Healthy Natural Skin

Wednesday December 21st
The War Of The Face Creams - Natural Vs Synthetics
Let me ask you one question about a natural face cream. Why do you think that The Breast Cancer Action Montreal Group is on the warpath to get the Canadian government and other bodies to ban cosmetic products which contain carcinogens? The answer is that this is a very real problem and all the studies out there show that there are very few safe face creams on the market to-day.

Let me tell you something else. There is a lot of marketing hype nowadays about the latest enzyme or peptide such as Matrixyl which is supposed to do wonders for your face. The only problem is that there is very little scientific backing to justify these claims and very often, the research has been sponsored by the company itself. Now that is a conflict of interest, if ever there was one.

The second fact we have to be aware of is that the war of face creams is getting more and more intense as the competition gets fiercer and fiercer. This concerns pricing of course and companies are constantly trying to lower their prices but that means they have to use cheap and cheerful ingredients.

These will be the usual culprits such as the parabens, mineral oils and all the other synthetic chemicals which are highly processed as well.

But sometimes it is paradoxical situation where cheaper products are actually more effective in doing the job than the highly priced ones. For example, the USconsumer group called Consumer reports actually conducted a test on two highly popular brands of face creams. The first was super expensive at about $200 but did not work nearly as well as the much cheaper product which was retailing at a mere $16. This also gives us an insight into the cosmetics industry which is not even controlled by the FDA. So it really is the Far West.

Now, if a company is to produce what you could really call a natural face cream, then they have to use organic ingredients and these are expensive to source, research and process. It is obviously much cheaper to use petroleum derived substances and to hell with our health.

Now that is pretty bad news, I must admit, but fortunately a group of companies have signed a special protocol which is called The Compact for Safe Cosmetics. They are committed to excluding all harmful toxins and chemicals from their products.

One of these is based in New Zealand and spends much more money on research than on promoting its products so that is one reason why you may not have heard of them at all. Certainly you will never have heard of phytessence wakame or Xtend TK which are rather revolutionary natural ingredients which can really have an impact on skin cell growth.

They can also moisturize and regenerate the skin tone. Now these are the ingredients that I would expect in a natural face cream worthy of the name. I would not mind paying a little more either because the company is committed to the health of its customers and has built its reputation on that.