For the final week of make-up bag Monday we’ll wrap up by looking at a few miscellaneous categories that we haven’t addressed related to health and beauty. Let’s jump right in.
We’ve talked about moisturizers and cleansers for the face, but we haven’t talked about body lotion. Below is the usual list of best and worst bets when it comes to body lotion.
Worst Offenders:
- The Body Shop body lotions – I’ve always liked their products and the fact that they don’t test on animals, but most lotions scored a 7 or higher
- Bath and Body Works – their lotions are so popular, I get them every Christmas, but most of them scored a 9
- Vaseline Intensive Care products – most fell in the range of 7-10
- Aveeno – positively smooth and positively radiant both scored a 9, but their daily moisturizing lotion scores a 3
- Dove Body Lotions – I love their new marketing campaign, but most products scored a 6 or higher
- Neutrogena Body Lotions – scored in a wide range but the lowest I could find was 5
- St. Ives – another brand with a wide range of scores, but 5 was the lowest and many products scored a 7 or higher
Best Bets:
- The always reliable Kiss My Face actually scored a 5 for several moisturizers, but their Olive My Body lotion scores a 1 and the Almost Butter Ultra Cream scores a 2
- Burts Bees usually scores below a 4, but many of their body lotions were a 4 or 5. They do have a few that rate a 3 and their body oils come in at a 1
- Jason Natural body lotions range from a 3-5
The only products that consistently scored 3 or lower in the body lotion category seemed to be lesser known brands including Belle’s Botanicals, Garden of Eve and KT Naturals.
Just for fun, I thought I’d take a look at nail polish and fragrances. These aren’t things I use everday, but I know a lot of people do so I wanted to see where they fell on the cosmetics database scale. Here’s what I found:
Nail Polish:
- Most of the clear, base coat and top coat polishes scored around a 3.
- The majority of the OPI colors actually scored a 4. I thought it would be a lot higher considering some of the things I’ve heard about nail polishes so I was pleasantly surprised. Revlon and Estee Lauder also hit a 4 for most colors.
- The majority of the other brands I researched were a 5 or higher including L’Oreal, Sally Hansen and Maybelline.
Fragrance:
This was the toughest category by far. I couldn’t find a single brand name, or popular perfume that scored below a 4. My advice here is if you’re like me and you only where perfume on special occasions then it’s probably not something you need to spend a lot of time researching. If you’re someone who likes to wear perfume everyday you might want to run your favorite(s) through the cosmetics databased to make sure you aren’t walking around in a chemical cloud all day. There were a number of popular perfumes that scored a 4 or 5, but there were many more that scored an 8 or higher. Here are some of the best bets when it comes to perfume:
- Clinique Happy – 5
- Philosophy Baby Grace – 4
- Victoria’s Secret Basic Instinct – 4
- Most Avon perfumes – 4
- Several Hugo Boss scents including Deep Red – 4
- Ralph Lauren Blitz Body Spray – 4
- Burberry Eau de Parfume Natural Spray – 4
- Dolce & Gabanna Pour Homme Natural Spray – 4
I think that wraps it up. I hope you’ve enjoyed cleaning out and restocking your make-up bags. I’ve had a lot of fun researching your questions and updating my beauty routine. I feel more informed about affordable, accessible and healthy choices and I hope you do too. I know these products can add up and several readers have expressed frustration about finding the time and money to invest in new products. My advice to anyone feeling overwhelmed by a desire to trash and restock everything is to take it slow. Most of us having been using our products for a long time so a few more weeks isn’t worth stressing over. If you can’t afford to replace everything at once start by picking a few key items and repalce the rest as it runs out or as you can afford it. It won’t be long before your entire stock of beauty supplies will be products you feel safe and comfortable using.
