According to research provider, Grand View Research, the natural and organic consumer market will reach $24 billion by 2024. Why? A huge shift in consumer perception has begun. More people are moving towards natural skincare.  Consumers are becoming more aware and more informed about what goes on their skin and are growing more concerned about the risks in mainstream skincare products.

Here are three (3) reasons why lean and green products trump mainstream skincare

1. Long Shelf life means Loss of Efficacy:

Mainstream products generally have long shelf lives – 2-3 years. We have been trained to think that longer shelf lives are better. But most vitamins, nutrients and actives in products only last months and maybe 1-year tops.A long 3+ year shelf life means that the active ingredients in their products have long stopped working and the product is reduced to being a very cheap, ineffective moisturizer with preservatives that are skin irritants or worse – hormone disruptors.
Natural products have a very short shelf life, usually 1 year and sometimes 6 months. This is because natural formulators use active botanicals which, like food and other plant material, lose their nutritive value over time. In addition natural products use naturally derived preservatives that, once again being natural, have shorter shelf lives themselves. There’s nothing wrong with this because botanical benefits are not intended to last forever, just as food is not intended to stay fresh forever. It’s more important that the product has effective nutritive value for skin and is working effectively for as long as it lasts. The fresher, the stronger and better!

2. Poor quality mainstream skincare with toxins and irritants:

The cosmetics industry is a multi $ Billion industry for a reason – it appeals to our collective vanity, the mass mentality to look and feel youthful. To suck every earning member of society in, products needed to be affordable and cheap. The only way to make economize beauty is through the choice of ingredients. So, the beauty industry suppliers developed cheap, synthetic ingredients to perform many skincare functions, like smooth feeling products, shiny products, alluring fragrances, preserve it for your grandchildren and so forth. These ingredients turned out to be unsafe for people and the environment.
Parabens are not the only ingredients that should have negative press. David Suzuki's Dirty Dozen highlights so many commonly found controversial ingredients in your average skincare product. Why pay for these ingredients in your product when you might be better using Olive oil in your kitchen and get the same benefit for less irritants?
On top of this most skincare products costing $8-$20 are usually made under $2-$4 with HUGE markups to manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Some Indy brands are coming out with pricing that cuts into their own profit to produce clean products for consumers. However, they struggle to compete with the mass marketing of mainstream brands that push poor quality products to unknowing consumers.

3. Cleaner for the environment

Pharmaceutical and mass skincare products aren’t just slightly irritating for skin, they’re also toxic to the environment and marine life. Clean and green manufacturers go out of their way to source ingredients that are environmentally safe even during the process of extraction, don’t harm marine life and even use upcycled, zero-wast beauty ingredients.
For example, we’re using Cacay oil from the Amazon, upcycled blueberries and raspberries as antioxidants in our serum and many other plant seed oils that are extracted from seeds that would generally be tossed after pitting fruit to make jams.

Green and clean skincare is a growing industry. Many Indy brands are working hard, discerning in their choice of ingredients, construction of their products, just to bring healthy alternatives to consumers. Check out your local brands, natural brands, clean and green brands to see what wonderful and amazing elixirs they might have to offer.