Organic vs Traditional Beauty Products

Some women prefer to use organic beauty products for a variety of reasons: to avoid health hazards other beauty products pose, to eliminate allergic reactions to chemically based make-up, because there is no testing of the product on animals, because they want to be environmentally responsible in their product and/or its packaging. No matter what the reason, organic beauty products have gained in notoriety and popularity in the past several years.

Some beauty products are made using chemicals that irritate the skin or can put the user at risk for various cancers. Even though the ingredients are listed on the package, you need a degree in chemistry to understand what is listed. Some of these chemicals can cause an allergic reaction, ranging from a rash to a more severe form, such as swelling of the skin surrounding the area where the beauty product was applied.

Organic beauty products use natural ingredients that originate from plants and herbs or a combination of both. Most are medicinal ingredients that possess a healing quality, such as aloe that promotes healing of the skin. Some of the ingredients have been used for generations and just finally recently found themselves packaged into a formal product. Some organic beauty product companies scoure the world looking for “old world” remedies that they can develop into new products. The ingredient aloe is an example of one such ingredient.

Organic beauty products are made from processed herbs or plant parts, such as leaves, stock or flowers. The plant parts are pressed or “cooked” and the extract is used as an ingredient of the final product. Sometimes a number of these extracts are combined into a product in order to capitalize on the desired qualities of the included products. For example, a manufacturer may combine an ingredient that firms the skin with an ingredient that moisturizes the skin in order to give the skin a more youthful appearance.

For the most part, organic beauty products are not tested on animals before going to market. Since organic beauty products are touted as being natural, there really is no reason for any testing of the product on animals since the ingredients used are derived from plants and so are harmless. Chemically based beauty products are tested on animals first before going to market in order to ensure that the chemicals will not harm humans in their usage in the short-term or long-term.

Some chemically based beauty products contain chemicals that can cause an allergic reaction in some users. Though the allergic reaction can be mild, such as a skin rash, there is the possibility that the allergic reaction can begin as a mild allergic reaction and then develop into a more severe one or just start as a severe reaction to begin with. Severe reactions can include shortness of breath, difficulty in swallowing or even cessation of breathing.

Companies manufacturing organic beauty products are usually also environmentally conscientious in the manufacturing and the packaging of their products. They ensure that the processing and the waste produced from this processing is not detrimental to the environment. They also use “green” packaging, usually cardboard rather than plastic, so that the packaging will decay in a landfill or can be recycled.