“Free from un-necessary chemicals”  – that is what naturally-minded skin care companies say in support of  their “natural” claims. it’s not a very enlightening statement – “How many synthetic chemicals are there in the product?“ we may rightly ask, but I do like its honesty. These companies are basically telling us “we have tried hard to bring down the amounts of synthetic additives in our products and this is as far as we could go. The artificial additives that are still there are necessary.”

Which brings us to this question: Necessary for what? For the health of our skin? Well, no. Not at all. These additives are used to produce the oil and water emulsions we got used to buying as moisturisers. But they are not all motherhood and apple pie. Far from it. Read the rest of this entry »

Ranking skin care ingredients would be a close to impossible task, but if I tried really hard to do it, I reckon sea-buckhorn extract would be within my top five favourites. Not only do I add it liberally to moisturisers, I also keep some pure extract at hand in my kitchen to dab on rough skin patches after those little cooking accidents. And its healing power has not gone unnoticed: “My burn has gone! What was that you put on it earlier on?” Read the rest of this entry »