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Keeping your hair young and vibrant

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adolescent girlsOrganic, natural hairdressing is the new way to keep your hair beautiful and natural. Using hair dyes and treatments full of chemicals can lead to damaged wiry hair that no longer looks beautiful as women age. In addition, hair dyes have been cited as a cancer risk with some research showing a slight increase to those exposed to to them, particularly in hairdressers. This is because the chemicals can go through the pores in the scalp and into the bloodstream, and of course they may cause allergic reactions.

So what can you do? Increasingly there are hairdressers that use natural plant-based colour for the hair and other products such as shampoo and conditioner. Some hairdresser chains market themselves as using plant-based products, but actually include ammonia to enable the colour to fix.

Around the country a few organic natural hairdressers have sprung up who do use natural organic herbs, roots and flowers. Popular ingredients are henna, walnut, chamomile, turmeric, hibiscus, rhubarb and indigo.

GA Salons are in (London) Notting Hill, Wimbledon, London Bridge and Chelsea: https://gennarodellaquila.co.uk/

The Organic Hairdresser is in Kingston, Surrey: http://kingstonnaturalhealth.com/organic-hairdresser/

Skin glowing naturally

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Every day your bodies face more and more man-made chemicals and they have been fighting back. Eczema, asthma, and LoveLula picallergies are three of the most obvious complaints that can be linked to harsh chemicals in our environment. Chemicals build up in the body and some are known as endocrine disrupters, because they upset our hormones.
According to WEN (The Women’s Environmental Network).

• Around 93% of British women use cosmetics.
• UK consumers spend £5bn a year on cosmetics.
• 81% of women in the UK use lipstick (regular users consume nearly 2lb of it over their lifetime).

Many modern cosmetics are made up of industrially produced synthetic chemicals. The cumulative use of such ingredients in our bodies can trigger allergic reactions and chemical sensitivity. Some of these chemicals are suspected of being hormone disrupters, affecting fertility, puberty and even causing birth defects.
Quite apart from making women look young, they may contain ingredients that contribute to the effects of ageing.
In a random check, WEN found that preservatives were suspected of mimicking the female hormone.  And some 57% of products contained oestrogen– which over time can lead to an increased risk of breast cancer.
So how do you keep your skin looking young and glowing without such risks?  Natural lotions and creams are often more hydrating than creams that use chemicals, because they contain ingredients like: aloe vera, jojoba, calendula, essential oils, and Vitamin E. Here are some worth trying.

Sasy ‘n Savy spf 15 Skin Firming Cream saturated in organic ingredients and incredibly beneficial antioxidants, and enriched with Australia’s most natural and organic plants, herbs and oils. These incude the richest vitamin C fruit in the world – the Kakadu Plum, combined with Tocopheryl Acetate and Wild Rosella Extract. It is  high in vitamins, antioxidants and nutrients, all of which have shown to not only hydrate and refresh skin, but also protect it from free radicals, sunlight exposure and symptoms of early stages of ageing.

Sasy n Savy’s SPF15 Skin Firming Crème (15 ml), £33:  www.sasynsavy.co.uk.

SkinGenius Moisturising Lotion for Teenage Skin. It might be billed for teenage skin, but adults love it too. There’s a fantastic fresh scent of citronella and the lotion helps the face to feel moist all day long.  It contains:

  • Hazelnut oil – astringent and good for combating pimples.
  • Macadamia Nut oil – anti-inflammatory which cools and soothes the skin.
  • Babassu Seed oil – high in antioxidant Vitamin E and lauric acid, which has antibacterial properties.
  • Brazil Nut – which contains antioxidants to protect skin, zinc which is anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial.

SkinGenius Moisturising Lotion , (100ml), £18.99. 

Twitter: @Skingenius_uk /  Instagram: skingeniusuk / Facebook: Skin Genius UK

 

Coconut oil. It’s a great moisturiser but it can be a bit greasy, so best to use it at night when you’re going to wash your hair the next morning. There’s no doubt about coconut oil’s ability to hydrate the face, keep it healthy with its antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. Coconut oil is not just the face – you can moisturise the whole body, including feet – as it also keeps away fungal infections.  See our competition to win a jar of Kirly-Sue Organic Coconut Oil. 

Also love: Lavera Moisturising Cream definitely can help your skin to look young and glowing. It just contains natural ingredients including organic jojoba and organic aloe vera. You can purchase Lavera products and a full range of natural products from: LOVE LULA:
LoveLula pic

Natural cosmetics

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LoveLula picWhen you put something on your face, you want to feel confident that it’s not going to cause harm and give you skin problems. However, harsh chemicals in cosmetics are causing a huge rise in skin allergies, as highlighted last year by the BBC programme Watchdog.

Other problems with cosmetics have been exposed too – tiny plastic microbeads are added to facial and body scrubs, toothpastes, and shower gels instead of natural alternatives. These microbeads are ending up in the seas and getting into the food chain through fish, so not only are they going on our skin, we’re eating them too.  To be fair after the Independent on Sunday highlighted this problem they have had assurances from leading companies including Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Boots, Marks & Spencer, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Reckitt Benckiser, Clarins, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Superdrug, that they will phase them out.

Dr Ian White, a leading dermatologist at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, was reported as saying that more and more of us are suffering from skin allergies, including eczema, and that two chemicals used in cosmetics and toiletries as preservatives are being linked to increased numbers of people suffering from eczema.  The chemicals are  methychloroisothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone (often referred to as MI).

The  answer is to go for genuinely natural skin care products, and that means reading labels very carefully or going to shops and websites who only sell certified natural skin care. To add to the problem many toiletries are labelled ‘organic’ when only 5 to 20 per cent of their ingredients are actually organic.  We recommend going to LoveLula who only sell truly natural cosmetics and make up.  Try Love Lula.

Kim Allan, director of Botanical Brands, a company that stocks only natural and organic skin care products, says, ‘The inclusion of plastic microbeads in skin care products is of real concern, not only to the environment but to our health as well.  Increased consumer awareness for the negatives surrounding the use of plastic microbeads is therefore extremely important.’

She recommends that people need to be educated in the health benefits of using natural ingredients as alternatives, such as ground apricot kernels or the natural exfoliating action of clays or honey.   ‘As well as being natural, safe and environmentally friendly, natural exfoliators are good for the skin and the health of our body too,’  Kim continues. ‘Our customers can be reassured that Botanical Brands only stocks natural and organic skin care products that do not contain plastic microbeads.’
For information about The Good Scrub Guide visit www.fauna-flora.org and to find out more about Botanical Brands Limited go to www.botanicalbrands.com.
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