The Cost of Beauty

Winter is officially taking its toll on my skin. My hands are cracked. The skin on me feet is so dry it's actually itchy and my face is splotchy and tight. I paint such a beautiful picture of myself, yes?

Couple this with our upcoming travel plans, and I was in desperate need of some lightweight bottles of intense moisture. Shopping around at my local Aveda purveyor and then at Target, I was shocked by what I found. Reading labels on beauty products is worse than the ingredient list on a Totino's party pizza! So many words I didn't recognize, except of course, that every potion I picked up at Target included, "petroleum." When I read that I dropped the bottle like it had the plague!

At Aveda, the selection was somewhat better: The Hand Repair cream I ultimately purchased has no petroleum or parabens, which is a real score in the beauty world ... and I paid for it. $18 for 4 fl. oz.

Next up: Face Lotion. My typical Aveda creme comes in a glass bottle, which isn't good for traveling around the world. My requirements for this category included: Plastic bottle, ability to close the top and SPF. At Aveda that limited me to one option - Tourmaline Charged Protecting Lotion. While paraben was on the ingredient list (as the last item!) and it set me back a whopping $38 for 2.5 fl. oz. I went for it. The label says it "infuses skin with radiance"!

How do these items rank on EWG's Skin Deep report?
The tourmaline face lotion is a "yellow" 5. Not too toxic ... but not exactly "good" either.
I couldn't find a report on the Hand Relief lotion - but all the rest of the moisturizers rank from 3-5 ... not that bad, I guess, especially compared to the crap I was looking at at Target. Vaseline Intensive Care Aloe lotion ranks a "red" 8.

One winner that I will go back to Target for is the Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizer. It's a good everyday lotion (with a small flip top lid, great for travel) and it ranks a "green" 2 on the EWG scale!

Turns out you can find a good deal in non-toxic beauty out there!