What is Project Natural Glow?

Project Natural Glow is similar to Project Glow except that I am challenging myself and all willing participants to try using natural cosmetic products. My goal is to use products that are safe for the environment, animal friendly, vegan, organic, and/or free of chemicals. Of course, not every new product I buy will fit this perfect bill of health, but I am going to try my best to read product labels and read reviews of new products before buying them. Things such as shampoo, conditioner, face wash, body lotion, and make-up often include many harsh and sometimes dangerous chemicals. This is a challenge to start to become more aware of what you are putting on your body, not just what you are putting in your body.

How does it work?

All you have to do is commit to try out new natural products to replace some of your current stand bys. For example, I replaced my stand-by body lotion (Nivea) with coconut oil. I also replaced my toner with Tea Tree Oil and I am starting to use all natural body wash and soap. I will be posting product reviews as well as where I got the product and how much it cost. One of my biggest challenges is going to be finding good products that don’t cost more than what I am currently buying. You won’t see me dropping a ton of cash on natural products. I will be researching and looking all around for cost efficient products that will not break the bank!

Over the next while, I will be posting information that I come across during my research. I will be posting everything I am learning as I educate myself about natural, organic, vegan, animal and environment friendly products!

What is the purpose?

I am asking myself a few questions:

• Whether I will notice a difference in my skin by using all natural products
• Whether I can find affordable products
• Whether I can find products that actually work as well as my old ones!

Leave a comment below if you are interested in trying out some natural products too!

My next product review:

I got this at Loblaws yesterday on sale for $5.99 CAD in the natural food section.

The one thing I admit that I know nothing about are the ingredient names. So confusing! I have to do a lot of research before I feel confident with what the ingredients really are. I am sure many companies claim they are all natural when in fact they are not.

Baby steps, though…

Click to enlarge:

I tried out this shower gel today after a 5.25 mile run. I was pleasantly surprised that this body wash did lather up fairly well. It didn’t lather as much as my Nivea body wash, but to be honest, it wasn’t a big deal at all. The scent was pleasant, but light and not over-powering. It left my skin quite soft and I didn’t even put any oil on after my shower just to see how it would leave my skin. I really don’t have any complaints with this product, only that I probably wouldn’t buy it if it wasn’t on sale. $5.99 for a body wash is pretty much my upper limit, if not more than I want to spend.

Have you tried Alba products? I have heard a lot of great things about them from all of your comments!

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I’m off to finish packaging the 14 batches of Glo Bars I made today! Holy moly, I am really zonked.

Eric has also been using his holiday wisely- he is currently painting over our pink walls (with primer) in the entrance way! It looks SO much better. He will be blogging all about it at some point.

We will be having a late dinner by the looks of things. ;) I think we might dine outside tonight since it is so lovely out.

Back to it…

Some of you may remember the Project Glow challenge I put together for Caitlin a while back. Well, I’m cooking up a similar challenge, but this time it has an all-natural twist.

The questions I am asking are:

Can I commit to switching to all natural cosmetics?

Will using all natural products improve the appearance of my skin, hair, etc.?
Will I be able to find all natural products without breaking my budget?

A little while ago, I mentioned that I wanted to start buying more natural cosmetic products to replace the current ones that I use. So far I have switched to coconut oil as a body moistruizer and I replaced my non-natural toner with Desert Essence Australian Tea Tree Oil.  I love this product. It is quite drying so you have to be prepared to back it up with lots of moisturizer before you put your make-up on though. I just love it. After cleansing my face, I swipe this product all over my face and then I moisturize. I find it really cuts down on shine throughout the day and it has cut my break-outs down so much they are virtually non existent! I think I first found this at Wal-Mart, but I also spotted it in the natural foods section of Loblaws/Superstore (where they have their natural beauty products located).

I will be the first to admit, I have never paid much attention to what ingredients I put on my body, but after some thought, I realized that it was a bit silly of me to be so careful about what I put into my body but not what I put on it. Afterall, skin is the largest organ in the human body!

A few readers pointed me to Skin Deep Cosmetics Safety Database.

I found this description on the About page:

In 2004 we launched Skin Deep, an online safety guide for cosmetics and personal care products. Our aim was to fill in where companies and the government leave off: companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish, and our government doesn’t require companies to test products for safety before they’re sold. EWG’s scientists built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, integrating our in-house collection of personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases.

Now in its fourth year and third major update, our Skin Deep database provides you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings for nearly a quarter of all products on the market — 46,432 products with 8,582 ingredients. At about one million page views per month, Skin Deep is the world’s largest and most popular product safety guide.

After searching some of the products that I use, I was down right disturbed by the ingredients I put on my skin each and every day.

A few weeks ago, I purchased Yes To Carrots Pampering Carrot Juice Shampoo. It is not tested on animals and it is made up of many natural ingredients like dead sea mud, carrot, pumpkin, sweet potato, melon, and honey.

I was pretty pumped to try out this shampoo.

So what did I think of it?

Well, for starters it was sort of nice using a very mildy aromatic shampoo. I am used to using shampoos with a strong scent, so this was a nice change. Secondly, it was a bit hard to get over the fact that it doesn’t sud up a lot like most shampoos. I believe this is due to it not using common chemicals that result in lots of suds. After a bit of investigation, I found that this shampoo uses an ingredient called Sodium Coceth Sulfate which is “a semisynthetic detergent-like compound derived from fatty acids obtained from coconut oil, modified using ethylene oxide (oxirane). It is a milder foaming agent found in baby cleansers, gels, and cleaners.” (Source). So by no means does this shampoo contain entirely natural ingredients, but I guess it is a good start.

The shampoo seems to do a good job, despite myself having a hard time to accept the lather-less wash. I’ve been told time and time again that the lather and bubbles in soaps were created simply to make people think they were getting clean, when in reality it has nothing to do with it.

I find myself using a huge glob of this shampoo to ‘get the job done’. I think that because it doesn’t create a large lather, I feel like I need to use more to get my hair clean. This probably is far from the truth though.

It is a bit difficult for me to give this product a rating since it is my first time using any sort of natural shampoo, but all and all I was fairly pleased I guess. I will continue to use this HUGE bottle (another bonus) and then move onto another new product.

I must also admit that I have a lot to learn with respect to cosmetics, ingredients, and safety hazards. I kind of see it as a new challenge to do some reading on it and research some ‘friendly’ brands that I can test out and review. Unfortunately, this Yes To Carrots product has not been reviewed on the website yet, so I couldn’t check it out.

Of course, I won’t be going cold turkey on my current stuff. I am using up what I have now, and as I run out, I will be replacing the products with natural ones. This will be a gradual process that will occur over the next several months!

Now here’s where you come in!

I know many of you are so savvy in this department. And I would love your advice, tips, and pieces of knowledge that you have learned from using natural products.

Have you found any products in particular that you loved or hated?

Do you ever think about what ingredients you are putting on your skin?

Could you ever see yourself switching to natural products?

Will you join me in this challenge?

Share your thoughts below! :)

I would love to hear of some great natural brands out there. I think I have heard Burt’s Bees is a good one?

See you later…be sure to check Twitter for some fun updates while I’m away! :)