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A wide assortment of beauty products fill an entire drawer in my bathroom. I’m always on the lookout for new, safe, non-toxic beauty products. I was first introduced to Beautycounter [2]at Shiftcon [3] two years ago. After trying out a few of their products I was intrigued. The Every Day AM Hydrating Cream was my first addiction. Over the past two years I’ve spent some time getting to know this company and the deeper I dig the more I like what I’m uncovering. I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll be hearing a lot more about Beautycounter [4] in the near future.
Putting the Truth Back in Beauty
Beautycounter [2] stands out from other beauty product companies. They are on a mission to get safe beauty products into the hands of everyone. They have taken the initiative to ban more than 1,500 ingredients from their own personal care products. Beautycounter is all about transparency (ingredients are fully disclosed in all products). Not only is this company selling personal care products, but they are also a social-mission company, providing safe products and working to change the broken system [5] that allows harmful ingredients in the products we use every single day.
An interview with Linsday Dahl, Director of Policy and Partnerships at Beautycounter.
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I’ve worked closely with Lindsay Dahl [7] for many years. I first met Lindsay when she was the Deputy Director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. [8] Now she works with Beautycounter [2] as their Director of Policy and Partnerships. She also the founder of the widely read blog, LindsayDahl.com [7]. Recently I had a chance to catch up with Lindsay to ask her about Beautycounter.
What makes Beautycounter stand out from other beauty companies?
A lot. Beautycounter is a skin care and cosmetic brand that is dedicated to brining safe, high-performing products to market. We also bring radical transparency to an industry that was built on secrets. We tell you everything about our formulations, ingredient screening and sourcing even when the answers aren’t perfect. We have an industry-changing Ingredient Selection Process, which starts with a list of 1,500 ingredients we will never use and goes on to screen each ingredient for safety before it’s used in a product. And we are proud to lead the industry by screening every batch of color cosmetics for heavy metals like lead and cadmium before they come to market.
How is Beautycounter hoping to impact the beauty industry (through regulation or any other means of advocacy)?
[9]When we talk about “getting safe products into the hands of everyone”, we don’t just mean Beautycounter products; we want to transform an industry and make products safer for everyone. Our company is dedicated to moving a market away from harmful ingredients and we’re leading by example with our formulations. But what really stands us apart is our outspoken advocacy for stronger state and federal laws on cosmetics. We are unafraid to ask Congress to regulate our own industry.
We recently worked with team at the Oregon Environmental Council and played a small role in passing one of the strongest consumer safety laws in the country, the Toxic Free Kids Act. The bill requires manufacturers of children’s products to disclose and eventually eliminate 66 of the most toxic chemicals. In November of last year Beautycounter headed back to Washington D.C [10]. to ask Congress to prioritize safe cosmetics legislation.
What are the top three things consumers should look for when buying safer beauty products?
- Look for companies who are dedicated to telling you everything about what’s in their product. With unregulated marketing terms like “natural” “preservative-free” and “botanical”, sometimes you need to look up ingredients on your own and you can only do that homework if a company tells you what’s in their products. (I recommend the Skin Deep database to learn how ingredients rank).
- Avoid products with generic ingredients like “fragrance” “musk” or “parfum”. This can be code for known allergens and ingredients that disrupt the hormone system.
- Buy color cosmetics like lipstick, blush and bronzers from a company you trust. Most aren’t screening these products for dangerous heavy metals like lead, cadmium and arsenic. At Beautycoutner, we do the homework for you.
Share with us your favorite Beautycounter products
Where do I start? I love our Countertime Restorative Night Cream [11], it helps even my skin tone from years of sun damage. Our Eye Perfector [12] is great at reducing dark circles and fine lines under my eyes. I wear our Dew Skin Tinted Moisturizer with SPF 20 [13] everyday to give a little coverage and I’m in love with our newer Cream Blush in Caramel [14], which gives a natural pink cheek and can double as a lipstick or eye shadow. And I love massaging our best-selling Lustro Face Oil #3 [15] into my face after a shower or before bedtime.
Thanks to Lindsay for this eyeopening interview!
In case you were wondering, here are a few of my favorite Beautycounter products:
- Every day Hydrating AM Cream
- Color Sweep Blush Duo [16] (perfect for lighter, winter skin tones)
- Touchup Skin Concealer Pen [17] ( I love this!)
- Beautycounter Makeup Pouch (Great for holding makeup or hair accessories)
Have you tried Beautycounter? What’s your favorite product?
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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something using an affiliate link they’ll kick me a couple of bucks to offset the cost of the coffee I drank while writing this post. So thanks.