8 Steps To A Cleaner Beauty Routine With Weleda's Jayn Sterland
A total, holistic approach to beauty and wellbeing, Weleda has led the way to cleaner beauty since 1921.Weleda has led the way in cleaner beauty since 1921. For us, it has always been far more than a mandate to ensure products are free-from all ‘nasties’ such as artificial additives or synthetic fragrances and preservatives, GMO ingredients, mineral oils, silicones and petroleum derivatives. It’s a total, holistic approach to beauty and wellbeing, understanding the connection between nature and human beings and taking the mind, body and spirit into consideration because beauty is more than skin deep.
“It’s important to show the true face of natural beauty and expose the ugly side of the industry’s false claims. I recently joined a panel at The Big Stink - an event hosted by the Women’s Environmental Network - to discuss what can be done about the harmful chemicals in everyday products. Work is being done, but we all need to play an active role in cleaning up the beauty industry.”
Clean beauty, or to be more accurate we should say ‘cleaner’ beauty, has primarily come about because of the ever-increasing rates of skin disorders we are facing, says Jayn. "Today in the UK, we have the highest incidence of eczema and dermatitis than we have ever had – affecting one in four babies and one in twenty adults.
"Cleaner beauty is a fundamental need for many people as they find that through pollution and stress their sensitised bodies are starting to react to the environment and everyday chemicals. This isn’t a fad. Until we change how we formulate our beauty products it’s here to stay. In an ideal world we would have a choice over what we put in our bodies. One way we can do this is to adopt a ‘cleaner’ beauty routine."
8 steps we can all follow to make our beauty routines cleaner:
1. Focus on everyday essentials
Cleaner beauty can easily be incorporated into daily life, by simply replacing each conventional cosmetic product with a natural and organic alternative when you run out. Start with the products you use most of – your toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant.
2. Read the labels
Familiarise yourself with the ingredient names that you want to avoid. Websites such as the Women’s Environmental Network and EWG’s Skin Deep are useful references. Or try apps such as SkinNinja or ThinkDirty to identify common culprits with a quick product check.
3. Start small
You could begin by simply deciding to avoid a couple of particular ingredients that you have concerns about. For instance, if you are pregnant, it may be that you are keen to reduce chemicals such as triclosan or parabens (EDCs).
4. Ditch the bubbles
At bath time, in the shower, even when cleaning your teeth. Detergents such as SLES are not skin-friendly and foaming agents do not make you any cleaner. They are known to cause skin irritation for many of us (research shows that one in two under 35-year olds have a skin sensitivity, ranging from mild dermatitis through to severe eczema). Weleda uses plant-based cleansers such as Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate, which is made from coconut oil and plant sugars, is biodegradable and creates a low foaming sudsy lather.
5. Wash less (no, really!)
Not something that you will find many beauty brands suggesting! But if we wash less, we use fewer products, which means we are less likely to strip our skin of its natural protection or alter its pH, which in turn means we don’t need to replenish it with moisturising products (we’ll waste less water too! Over the past thirty years we have tripled the amount of water that we each use daily from three gallons, to more than fifteen today.)
6. Simplify your beauty routine
7. Look for multi-taskers
This is so that you are exposed to fewer ingredients. Weleda’s Skin Food is my own ‘miracle cream’ – always in my pocket, bag, car and by my bedside. You can use it anywhere – for dry skin, hands, feet, face. I have even been known to use it on my hair! A classic product formulated in 1926, it uses just five simple natural ingredients and it works. It’s Victoria Beckham’s favourite Weleda product too so I’m in good company.
8. Get certified
Look out for a respected natural or organic certification standard’s logo on the pack. This means you can know at a glance that the product won’t contain potentially troublesome ingredients that you want to avoid. For example, every single Weleda cosmetic bears the NATRUE seal, meaning they are all verified cruelty-free.
Are Weleda cosmetics vegan-friendly?
Some of our products do contain animal products and their derivates like beeswax, lanolin, goat milk and lactose, as well as honey in the elixirs which is why we do not say we are a Vegan company. However, there are more than 60 products in Weleda's range that are suitable for vegans. Find out more information about Weleda Vegan products here.
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