Charlotte Rasmussen, beauty expert and author of From Earth, reveals her top tips on how to look after your skin and hair naturally
Charlotte Rasmussen, author of new book From Earth, is a big believer in clean beauty. She wants to encourage people to take their routine back to basics, removing all the chemicals found in general skincare products and using simple, pure and natural ingredients to treat skin, hair and self. Keen to know more? Here are her top tips for a more natural approach...
Know what you’re buying
My biggest concern with the skincare products found in shops is that it is often hard to understand the ingredients used in these products as they are made up of so many man-made chemicals and a very small amount of natural ingredients. In my opinion, it should be all natural ingredients and labels should be easy to read and understand. When thinking about this, I remember having this discussion with a friend: what is more important? Whether a product is organic, or whether it is natural? She was convinced that you should always go for a product marked organic first and that it was the most important thing. This begged me to ask the question, are people actually aware of what is inside the products they are buying, or do they just read the front label? Organic basically means that the main ingredients used in the products have not been sprayed with chemicals during the process. For example, if you buy an organic hemp oil it means that the plant has not been sprayed for pesticides while being grown, which is overall better for nature and our planet.
But, organic products can be made with chemicals that are not classified as organic, it is like the blacklist of ingredients which are not counted as a percentage of the whole because they may work as a preservative or other function that certifications don’t count in. So next time you go shopping, don’t just check the organic certification; check the ingredients, ensure that you understand what they are and what they are for. I would always stay clear of anything that contains SLS, PEG numbers or parabens because many have been linked to health issues.
A natural product, on the other hand, is made up of at least 95 percent natural ingredients. You will generally discover when reading the ingredient list that the product has been made from ingredients that you will most likely know. A natural product does not however mean that it is organic. It is like buying an apple from the supermarket; it may have been sprayed with chemicals, but it is still a natural product.
With all this in mind, the ultimate product for me personally is
