Why are natural cosmetics better than conventional ones?
Recently, the market of natural cosmetics has been growing quickly. This is closely related to consumers wishing to make informed choices in their food and lifestyle, and taking greater care of their health, but also, no doubt, it is something of a trend. Luckily this trend is a positive phenomenon bringing many benefits to modern people.
So what exactly is a natural cosmetic?
So far, there has been no legal act precisely defining what a natural cosmetic is, but there are European companies certifying natural and ecological cosmetics, such as Ecocert, BDIH, Soil Association, Natrue, and, uniting them all, Cosmos (Cosmetic Organic Standard).
According to the standards set by those companies, a natural cosmetic is a product containing at least 95% of ingredients of natural origin, manufactured using processes that are physical (pressing, extraction, filtration, distillation, drying etc.), microbiological, or enzymatic. Synthetic ingredients are allowed, provided they are justified and have no natural counterpart.
Is a natural cosmetic better than a conventional one? It definitely is!
First of all, natural raw materials used in natural cosmetics, most commonly vegetable oils, are structurally similar to the lipids in our skin, allowing it to use them more effectively. All these raw materials are made of different chemical compounds, mixed in proportions that are not always possible to reproduce in a lab. It is these unique proportions that intensify each other, strengthening the overall mixture (synergism).