The Perfect Winter Body Scrub

A few years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Price, the founder of Carol's Daughter, about the expansion of her beauty business for Crain's New York Business. Lisa's story is inspiring, and her products are incredible.

My current favorite is: SweetHoneyDipChocolateBrownSugah Scrub. Brown sugar crystals, a blend of natural oils, and a chocolatey-honey fragrance make this a great body scrub for cold weather: The scent is warm and yummy and lingers lightly on the skin without being too overpowering. The sugar exfoliates, and the oils provide excellent moisture — no lotion necessary.

The scrub is paraben-free, and contains no petroleum, mineral oil, or artificial color. (In fact, the only potentially icky ingredient in the product is the generic "fragrance.") So scrub away — and be prepared for a post-shower chocolate craving.

The Great Pumpkin

As I flipped through the pages of EcoBeauty the other day, I couldn't wait to try one recipe in particular: the Pumpkin Pie Mask. Given the timing—and the fact that I already had a can of organic pumpkin puree in my pantry—it seemed only appropriate to debut my DIY beauty experiment with this mask.

Pumpkin, by the way, is a skin-care powerhouse: According to EcoBeauty authors Lauren Cox and Janice Cox, it contains antioxidants, has exfoliating alpha hydroxy acids, and even helps skin retain moisture. Here's the good-enough-to-eat recipe:

PUMPKIN PIE MASK

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons vanilla yogurt or sour cream

1 tablespoon honey

Mix together ingredients to form a smooth paste. After cleansing skin, apply about 1 tablespoon of the mask on your face, avoiding eyes and mouth (um, why? It's edible! But maybe your lips don't need exfoliating antioxidants). Leave on for 15 minutes, then rinse with warm water. Use as often as needed—about once a week, or every other week if your skin is dry or sensitive. Store leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Maybe it was just the specific brands I used, but my mask's consistency was less of a paste and more of a liquid. Still, I love the way it made my skin look and feel. I recommend following the treatment with a good moisturizer. I also recommend cutting the recipe in half: Even though I used more than 1 tablespoon on my face, I still have enough left over that I probably won't use it all up in two weeks. But I'll certainly try. This one's a keeper.

DIY Beauty

I'm not usually the do-it-yourself type. I dread putting together IKEA furniture, have never refinished anything in my life, and greatly offended my husband once when I suggested that we hire a handyman to install a pot rack in our kitchen.

But when it comes to DIY beauty, I'm all for getting my hands dirty in an effort to get my skin clean. Making your own beauty products can be easy, inexpensive, and—more importantly—an effective way to care for your skin. Why pay for a pricey, preservative-filled face mask when you can whip up your own using ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen?

Two books have become DIY beauty favorites of mine, thanks to their great recipes, pretty pictures and can-do enthusiasm: EcoBeauty by Lauren Cox with Janice Cox, and Naturally Beautiful by Dawn Gallagher. EcoBeauty emphasizes the fun of DIY beauty—in fact, the book's subtitle is "Scrubs, Rubs, Masks, and Bath Bombs for You and Your Friends"—while Naturally Beautiful, with its subtitle of "earth's secrets and recipes for skin, body, and spirit" takes a more New Age approach to DIY beauty. Both are available online.

I'll be posting about my own experiences trying the various recipes from these books. In the meantime, let me know if you have a favorite DIY beauty recipe to share.

We've Got a Winner...

Thanks to everyone who entered the Softlips PURE giveaway! I've picked (and alerted) the lucky winner. I hope the rest of you keep reading Pretty Natural—I'd love to get your comments and suggestions for future blog posts and product reviews. And keep an eye out for more natural-goodie giveaways!

Freebie Alert! Softlips PURE

I've blogged before about my love of lip balm, so I'm happy to help spread the news about the new additions to the Softlips PURE line of lip conditioners. The balms are USDA-certified organic (that's the gold standard, friends) and are available in four yummy new flavors:

• Acai Berry
• Chai Tea
• Papaya
• Peppermint

My favorite is Peppermint—it has a light, natural flavor and a nice tingle when you put in on your lips. Acai Berry is a close second (not that I know what an actual acai berry tastes like.) I'm even a fan of the products on Facebook.

I love the fact that these lip balms are USDA-certified organic. I love the fact that the tubes are slim enough to fit in the pocket of your tightest skinny jeans. And I love the fact that one of you dear readers can win a set of the four new flavors! Here's how:

• Sign up to follow Pretty Natural (if you don't already!)
• Become a fan of Softlips on Facebook
• Leave a comment on this post telling me why your lips need some TLC (include your email address so I can reach you if you win)
• I'll pick my favorite response and let the nice people at Softlips know who gets the goods.

Good luck!

Oil, Slick

My new favorite face cleanser is 100% organic, hand-crafted, and dirt-cheap. It's Olsen Naturals Almond Cleansing Oil, and it cost me just $7 at the Mill City Farmers Market in Minneapolis.

Oil cleansers aren't new, but I became intrigued by the idea of using oil to clean my face last winter, after I saw a bottle of DHC Deep Cleansing Oil on my Aunt (by marriage) Billie's bathroom counter. Billie is well into her 60s and has gorgeous, clear skin, so I started digging into the different options. First, I came across a web site called The Oil Cleansing Method, which gives instructions on how to create and use your own oil-based cleanser. Then I tried a sample of Nude Skincare's Cleansing Facial Oil. (It's perfectly lovely, but at $52, more than I want to spend on a cleanser.) So I was excited to discover Denise Olsen's equally lovely (and much more affordable) version this summer.

Since then, I've been inundated—in a good way—with oil: An email arrived in my in-box touting Molton Brown's trio of limited-edition facial oils, designed to be used as moisturizing night treatments. (I've been using the Hungarian Wild Carrot Revitalizing Facial Oil, $58, on nights when I don't use my oil cleanser.)

I've also tried suki's organic oil formulations ($29.95), including pure facial moisture-balancing and pure facial moisture-nourishing, and delicate hydrating oil ($24.95) for the body. (I love the fact that these oils are organic, but I'm not crazy about the scents.)

What's the difference between an oil cleanser and an oil moisturizer? Not much, to be honest. One you use with water and then wipe off; the other you leave on your face. And as the weather turns colder, both are excellent daily options for everyone. "I like oil cleansers for all skin types," says dermatologist Jordana S. Gilman, M.D. "They help break up and wash away excess oil for people with oily skin, and they are gentle and won't dehydrate people with dry or sensitive skin."

If you've always thought of oil as something you need to clean off of your skin, it does require a shift in thinking to start using it to clean and moisturize your face. But try it, and you'll be rewarded with soft, clean skin.

A Better Disposable Towelette

As a rule, I avoid using disposable cleansing wipes, for either my face or my house. (My kid's bottom? Well, that's another story.)

Still, I couldn't resist making an exception when I came across these new Organic wear Facial Makeup Remover Towelettes from Physicians Formula. The towelettes are 100% biodegradable, and, according to the label, 10% of the total ingredients are produced from organic farming. (Those ingredients include organic orange water, organic lavender essential oil, and organic aloe vera extract.) They're soft, they smell good, and they seem to effectively remove the mineral makeup I wear.

But really, I bought them simply because I thought the tin can–style packaging was adorable, and I'm a sucker for packaging. 

Disposable cleansing wipes, no matter how organic they are, will never be the best, most eco-friendly way to clean your face. But if you're not willing to give up the can't-beat-it-convenience they offer, at least now there's a better option.

Guess Who Got a Makeover?

No, not me (unfortunately). But St. Ives, maker of the beauty-cabinet-staple apricot scrub and other skin care products, just got a little greener.

The company is introducing a reformulated product line that uses 100% natural exfoliants and extracts, and post-consumer recycled packaging whenever possible.

I was also happy to find that many of the products are made without parabens or phthalates, contain no animal derived ingredients, and aren't tested on animals. (Now if only they'd get rid of SLS and SLES!) 

Still, it's a welcome improvement in the drugstore beauty aisle.

Natural Eyes

I have short, wimpy eyelashes, so mascara is one of my must-have products. But I'm picky about my products. For a long time I shunned drugstore brands, and I confess that I've never quite understood the allure of a certain company's famous pink-tubed formula.

But a new crop of natural mascaras, including drugstore brands like Physician's Formula Organic Wear 100% Natural Origin Mascara, with its cute leaf-shaped applicator handle, and Almay pure blends volumizing mascara, led me to my neighborhood Ulta store.

I've been using the Almay mascara, and... I like it. The formula is 97.5% natural and gives me thick-but-natural looking lashes. And the not-too-big brush (I hate some of the new jumbo brushes on mascara formulas today—so unwieldy!) allows for a precise application, even to those teeny corner lashes. My only quibble is that I have a habit of picking at my lashes (which may explain why they're short and wimpy) and this mascara flakes off easily. Still, I'd buy it again. And at roughly $7.00 a tube, I can afford to.

The Protected Face

I'm following up on my last post about sunscreen. First, I have to admit that I haven't chucked my old non-mineral sunscreens in the trash, and in fact, I've actually bought more. Here's the deal: Mineral formulas—even that expensive brand I blogged about buying—are just plain hard to rub in. And on a squirmy, impatient toddler, that's a pain. I've compromised by using mineral formulas in the morning (or the first application of the day) and then carrying around a bottle of Neutrogena Waterguard Kids Sunblock Mist SPF 70+. No, it probably wouldn't pass the EWG's sunscreen test. But at least I know my kid is protected.

I'm also not using any chalky sunscreen formula on my face—but that's because, happily, I've found what I think are some great alternatives. I'm loving my new 100% Pure Pomegranate Antioxidant Hydration SPF 20. It's a lightweight-yet-creamy moisturizer that's 100% natural and vegan. As the name implies, there are no chemicals, fragrances, or preservatives in the ingredients list. My only complaint is that the SPF level isn't higher.

To rectify that, I'm also using Bare Escentuals' bareMinerals SPF 30 Natural Sunscreen. It's a powdered mineral sunscreen (micronized titanium dioxide, to be specific) that comes in a handy spill-proof tube with a built-in, twist-up brush. It comes in three shades (light, medium, and tan) and has basically replaced loose powder in my makeup bag.

I Screen, You Screen

May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month... and I'm overdue for my annual trip to the dermatologist for a skin cancer screening. 

If you need a check-up too, the Skin Cancer Foundation is making it easy (depending on where you live) thanks to its Road to Healthy Skin Tour. The Tour provides free full body skin cancer screenings and information, as well as sunscreen samples (the Tour is presented by Aveeno and Rite Aid) and coupons.

Speaking of sunscreen, I've always tried to stick to chemical free, mineral formulas for my little one — and let me beat the California Baby drum again and praise the company's fragrance-free sunscreens. But I hate the chalky, Casper-like residue that mineral sunscreens tend to leave, and I confess that lately I've resorted to using easier-to-blend-in chemical formulas, both for myself and my boy.

Not anymore. This summer, I'm trying Lavera Naturkosmetik's  Sun 30 spray formula. It's a 100% mineral sun protection formula that's designed for kids and adults with sensitive skin. I'm hoping the spray makes it easier to apply and blend — and thus worth the ridiculous price I paid for it at Whole Foods.

And the Winner is...

Back in March, I wrote about some of the cool natural products I found at the CEW Beauty Awards product demonstration. Well, on May 1st I attended the actual awards ceremony, and while several natural products were finalists in various categories, only one of them — Vickery & Clarke Natural Apothecary's Eucalyptus & Peppermint Cold & Sinus Soak — won. Boo!

But here's a list of the natural products that were finalists in various categories:

• Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Hydrating Mineral Veil and bareMinerals 100% Natural Lipgloss
• Burt's Bees Fabulously Fresh Peppermint & Rosemary Body Bar, Naturally Ageless Skin Firming Night Cream, and Super Shiny Lip Gloss
• Carol's Daughter Sweethoneydipchocolatebrownsugah Scrub
• Klorane Gentle Eco-Friendly Dry Shampoo
• Korres Natural Products Pomegranate Cleansing and Makeup Removing Wipes
• Physicians Formula Organic Wear Face Powder
• Yes To Carrots Yes To Cucumbers Eye Love Cucumbers Soothing Eye Gel and Yes To Tomatoes Trouble Free Face Wash

Next year, I hope more of these worthy brands take home top honors!

Pretty Cheeky

I've blogged before about my love for the natural cheek stains from tarte. The chubby, push-up packaging is cute and portable, and the cream/gel formulas blend easily and look natural. Plus, they're full of good stuff—antioxidants, mineral pigments, and natural fragrance—and free of bad ingredients like parabens, phthalates, and preservatives.

My favorite shade is the plummy/rose "blushing bride." But the shimmery coral "eco-cheek," tarte's newest shade and part of its Summer 2009 line, is a close second and a great alternative. I blended a dab on each cheekbone and the result was a warm flush of color. And the shimmer looks natural, not disco-ball.

Herbal Relief

Just in time for a celebratory birthday dinner this weekend, a huge, unpoppable zit has erupted on my face. If I smile a reeeaalllly wide smile, I can hide it. (But really, who can walk around smiling like that all day and not appear dangerously crazy?)

My regular, non-natural zit cream hasn't proved up to the task, so today I ran out to CVS and bought Burt's Bees Herbal Blemish Stick. It's a medicinal smelling roll-on potion that uses tea tree oil and willowbark (a natural source of zit-fighting salicylic acid) to treat pimples.

I'm tempted to walk around with this thing glued to my face. Please, zit, go away!

Super Skinny

Happy Earth Day! On the holiday intended to create awareness for the environment, I thought I'd give a shout-out to a super cool, eco-friendly-in-more-ways-than-one skincare company: Brooklyn's own skinnyskinny. 

skinnyskinny's product line, which includes soaps, body oils, bath salts, and lip balms, contains certified organic ingredients and is packaged with materials that are all recycled, reclaimed, sustainable, or biodegradable. And the company itself is 100% carbon-neutral.

But here's another thing I love about skinnyskinny: It makes these lovely organic bath salts that come packaged in pretty, cork-stopped glass bottles. At $34, they're not cheap. But they also sell "refill" packages that come in plain brown biodegradable coffee bags and start at $29 for a one-pound sack. The skinnyskinny folks actually encourage you to buy in bulk, find your own container, and reduce waste (not to mention shipping costs, if you're buying online.) I think that's pretty cool. 

Earth Day Beauty

This Earth Day, April 22nd, green-living guru Danny Seo is launching a line of eco-friendly bath and skincare products called wholearth beauty + bath.  

Reasons why I'm excited about this line: 

• Several of the products, including the perfume spray and the body wash, are USDA certified organic.
  
• The packaging is made from sustainable and/or renewable sources; cartons are made from recycled paper and jars and bottles from 100% Post Consumer Recycled  materials.
  
• The entire line promises to be free of ingredients like parabens, petrochemicals, phthalates, SLS and SLES, mineral oil, and synthetic dyes.
  
• All that earth-friendly packaging is pretty enough to display on your bathroom counter. Which is great if your bathroom, like mine, has just one teeny, tiny, stocked-to-the-brim cabinet.
  

The 12-product line will be available at select Anthropologie stores (another plus—I love Anthropologie!) and I plan to try it as soon as I can get there.  

Pretty Natural Baby: Nasty Ingredients Notice

Your baby's bath may not be the squeaky-clean experience you think it is: Last month the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released a report called "No More Toxic Tub," which found that "dozens of leading body care products for babies and children contain the toxic chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane." These chemicals are linked to cancer and skin allergies, and are banned from personal-care products in many other countries.

An independent lab tested 48 popular products and found that 61 percent contained both chemicals. But don't bother looking for these ingredients on your own kid's shampoo bottle — they're not actual ingredients at all; rather, they're contaminants, and therefore not listed on the label.

Here's what you can do:

• Check to see if your favorite baby brand contains these contaminants.
• Look for common culprit ingredients like PEG-100 stearate, polyethylne, ceteareth-20 and sodium laureth sulfate, which are likely to be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane.
• Ask Congress to take action.
• Look for natural alternatives. (Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetic Safety Database, is a great resource.)

I use the California Baby Super Sensitive line for my toddler almost exclusively, but on occasion I've bought other brands — brands that it turns out tested positive for 1,4-dioxane. The CSC report doesn't cover natural products like California Baby, but you can get the dirt, so to speak, on their ingredients at Skin Deep.

Happily, the California Baby Super Sensitive Shampoo & Bodywash tested well. Of course, as the CSC notes, the exposure to these chemicals from a squirt of bubble bath or a dollop of shampoo is teensy. But if you can find alternatives, why not use them?

Return to Origins

I've long been a fan of Origins, thanks to its "powered by nature" philosophy and, more recently, its line of organic skin care products. Now there's another reason to love the company: its Return to Origins Recycling Program.

Beginning this Sunday, March 29th, you can bring any empty cosmetics container, regardless of brand, to an Origins store or counter and the company will recycle it for you. (The returned packaging, according to the company's web site, "will be sent back to a central location where products will be recycled or used for energy recovery.")

And as a bonus for your eco-minded effort, you'll get a free sample of an Origins skin care product. Which might just lead to another cosmetics jar to recycle...

Skip the Sulfates

I love lather. Whether I'm washing my hair or my face, a good, sudsy scrubbing makes me feel like I'm getting really clean. But after reading two recent magazine articles —one in the February issue of Organic Beauty, the other in the March issue of Allure — on sulfate-free shampoos, I decided to make the switch.

As both articles state, sulfates, commonly listed as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), have been linked to skin irritation. (That's why they're ingredients that I've avoided when buying shampoo and body wash for my son.)

But apparently sulfates can be bad for your hair, too, drying it out and stripping away added color. And while Allure quotes a cosmetic chemist who says that any cleansing agent can strip hair of oils, the fact is it's easier than ever to find products that use alternatives. (Even mainstream brand L'Oreal Paris has introduced a sulfate-free shampoo, called EverPure.) I decided it was time to swap my chemical-ladden brand for something that was more natural and quite possibly gentler on my hair.

My choice: Burt's Bees More Moisture Raspberry & Brazil Nut Shampoo.
It contains 98.12% natural ingredients, and uses ingredients like coconut oil and corn starch. It's also paraben- and phthalate-free.

It's true that sulfate-free formulas can be a bit less sudsy, but I've found that pouring the shampoo into my hands and rubbing my palms together before applying it to my hair helped make it suds up more. And even after one use, my hair felt softer and more bouncy than usual. I just might start washing my hair more often.

Balmy Days Ahead

I'm something of a lip balm fanatic — my lips tend to chap easily, especially in the windy New York winters. So I keep a tube (and it's always a tube; I hate the thought of digging a germy finger into a jar of something I'm going to smear on my lips!) in my pocket or purse at all times, and I'm always trying different brands.

My current favorite: Eco Lips Sport SPF 30 Lip Balm. There's a lot to love about this product: It's made of 81% certified organic ingredients, has a nice (but not overpowering) vanilla flavor, is petroleum-free, not tested on animals, and contains a high level of sunscreen. It's also gluten-free, in case that's an issue. It's made in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And it's cheap: I picked up my tube for just $2.49 at my local Whole Foods. Soft, sun-protected lips for less than two dollars and fifty cents? I'm sold.

Good (Natural) Stuff From the CEW Beauty Awards Product Demonstration

Earlier this week I attended the Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) Beauty Awards Product Demonstration — an annual event that puts more than 600 new products on display for CEW members and the press to sniff, smear, and sample. Need I say that I love attending this event?

Usually, I wander the aisles and stop at every table that catches my eye (either because of the products on display or the free candy). But this year I focused on finding fabulous makeup and skin care products with natural ingredients. I wasn't disappointed.

Some of my favorites included:

• Jurlique's Purely Age-Defying Range. I'm a big fan of Jurlique. The company makes fantastic, high-quality (and pricey) products with ingredients that are hand-harvested from an organic farm in South Australia. This new four-item line includes a facial serum, eye cream, night lotion, and refining treatment. I tried the serum, and am looking forward to testing the full line.
• bareMinerals 100% Natural Lipgloss. Pretty colors, nice shimmer, and a thick-but-not-too-gloopy formula made from natural oils, Brazilian Cupuacu butter, flower extracts and mineral colorants. This item launches in May... stay tuned for more details.
• Tarte Full Blossom Natural Swirl Cheek Stain. Tarte is another company I love, even more so now that it has revamped its product line to remove yucky ingredients like parabens and phthalates. I love my Cheek Stain in Blushing Bride, but this new version, with two shades swirled together, is too pretty to pass up.
• Pangea Organics Facial Scrub. This gentle scrub is made with Egyptian geranium, adzuki beans and cranberry, as well as organic shea butter, sweet almond oil, and organic evening primrose oil. It smells good, and it's scrubby enough without being too rough on the skin. As an added bonus, the box it comes in can be soaked in water and then planted. The result: A sweet basil plant. How cool is that?

Welcome to Pretty Natural

I've been a beauty junkie for about as long as I can remember. As a kid, I loved applying makeup to my Barbie Styling Head, playing with my mom's Mary Kay makeup kit, and dog-earring the pages of the Avon catalogs that a family friend would leave at our house. 

In 6th grade my mom finally allowed me to wear blush, and I've been experimenting (sometimes disastrously—blue eye shadow, I'm talking about you!) ever since. But my tastes have changed since the days of Love's Baby Soft, Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, and Maybelline Kissing Potion. Now, I'm interested in beauty products and services with an eco element—things that are both skin- and Earth-friendly.

I'm not alone: In December The NPD Group, Inc. released a report, Natural-Organic Trends in Beauty 2008, that showed two out of three beauty product users were interested in some form of eco-beauty products. And while interest is higher than actual usage, it certainly seems like beauty companies are paying attention to those results. From the cosmetics aisles at Target to the beauty counters at Macy's, there are more natural, organic and eco-friendly items to choose from than ever these days. 

Pretty Natural is all about those products. It's my attempt to find the newest and best (at least by my definition) in "green" beauty, and share those findings.