High-end skincare companies promise their customers the moon and stars. Unfortunately, the products rarely deliver on the dream. But once the idea of poreless perfection has taken root in our imaginations, it is hard to shake. Which is why we used to feel a tad uneasy when we heard about skincare termed “organic” or “wildcrafted.” At best, we thought, its benefits will be negligible; at worst, we feared we’d end up like a hippy chick: all braids, Birkenstocks, and under-eye bags.
Fortunately, a handful of female skincare innovators have devised formulations as active as they are nontoxic, with ingredients that improve the appearance and texture of the skin. Perhaps because the founders are women, they are also finely attuned to what often pleases us the most: an irresistible scent, appealing packaging. In a nutshell, these skincare products are perfect choices for eco-sybarites with great expectations.
Tammy Fender
In Palm Beach, Florida, land of lifted ladies who lunch, the name Tammy Fender is uttered with the breathless reverence typically reserved for the Pope. The most pampered women of the world flock to her jewel box-like atelier for facials with the famed aesthetician and a chance to stock up on her custom, hand-made botanical potions.
Fender spent years training in aromatherapy laboratories and studying with holistic chemists and experts. Her luxurious formulations are made from the highest quality elements, including wild-crafted herbs, food supplements, and organic, therapeutic-grade essential oils. Fender draws her inspiration from the healing traditions around the world. She says her products are “highly vibrational” and “address the psychology of the cell” to improve the health and appearance of the skin.
While most skincare lines use chemical preservatives to ensure their products’ freshness, Fender uses a food-grade preservative system, which means that products are best used within 90 days of opening. Because her potion pots tend to be small, one tends to finish the product even sooner.
But Fender doesn’t scrimp on beauty benefits. Her Skin-Lightening System, a two-step treatment for hyper-pigmented, scarred, sun-damaged, and uneven skin tones, steers clear of toxic lighteners including hydroquinone. Instead Fender incorporates some of nature’s most potent botanical brighteners such as Indian Amla, which contains natural tannins and has is reputed to have the highest content of Vitamin C of any plant. Other active ingredients include ferulic acid, which neutralizes the free-radicals that cause oxidative damage to cell membranes; and licorice root, which contains pigment-inhibiting glabridin.
Another of Fender’s newer products, Intensive Repair Balm, was developed for post-operative surgery patients to repair tissue damage. But the product also has strong anti-aging properties. Best of all, it is pure enough to use on babies’ dry skin or treat a case of diaper rash. While the rich cream goes on thick, it disappears quickly into the skin, which drinks in the benefits of ingredients like sunflower seed oil, chamomile, and sea algae.
“Every formulation I create is anti-aging,” says Fender. “Using highly active, plant-based ingredients means taking the pure living energy of plants and feeding the skin, supplying it with all the vital nutrients it needs to thrive.”
Melissa Shabinsky & Alexandra Zanella
In an era where chic and simplicity seem to vie for dominance, Revolution Organics manages to achieve both. Owning a product from the line is like embarking on a long trip with a perfectly packed carry-on: instead of wasting your time on items you don’t really need, one or two great multi-taskers can carry the day with aplomb.
Revolution Organics was founded by Canadians Melissa Shabinsky and Alexandra Zanella, friends and beauty industry veterans. The company evolved out of their own distaste for the toxic ingredients so prevalent in skin care, and out of their shared desire for simplicity.
“When we decided to become partners, we realized we were both streamlining our lives, purging ‘items’ both physical and emotional that no longer added value,” says Zanella. “That was the ‘ah hah’ moment; we realized that there was a definite void in healthy fabulous beauty products in the marketplace that offer an eco-chic yet uncomplicated approach without compromising health.”
What is ‘revolutionary’ about the products is that they are all multi-tasking. Each product has multiple uses, and can be used on many parts of the body. “Our customers, like us, are concerned about reducing their consumption, even their beauty consumption.” says Shabinsky.
The products also get the green light from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, and also merit the USDA Certified Organic seal, which is reserved for products that are at least 95 percent certified organic and whose formulation has been approved by the USDA.
The All-Over Skin Creme contains 15 nourishing organic ingredients such as butters, oils, herbs and certified organic perfume. Appropriate for every part of the body including face, body, feet and hands, it promotes cell rejuvenation, and improves skin elasticity with a patented, organic three-tea compound that delivers powerful antioxidants to the skin.
“We created Revolution Organics out of our own personal desire to make healthy, responsible lifestyle choices, beauty products included,” says Zanella. “We are all busy women, and we all multitask on a daily basis. Our beauty products should do the same.”
Liz Earle
The tradition of botanical healing in England extends back centuries to Nicholas Culpeper, a 17th century botanist who spent the greater part of his life cataloguing medicinal herbs and eventually published his findings in his books, The English Physician and Complete Herbal. Fast forward to 1995, when British-born beauty editor Liz Earle had become renowned for her expertise in botanical ingredients and natural health. After she began using her special knowledge to create products for her own eczema-prone skin, she decided to make them available to the wider world.
“Despite having worked in the beauty industry for over a decade, I had yet to discover a high-quality natural skincare range, which was effective, yet gentle enough for me,” says Earle. “My search finally ended when I decided to create my own products packed full of high-quality, naturally active ingredients, including skin saving-herbs, botanicals and vitamins.”
Earle paired up Kim Buckland, a friend with experience in manufacturing and management, and the two launched Liz Earle range of Naturally Active Skincare. Determined to use the best possible natural ingredients, the pair formed partnerships with organic farms and sought out the expertise of ethnobotanists to help support sustainable agriculture. The company uses high-quality, safe ingredients, shying away from chemical sunscreens, mineral oils, petrochemicals and animal products. While some products contain small amounts of preservatives to prevent spoilage, many are preservative-free, including her Vital Oils, a set of three formulas featuring intoxicating scents that suit different moods.
Seventeen different Liz Earle products were recently featured in The Green Beauty Bible by Sarah Stacey and Jo Fairley. In fact, Liz Earle’s Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser was the highest scoring product in the whole book.
The company’s commitment to the environment has earned them an ISO14001 certification, the internationally recognized environmental management system. Earle’s ‘green team’ oversees every aspect of their business, from product packaging to the light bulbs they use.
They also support communities from which they source their ingredients. The Superskin Body Cream contains East African shea butter, which is sourced from a women’s collective group working in forests around Lira in northern Uganda. Other ingredients are harvested by community projects in Ghana and Malawi. “A third of the income earned by each of these communities goes back into local projects, benefiting everyone in the community, not just the collectors,” says Earle. “This means that everyone understands the benefits of native forest land and the importance of protecting it.”
Kimberly Parry
Kimberly Parry’s two daughters were both born with sensitive skin, and suffered terrible diaper rash as babies. She attempted to treat them with drugstore products labeled ‘safe and natural’, but nothing seemed to ease their pain. When she started investigating the labels further, she was appalled to learn that many of the ingredients she was using on their tiny bodies were in fact toxic.
An avid gardener and cook, she began learning more about the healing properties of botanical ingredients. Her kitchen became a laboratory for experimentation, and soon she came up with her first product: Bum Butter, which soothed her children’s skin more effectively than any store-bought product ever had.
Kimberly’s friends starting asking for the Bum Butter for their own kids. When they saw how well it worked, several asked if she would consider making a body oil suitable for both kids and adults; and thus her line was created.
“My first products came from requests from friends and family members,” says Parry, who lives in San Juan Capistrano, in southern California. “Today, products are also developed in response to requests from my growing customer base. I always start with the same first question: ‘What result does the product need to produce?’ Then I start formulating.”
Parry’s products are so simple and pure, they make intuitive sense. Soft, a hand and foot cream, contains shea butter, comfrey-infused olive oil, jojoba oil, coconut oil, unfiltered beeswax and organic essential oils. Like all her other products, it has a sweet yet fresh botanical scent; you can almost picture its creator in her kitchen, mixing up the ingredients by hand.
“My philosophy on skin care is to keep it simple, effective and safe,” says Parry. “Good skin care should begin at an early age and follow through to our golden years.”
Throughout the process of building her company, Parry’s husband has acted as her unofficial product tester. “I have rubbed, misted, and sprayed product on him for years,” she says. “He claims that the reason he keeps out of the gym and eats a hearty meal is so that he can test my Belly Butter product. I remind him that Belly Butter is a finished formula! Of course I have lots of tales about the body oil …but nothing that can go into print!”
Katherine Stewart has always been skeptical of the beauty industry’s claims that a skin cream can change your looks. But researching the article on Chemical Skincare definitely changed the look of her medicine cabinet. “I tossed 80 per cent of my skincare kit,” she says. “Now I stick with products that don’t contain harmful ingredients.” Her search for skin care brands that are both nontoxic and effective led her to write the Skincare Pioneers story. “On the organic skincare front, there’s a lot to get excited about these days, and the women I profiled are among those leading the way.”
By Katherine Stewart
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