices that are doable for them and that serve their needs and desires. However, I do want to use my space here on La Petite Rose not just to talk about the fun of beauty products (from all kinds of brands at all price points) and beauty tips and insights at large, but to also provide a space for pondering these larger questions and toggling with the complexities of what beauty is and should be versus what is commonly purported or distributed by the beauty industry makes it out to be,

To learn more about some of the health risks that could be associated with using common beauty products (and also some women's care items), check out this video from Dr. Eric Berg via YouTube.