More and more companies are offering skin care products free from ‘toxic’ and ‘nasty’ ingredients but what is the point in that? Do we really need to get rid of all synthetics and chemicals? Or is just hype that goes along with trends in the current market.
Their packaging shines under the shop lights: bottles made of elegant black or vivid green glass stand alongside white tubes with minimalist lettering. These beauty products make many claims: to “defy” age, minimize pores, block pollution, plump skin. They promise radiance, illumination, hydration, brightening, and perfecting. In many ways, they are no different from the beauty products that have come before them, except that they all claim to be somehow morally better, or cleaner. This is the new era of “clean beauty” – one that promises “no nasties”, and a “chemical-free”, “non-toxic” skincare regime. It is one that attempts to divide beauty products into good and bad, clean and dirty, toxic and non-toxic. But do we really need to “clean up” the products we use on our faces? Are the products we may be using harmful – or is this just another way to sell us (often very expensive) creams that we don’t need? Maybe its just pressure of the current market trends to go all green, cruelty-free, go all-in for the sustainability of packaging and help the environment to detoxify itself. Maybe it’s just marketing?
Let’s take the celebrity designer Ollia Tzarina whose clients include everybody from French Montana and Cardi B to the Jenner girls and Beyonce, Ollia shot to fame with her fox fur jackets 3 years ago, she was on every billboard in LA and had a People magazine run a Kylie Jenner exclusive wearing Oli’s brand Tzarina By Ollia. 3 years later the brand has been suddenly sold and Ollia is rapidly transitioning into organic skincare with her business partner Asghar Akhtar Khan, a Pepsi Co heir. How so? Why would you sell your high profile fashion brand, the celebrity life that came with it? The answer is obvious. Every brand from Gucci to Dior stop doing fur and moved into the faux fur, in the interview to the Euronews Ollia said she did not want to get involved with faux, synthetical furs are made of petroleum and she did not want to do more harm to the planet so when the offer came to sell off her Tzarina brand she took it and quickly got rid of it and the stigma attached to it. She then jetted off to Morocco where she and Mr. Khan purchased a few km of argan oil fields, and Bio Lab Exotique started from there. We all know the benefits of pure cold pressed argan, what else can hydrate and plump your face with collagen naturally? Apparently many other oils. Ollia discovered rare precious oils while organizing her production in Morocco, she said she was so surprised by the effectiveness of the oils she decided to mix them with the already amazing Argan oil to create potions, that promise to deliver results within 48 hours. And they have absolutely zero chemicals. So the brand that has potentially started as a marketing campaign to preserve the Ollia Tzarina fame and image, has quite a lot of potential to create a difference in our routines. Because if I can use a product that will do what my chemicals do, why would I not use it?