It has been slowly dawning on me that I need to make some serious changes in my beauty routines, but I have felt like a ship out of water trying to understand what is and what is not an okay ingredient in a beauty product. When it comes to food, I always read labels. It’s no problem to know if something is healthy or not, because I understand the ingredients list on foods. I don’t buy something with ingredients I wouldn’t be willing to use in my own cooking.
With skin care and beauty products, I don’t have the same knowledge about what the ingredients are as I do with foods. Most of the ingredients are not things I would normally have on hand at home. Like with foods, a lot of beauty products are a mixture of items. Until recently I didn’t make my own beauty products, so I had no idea what most of the ingredients were.
In fact, I didn’t recognize that what you put on your body can be as important as what you eat. Some of the things we put on our skin can be absorbed into our system and have all sorts of effects on our bodies. Some ingredients contribute to the toxic overload that so many of us are experiencing. If you don’t believe this, try putting a nicotine patch on your skin and see what happens. The nicotine goes right through your skin into your blood stream.
In my quest to seek out safe beauty products, while knowing very little about the subject, I headed off to Olympia, Washington to a store called Terra Firma Cosmetics. Terra Firma Cosmetics manufactures and sells beauty products that are non-toxic, using natural ingredients. All of their products are also available on-line.
I was concerned that their products would be out of our price range, but it didn’t hurt to at least check into it, since I had heard that Terra Firma will do a no obligation makeover so their customers can try the products risk free. When Tabitha mentioned that she was in need of a new foundation, I talked her into to going to Terra Firma Cosmetics. If she was already going to purchase something, I figured she may as well check out something non-toxic and see if she liked it. She agreed.
Terra Firma Cosmetics is located right in the heart of downtown Olympia in a cute, little, old shop. It is a warm inviting atmosphere right when you walk in the door and is followed up by warm and friendly staff as well. Once we got there, we were greeted by, Kirsten, a knowledgeable and helpful woman who immediately set out to help us.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that Terra Firma Cosmetics prices are around the same that can be found at the drug store, but the makeup is higher quality at Terra Firma Cosmetics. If you sign up for their e-mail list, they will also send you coupons and then their products are an even more excellent value. They even offer getting started kits at terrific prices. These products are definitely worth checking into.
Tabitha was interested in a powder foundation and I had heard that Terra Firma Cosmetics had some that are actually good for your skin. We went in to have her color matched and to see if their foundation was any good. They got a perfect match for her skin and it looked lovely on her. We found their foundation to be high quality and a terrific value, so she purchased a jar and she has been wearing it happily ever since.
To be transparent, I will share a fear that I had about switching to safe beauty products. My fear was that I could not afford to switch, so I would have to stop wearing makeup. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Terra Firma Cosmetics prices are around the same that can be found at the drug store, but the product is much better at Terra Firma Cosmetics. If you sign up for their e-mail list, they will also send you coupons and then their products are an even more excellent value. They even offer getting started kits at terrific prices. These products are definitely worth checking into.
After checking out the products (and the prices), I had a chance to talk to the owner, Meri. She is a wealth of information and got me pointed in the right direction to learn more about the ingredients in skin care products and cosmetics. She suggested I use http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ to research the ingredients in my products to determine if they included ingredients that would be unhealthy.
Meri explained that ingredients like silicone seal off the skin and it is basically like putting plastic wrap on your face. Liquid foundations usually contain silicone, so all these years I had probably been putting silicone on my face not realizing that it. When I went to check the ingredients on my foundation, I found that they were not listed on the tube, so I went on-line and found that they are not listed on-line either. Terra Firma Cosmetics not only lists their ingredients on-line, but they also list them on the package. Then Meri backs it up by suggesting you check the ingredients out for yourself on the ewg.org/skindeep website. Transparency like that certainly builds confidence in a product.
After talking to Meri about liquid foundations containing silicone and how they can contribute to acne and skin problems, I decided to take my other daughter, Marissa, in to get a good foundation for her. She had been using a liquid foundation and it seemed that the foundation Meri formulated would be much better for Marissa’s skin. I really want to get my entire family away from unhealthy products and switched over to things that contribute to our well-being. Starting Marissa on a foundation that would let her skin breathe was a step in the right direction.
My next step was to try Terra Firm Cosmetics for both Marissa and myself.
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Summary: A review. Discovering that Terra Firma Cosmetics manufactures high quality, reasonably priced cosmetics and beauty products using non-toxic ingredients. Pure beauty at an affordable price.
By Cynthia DeWitte
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