All my life the media has bombarded me with commercials and advertisements of beauty products that I apparently needed, not to mention my mum is a beautician and obsessed with trying to stay young and beautiful, from a very young age she tried to put make up on me and sent me to primary school with lipstick and blusher on my face.
As a tom boy I had a natural aversion to makeup and hated every minute of my mum smothering her chemical concoctions on me. However somewhere down the line when I hit puberty I started to gravitate towards make up thinking it would make me prettier or fit in more easily. I started to view myself as imperfect and that make up would hide tho imperfections.
I spent years and lots of money trying to find the best foundation for my oily/dry skin, little did I realize that the foundation was making my pimples worse as well as the natural balance of my skin being thrown off.
The skin is the largest organ in the body and its made to protect us by keeping our internal organs and fluids in place. At the same time it also does a good job absorbing whatever is put on it.
"The ease at which substances are absorbed into our skin depends on a number of factors, including the structure and size of the chemical applied to the skin. While a lot of chemicals are simply too big to be absorbed by the skin, others are just small enough. Some are even designed to penetrate the skin quickly and easily, like nanoparticles and “penetration enhancers” found in many lotions and sunscreens.
Skin care and cosmetic products can also be ingested. For years, studies have been finding heavy metals, like lead, in lipsticks and other lip products. People who reapply lip products several times a day can ingest a significant amount of these ingredients, even surpassing the daily recommended exposure to some heavy metals."
Find out more about how chemicals enter the through the skin here:
When I started incoperating more holistic and healthy practices in my life like yoga and plant based eating, I started to feel more self aware and the information I already knew about how toxic make up is really started to effect me. I can't pin point the actual day I made the decision to no longer where make up, I kinda just stopped and never looked back. On average I would spend about 15 minutes applying make up everyday, which works out at 91 hours a year, in a life time you would spend 1 year of your life applying make up. (not to mention the time taken to take off the make up!)
I also feel that now I don't wear make up my skin is much healthier and is not ageing as fast. I also use natural oil to moisturize my skin which I was so scared to do when I was younger as I believed oil would make my skin much more oily and pimply, yes oil can clog up pores however natural oils like castor oil are actually anti bacterial and can fight acne.
You can find out more about my minimal natural skin and hair routine in this video:
Let me know in the comments below about your relationship with makeup:
