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When it comes to makeup, I am a hoarder. My makeup bag is bulging to the seams. Of what you may ask and indeed that is the question I asked myself the other day. The answer is below:

• 1 old compact with a scrap of makeup left and 1 newish one
• 3 grey eyeliner pencils (clearly my favourite colour!)
• 2 mascaras – one almost empty and out of date
• 3 shades of red lipstick, one pink and one plum
• 2 x eyeshadows, one that I can’t open despite my best efforts but that I continue to hope that one day I will be able to…

The contents of my makeup bag this morning.

So it’s confirmed, I am a hoarder.  In all honesty, I only use a couple of these items on a daily basis but still feel the need to cart the rest around. Apparently however, I am not alone. A British study of 1000 women found that 2/3rds of participants are reluctant to throw out makeup that is past its prime.  So what’s the problem? The study’s author says that while “beauty is timeless, our makeup is not”.

Certain types of makeup are more susceptible to bacterial infection or mould growth including liquid foundation, concealers and the worst is mascara. So tips for keeping your make up fresh and up to date:

• If your makeup is past its used by date, toss it particularly if it contains water as an ingredient. Water can be a breeding ground for bacteria.
• If you have an eye infection or cold sore avoid wearing makeup on the affected area. If you do wear it consider changing your mascara, lipstick and lipgloss as they may continue to carry the microorganisms that caused the initial infection.
• Don’t share mascara – eyes are very sensitive and cross contamination may occur.
• If the product smells or looks bad, throw it out. Best not to take the risk.
• If you are in your 30′s and were wearing the same makeup at highschool, it’s time for a change!

There are exceptions to these guidelines. Dry powdered products such as mineral make up generally don’t go off and they don’t contain water so not prone to microbial overgrowth.

So if like me, you are a hoarder, check out your make up bag and see if you have any products that are way overdue being replaced. And if you dare, tell us what gems you find!

• Firstly, application technique is important when it comes to mineral make up. Mineral makeup that contains pure minerals doesn’t need to be buffed into the skin. Only those that contain bismuth oxychloride (a potentially irritating ingredient that should be avoided) require buffing to bring up the shine in the individual particles. Pure and pressed mineral powders only need to be brushed on. For more application techniques, view this video or read more here.
• Secondly, skin hydration is essential. Dry skin cannot be camouflaged by mineral powder so it is absolutely necessary to apply a good moisturiser prior to application.
• Thirdly, you can’t test mineral makeup on the back of your hand. You need to try it on your face. This is important so you see the cover it provides as well as colour matching to the underlying skin tone of the face (not the hand).
• Lastly, when it comes to mineral makeup, you get what you pay for! Cheaper brands tend to be bulked out with talc which doesn’t provide as good cover and is not ideal if you suffer from congestion or acne-prone skin. Look for a mineral foundation that contains no talc and no bismuth oxychloride.

Liquid Foundation

So for many mineral makeup is an ideal choice. However, there are some that still love liquid foundations and so for them this will be the only choice. While liquids don’t cover as well as mineral foundations, they do contain moisture, which may be better if you have dry or dehydrated skin. Liquid foundation also tends to give a dewy, glowing look rather than a matte appearance.

Do you stock organic makeup?
Well yes…and no. We only sell natural and organic skincare at Vitale and so “yes” is the simple answer, but I would like to clear up some confusion about the difference between organic and inorganic materials. Only living plant material can be classed as organic. Minerals by their very nature are inorganic materials. This doesn’t mean they contain any nasty chemicals or are petrochemical based, it means that the minerals in mineral makeup are natural, but not organic (i.e. not plant based).

To potentially confuse this issue further, mineral makeup may contain ingredients that are organic such as vitamin E or herbal extracts and so are labeled as containing organic ingredients but really the majority of the product is made up from inorganic minerals. This almost boarders on greenwashing for me but then I am probably just being pedantic!

When I buy a lovely new moisturizer, the first thing I do is get it home and take it out of the box and use some. The bottle goes onto my dresser and once I have reviewed the ingredients for the 3^rd or 4^th time (ingredients are my obsession and I get immense pleasure knowing what I am actually putting on my skin) the box goes in the recycling bin. I cannot bear to think how many boxes I have chucked in the recycling over the years and in my opinion there is too much packaging in the beauty industry. Apparently I am not alone in my opinion. Research conducted by Choice indicated that Beauty items are amongst the most frequently cited for excess packaging by consumers. What’s more most Australians don’t think enough is being done to get rid of unnecessary packaging.

PCR Aluminium & sustainable Bamboo

In defense of beauty packaging, in many cases, the actual product bottle is too small to list the ingredients and so they are listed on the outer packaging. Add to this that many of us that buy organic and natural skin care do not want home-made looking bottles on our shelves, we want products that are good for us, good for the planet and that look good (Green Glamour!). Fortunately, given the growing eco consciousness, the beauty industry is responding with post-consumer recycled packaging, new packaging methods and materials such as bamboo products, bio plastics and use of soy ink instead of traditional petrochemical based products.

Devita's new PCR packaging

Post-consumer recycled content (PCR) is basically any material previously used by a consumer and generally includes paper, plastic, steel and rubber. A prime example of this is Eco Tools brushes which use PCR aluminium for the ferrule (the bit that joins the handle to the bristles) on their brushes. Eco Tools also use fast growing bamboo for the brush handles, replacing less sustainable slow growing timber or plastic. A new company on the market, Pure & Green Organics set out with the aim to not only produce an ACO certified organic range but also to minimise any environmental impact from the product packaging and as such was the first company in the world to use 100% PCR cardboard caps on their products. In a recent change to their product packaging, Devita have changed the exterior packaging to 100% PCR cardboard with recyclable glass bottles replacing plastic product packaging.

BIOpack - made from PLA resin

Bioplastics are a growing market in the packaging and not just for beauty products. Organic materials such corn or sugar resins are being used as an alternative to petrochemical based plastics. Apart from not requiring non-reusable materials, plant resins require 33% less fossil fuel resources and emit 42% less greenhouse gases than bottles made from PET (petrochemical plastic) 1. Pure & Green Organics use BIOpack bottles from renewable plant sugar resources (PLA – short for Polylactic Acid). PLA is compostable and biodegradable in industrial composting conditions, but it will not degrade or disintegrate on shelves.

I would love to hear your thoughts on product packaging and any stories you have about the worst offenders, be they beauty products or others. Noodle packages come to mind. I buy noodles for my dogs sometimes and they are individually wrapped noodle blocks and then have an additional layer of plastic around the whole lot. What a waste! And individually wrapped tea bags, in cardboard boxes with more plastic on the outside! Enough – let’s hear from you!

Reference:

1.  Natureworks LCA Consultants Report

Badger Sleep Balm is a delicious remedy for nighttime blues and a perfect accompaniment for late night tossing & turning. I use it as a lip balm which means I then breath in the essential oils and drop off to sleep – having said that I can sleep through a rock concert so no great challenge for me however, many of our Vitale customers have reported back that this stuff really works. It is particularly good for kids and babies. This is such a simple yet effective remedy and this vblog shows how it is made – elegant simplicity!

Check out this product or all Badger Balms

Give the milk a break and improve your breakouts

For a long time experts stated that there was no correlation between diet and acne however more and more research is popping up discounting this assumption. In this blog I look at the association between dairy, in particular milk and the incidence of acne.

The studies showing a correlation between milk consumption and acne cross a wide age group, from teenage boys and girls to adult women and while the dairy industry claim skewed data there is enough evidence to show a definite link.

Firstly though I want to be clear about what the research does and doesn’t show; milk consumption alone doesn’t cause acne but it seems that those that drink milk develop more severe acne than non-milk drinkers. Furthermore, the more milk consumed, the worse the acne tended to be.

While the link between the severity of acne and milk is strongest, other dairy products have shown similar effects including cottage cheese, chocolate milk and skim milk. From personal experience one of the worst offenders apart from milk is yoghurt. I had to cut out dairy completely for 3 months and until my breakouts cleared up completely, then I was able to reintroduce some dairy but only butter, occasionally hard cheese such as parmesan and very occasionally some icecream (just because I find it hard to resist). If I start back on dairy regularly, my system doesn’t like it and I start to break out.

One of the interesting things that emerged from the research is that skim milk induced more breakouts than whole fat milk indicating that fat is not the issue. Other research has shown that while high saturated and animal fat foods aren’t ideal from a health perspective, they do not necessary cause or worsen acne. High sugar foods on the other hand are another story completely and do show a strong correlation with breakouts.

So if not the fat, what is the culprit? While not conclusively proved, the hormones in milk may well be the driver. Milk contains androgen hormones, the most notably testosterone. The body converts some testosterone to di-hydrotestosterone (DHT) which has a simulating effect on the skin’s sebaceous glands promoting the production of sebum. The result is oilier skin, more pore congestion and therefore more pimples. The more milk consumed, the more hormones, which may explain the proportional effect of higher milk consumption and more severe acne. Genetics also play a role according to researchers with people who are genetically predisposed to acne breakouts having a stronger reaction to the hormones in milk.

It is common practice with the commercial production of milk for dairy farmers to give cows additional hormones as this stimulates a higher milk yield. One of the side effects of this is milk with a high IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor-1) concentration and again the more consumed, the higher the blood concentration of IGF-1 found. Like DHT, IGF-1 drives sebum production which can trigger acne breakouts.

The other issue that may be linked to dairy, keep in mind there is no specific research about this, is the protein in dairy. Skim milk is believed to be worse than full cream milk due to the whey protein which is added to give a creamier taste. There are many different proteins in milk and IGF-1 is only one that may cause issues. If your digestive system is not performing as optimally as it could, the proteins in milk may eventually lead to internal inflammation of the gut and poor detoxification of waste. There is a strong link between poor digestive detoxification and acne. I will address this topic in more depth in another blog very soon.

So while milk and dairy are not a direct cause of acne, cutting it out of your diet can help to reduce acne severity. Reducing dairy may help but giving your body a rest from it all together is going to get a better initial result. One way to test your response to dairy is to start with 3 weeks complete removal and monitor your skin’s response. Look for a decrease in overall breakouts and well as less redness (inflammation). If you find that it doesn’t seem to make a difference at all reintroduce dairy slowly, again still monitoring the response to see if there are any worsening effects. If it does make a difference, it is best to stay off or only have limited quantities (and can I just say, a latte a day is a lot, not a little bit of milk).

A note of caution, often when people give up cow’s milk, they move over to soy milk. While this may seem like a sensible substitute, soy contains phytoestrogens, which may also be problematic for acne sufferers. It is best just to see how you go without cow’s milk first before using a dairy substitute.

This is the first in a series of blogs I am going to do about acne, its underlying causes and triggers. Please let me know if there are any topics in particular you would like me to cover.

Black Nails - sexy or grotty?

Goth-like, dark & brooding or plain sexy? Love it or hate it, black nail polish is here to stay. Come the onset of cooler months and darker nail colours emerge as a season trend. Personally I struggle with liking this trend. So by way of challenging myself and maybe celebrating winter, I have taken on the darker shade of nail and while I may not quite go the full black, I am going to go a dark plum or purple. Gosh – if I mix this with green eyeshadow threat from my last blog I will look just a treat!

Winners of the 2010 Natural Health & Beauty Awards for “best nail lacquer”, Zoya have some dramatic darker shades – from deep black, to midnight blue to dark magentas. Choose your darker shade of nail:

Raven

Raven can be best described as: Intense satiny black with a very subtle silver shimmer.

Zoya Nail Polish - Mikka

Mikka can be best described as: Wintery deep wine purple with very fine, frosty silver shimmer.The silver shimmer lightens and adds interest to the vampy nail trend.

Indigo

Indigo can be best described as: A dark indigo blue shimmer with a pinch of holographic microglitter.

Casey

Casey can be best described as: Dark, rich, saturated blackened red-purple creme. Impossibly sexy and dramatic to vamp up your look.

When running with this trend, just remember darker nail shades, particularly black must be applied carefully. They are unforgiving and can look tacky if chipped or sloppily applied. Love it or hate it, will you wear black nail polish this season?

On another nail polish related note, while surfing Yotube I came across this video about the toxic ingredients in regular nail polishes. Fortunately Zoya contains NONE of these ingredients which is why we chose this brand. Yay to Zoya!

While I love eye make up, my own style is quite boring and generally consists of grey eyeliner and mascara. Occasionally I glam up and apply some grey blue eyeshadow (Dream is my favorite) or even a dusky pink (I love Vintage) but it is rare. And so in the spirit of all things adventurous I started looking around for eye makeup ideas and came across some great video blogs from EcoTools. I have listed the links below and a bit of detail about each one. If you do try out any of these shades or styles, please let me know…and I will share my experiences next month. In the meantime if you see me in store with bright green eyeshadow, I am not trying to emulate Kermit the Frog…I am just trying something new!

• How to do Cat Eyes – this is such a simple but sassy look. To do easily use the Bamboo Angled Eyeliner Brush and Bamboo Eyeshading Brush. The eye colours you can use are:
  • Charm as a base colour with Lust or Serene as highlighting colours.
  • Or Its a Girl with black liquid eyeliner

• How to create a Smokey Eye – this is the ultimate in sultry eye makeup. Although this eye is often created using quite dark shades (black & grey) you can also adapt it using dark and light blue, dark brown and copper or even brown purple shades with antique pink. Be creative with this technique. I have previously done a video using Dream and Flirt from Minerelle but also recommend Ere Perez Smokey Eye Duo. For a different take, celebrity makeup artist Meredith Baraf talks through her technique using brown tones. Naturally she uses EcoTools brushes which are great from an eco-perspective – they are vegan, made from recycled materials and fast growing bamboo which has a low impact on the environment.

I will bring you more videos from our brands over the next few months as they bring new perspectives and tips. If you have any eye makeup application tips you would like to share please do so. I would love to read about them…and then try them out. And while I think green eyeshadow can look great…on me it looks awful so I take back my Kermit the Frog quip!