The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances (25 page)

If you have noticed a few breakouts, use olive oil or glycerin soap followed by liquid cleanser formulated with lavender, tea tree, geranium, or chamomile oil. In the morning, use a foaming cleanser with essential oils or baby soap formulated with calendula, chamomile, lavender, or geranium plant extracts.

If your skin feels dry, use oil-based balms and milks for double-cleansing or pure plant oils (avocado, grape seed, virgin olive oils) for a thorough massage before a second cleanse. For an additional skin cell removal use mild abrasives such as jojoba granules, finely grated seaweed, or oatmeal.

Sensitive skin needs an extremely gentle approach: you don’t want to go to bed in your makeup, but you still hate all that itchiness and rashes. This is when baby body washes and baths come in handy. Use organic baby oil as a first step of your double-cleansing ritual and follow it with an organic baby body wash. In the morning, freshen up with a drop of foaming organic baby wash. There is no need to excruciate your skin in the morning.

Virtually all naturally based skin cleansers on the market work quite well, depending on your skin’s condition, but don’t expect expensive products to be more effective than those bought at the local health food store. What’s most important is to find green products that you enjoy using and that suit your skin’s current needs.

The Green Product Guide: Cleansers

No matter how exciting the product looks and how green the label reads, choose products that are packed in pump bottles or at least in bottles
with a narrow spout. Even the best formulation will quickly go rancid if packed in a jar that leaves the product exposed to less-than-clean fingers, humidity, and the warmth of your bathroom. The following are my recommended cleansing products, rated from one to three leaves, with three being my favorite.

Cleansing Oils

L’Occitane Apple Almond Cleansing Oil:
This lightweight blend of sweet almond and sunflower oils, as well as vitamin E, rosemary, and apple fruit extracts, comes in a convenient pump bottle. It washes off easily thanks to a few safe synthetic emollients.

Trevarno Lavender & Geranium Cleansing Oil:
This rich, emollient, organic cleansing oil leaves just enough oily trace to double as a moisturizer for late nights when all you can do is take off makeup. The wide-necked bottle makes it hard to pour an exact amount of cleanser, so expect some oily mess.

Laventine Olive Forte Water-Soluble Facial Cleansing Oil:
Rich and satiny, this organic olive oil blend in a handy pump bottle washes clean without leaving greasy residue.

Bar Soaps

DHC Mild Soap:
This transparent glycerin soap is enriched with olive oil extract and honey, so it’s nondrying yet not pore-clogging. It’s fragrance-free and preservative-free.

Weleda Calendula Baby Soap:
This is a classic baby product formulated with saponified coconut and olive oils, as well as chamomile, rice, and calendula extracts. Fragranced with essential oils, but the scent is very natural and not strong at all.

Dr. Bronner’s Organic Bar Soap:
The range boasts dozens of fragrances, including classics such as lavender, rose, and tea tree oil, but the unscented Baby Mild version has just enough plant scent to entertain the senses. This olive and coconut-based moisturizing cult soap is enriched with vitamin E, plant glycerin, and jojoba oil.

Foaming Cleansers

Desert Essence Thoroughly Clean Face Wash with Organic Tea Tree Oil and Awapuhi
is a liquid castile (olive oil) soap enriched with ginger, tea tree oil, bladder wrack, and chamomile extracts. This gel cleanser contains a tiny amount of peppermint oil, which doesn’t seem to increase its overall irritation potential.

REN Mayblossom and Blue Cypress FacialWash:
This gentle foaming cleanser is recommended for oily and sensitive skins, but I found it gentle enough for daily use on my normal skin thanks to sugar-based foaming agents, soothing extracts of lavender, mild exfoliating salicylic acid from willow bark, and amino acids from oat. However, the fragrance may be too strong for sensitive noses.

Juice Beauty Cleansing Gel:
This is a soothing, therapeutic blend of plant extracts and certified organic juices, including sweet cherry, grape, and aloe, among others. It is very gentle and not too foaming, leaving behind a subtle herbal scent. It may not be suitable for irritated or damaged skin because of the high content of lemon juice and citrus oils.

Suki Lemongrass Cleanser
is a gently foaming, creamy cleanser that uses fruit acids and sugar to exfoliate the skin with zero irritation. Formulated with organic sugar and rice flour in a handmade olive soap base, this cream cleanses thoroughly and is suitable for all skin conditions and all seasons. The fresh scent of lemongrass adds a finishing touch to this truly divine experience!