What's in My Make-Up? Skin Care Regimen

Bright purple text reading "What's in my make-up" over an image of assorted make-up and a black textured case with metal lining.


    So I saw some videos that gave information about The United States and make up.  Maybe you have seen the videos too.  If you haven’t here is one of them.

From AJ+


    That really makes me ask what is in the makeup I use?

    There are a lot of products for me to look through and luckily they give some useful links to do some of the research on products.

    I decided that for the sake of not overwhelming myself I would just look at a few of the products I use at a time.  Starting with the ones that need to be replaced the soonest and the ones I use most often.

    First I looked at my skin care regimen.  I had been really happy with the products I was using from Queen Helene.  My skin can be really sensitive.  A lot of lotions just burn when I put them on.  I don’t have as much trouble with facial cleaners, but it is still pretty close to being hit and miss.  Queen Helene’s Refreshing Mint Julep Natural Facial Scrub felt good and smelt good.  And I really liked that they used walnut shell instead of microbeads.

Queen Helene’s Refreshing Mint Julep Natural Facial Scrub

    So this was the first product I looked up on both Good Guide and EWG’s Skin Deep.  On Good Guide it only gets a score of 3.4 out of 10.  That is pretty low.  On EWG’s Skin Deep it got scored as 5 or moderate hazard.(the higher the number the higher the concern on this one)  The ingredient other than fragrances(see the video above about this one) that was the highest concern was Propyl Paraben.

"Concern that chronic exposure to paraben compounds with estrogenic activity may contribute to breast cancer."

    Even if that is a may and not a will, breast cancer runs in my family and that is not a risk I can take.

    This product has been booted from the bathroom.

    I took a look at the other products I used from them and though neither of them are as alarming as the first was for me I still decided to discontinue them.

An image of the two below mentioned produacts Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque, Mint Julep & Queen Helene Marula Face and Body Creme.  The body cream ont he bottom is much larger and has a brown lid and fruit on the label.  The masque is smaller and sitting on top of the other with a blue and green label.

Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque, Mint Julep

    While this one didn’t include Propyl Paraben it did include skin irritants.  I had originally gotten it to go with the scrub.  So I tossed it out.

Queen Helene Marula Face and Body Creme 

    This product was not listed on either of the two sites, so I tried looking up the individual ingredients.  That took some time and I will spare you the full list. (Unless you are actually interested.  Then just let me know and I can send it to you.)  Many of the ingredients were fairly low concerns.  Two that were more concerning were
    Benzyl Benzoate
    Benzyl Salicylate
    Both of them are marked for concerns of endocrine disruption.  That and the fact that this lotion still burned on my skin some of the time and it gets the boot too.

    So what should I use for my skin care?  I really am not sure and I need to do some more research.  If I find something I’ll let you know.

 Tata,
Lilian A. Brennan

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