Posts Tagged ‘skincare’
Honestly Loving The Honest Co.
Awhile back, a friend tipped me off to Jessica Alba’s latest project, The Honest Company. Jessica Alba is best known for her movie roles (and her banging hot body, see: Sin City) but is now a celeb mama on a mission. While researching baby products for her two daughters, Alba quickly realized that there are little to no standards in place to protect families from toxins present in the very products marketed to moms of babies and young children. I’ve said it here many times and will continue to hammer it in: Some of the most trusted brands (Nestle, Johnson & Johnson) also have the most deplorable marketing and consistently poisonous products. Thankfully, Jessica Alba is using her fame and fortune to help families move in the right direction. Her line of baby and home care products are just ‘crunchy’ enough to be truly safe yet palatable to someone used to more mainstream products.
The Honest Company is now beginning to offer individual Honest products for sale, but it is primarily a subscription service. Sign up for one of their bundles – the Diapers or Family Essentials bundle – and every month you’ll receive a selection of awesome non-toxic items. The Family Essentials monthly price is fairly affordable (around $40 I believe), although the cost for Diapers is a little up there – But I may just be sticker-shocked because we cloth diaper. The coolest part is that you can do a free trial for just $4.95. It works like magazine sign-ups and other monthly services – You must remember to cancel on time, but really, how difficult is that. I did just the trial and it was easy peasy. That $5 is the shipping cost, nothing extra, and you get a good amount of stuff to try out.
The Honest Company have more products than I received to review, but here are the ones I tried:
laundry detergent – This laundry detergent is Free & Clear (meaning free of all dyes and perfumes) so it is probably cloth diaper safe but not confirmed. I used my sample on a load of regular clothes with no discernible difference from the All Free & Clear (or whatever brand was on sale that week) that we were using. The Honest brand is probably more environmentally-friendly than Tide, etc., so I’d recommend Honest if money isn’t an object. It’s always important to vote with your dollar, spending your money at companies whose values you support.
hand soap – The scent of Honest Hand Soap reminds me of Mrs. Meyers (a brand with amazingly fragrant natural products), and I love anything that smells like lemongrass. It’s also really gentle, so I would call this an above average hand soap. Our little bottle is almost empty, sitting on our sink, and it makes me happy every time I use it. – Ya gotta love anything that gives you that kind of boost throughout the day, especially after doing dishes!
face & body lotion – The Honest Company Lotion reminds me of Skin MD Natural, which I like a lot. I’m a fan of any lotion that works well on both face and body, and it’s really gentle. And non-toxic!
shampoo & body wash – We’ve tried a lot of baby body washes, and this one is about average although I especially love the vanilla scent. For the record, our fave baby wash is this one, although we are currently loving BabyGanics
healing balm – This is my favorite product of the bunch, and probably the only one that really stands out from other similar products I’ve tried. I love this stuff. The Honest Co. Healing Balm is USDA organic. Not sure if it’s cloth diaper safe but I’m sure it would treat rashes for babies in disposables. Sebastian has never had a diaper rash but I did use the Healing Balm on some scrapes on his chest as well as a dry patch on his legs that was bugging him. It is also the best thing I’ve found to treat a particularly dry & flaky area on my face, and it doubles as GREAT lip balm. I wear it to bed, or underneath my lipstick for a really smooth finish and muted color. Also good for elbows, cuticles, pretty much anything.
We cloth diaper, but did give The Honest Company disposable diapers a try. We received the ‘boy’ bundle (I’m not a fan of having to select gender versus individual designs, but whatev), which included several diapers in fun styles. There were some anchors, skulls, and the plaid design above. Honest diapers are on par with Seventh Generation in that they have less chemicals and are better than Huggies or Pampers… but they’re still disposables. I always feel a little bit dirty when I use them, but I did fall for these a bit. Sebastian doesn’t pee overnight but they did contain a big morning pee when Mama was too lazy to get out of bed right when he woke up.
I have trouble endorsing disposable diapers – It’s scary how much these held – but if you are going to go that route (or use them for a trip or daycare or whatever) Honest is a good brand to go with. The wipes are good as well. You know, they’re baby wipes. I generally use them for makeup removal and stick to cloth wipes for butts.
Overall, I found The Honest Co. products to be pretty great. The Healing Balm is the only one that really stands out, but all of these are a huge step up from the usual crap on drugstore shelves. I do wish that these would move into stores where they could get more visibility – As of right now, moms who don’t spend much time online probably won’t even hear about the brand. And I feel like moms who research products online are more likely to already be making healthier choices. But, baby steps.
I am not affiliated with them in any way, but Cool Mom Picks is currently running an awesome Mother’s Day Giveaway featuring a $200 gift card to The Honest Co. You can enter their giveaway here – It ends on Sunday.
Spoil your mama self with MILF skincare
Shortly after giving birth, I received a Cleanser, Moisturizer and Serum to review from The Spoiled Mama‘s postpartum skincare line, MILF. MILF products are perfect for bringing your skin back from the brink after childbirth and for keeping it fabulous in general. Following the birth of my son I was more self-conscious about my skin than I was about my weight or mothering abilities. Not only did pregnancy widen my nose (It went back to normal, but they don’t tell you about that shit!), my last trimester hormones also gave me the complexion of my teenage self. Add on trauma from pushing and my face was in need of major repair.
MILF Cosmetics Postpartum Skin Care saved my face for real. Finding time for yourself with a baby is hard so I still set aside time for my face at night once he is asleep. After tweezing my brows, I wash my face and apply moisturizer and sometimes healing serum. In the morning I don’t even wash my face – it is just glowing and ready to go. MILF Harmony Moisturizer is amazing and the one product I am most likely to order again. It smells sort of like avocado to me and it is 91% organic. I love that I could put it on even before snuggling my newborn without having to worry about synthetic chemicals.
MILF Serums are also amaze – Even my husband used and loved the serum to smooth and soothe dry, haggard patches of skin.
My first experience with The Spoiled Mama was ordering their Best of Bump Box Sampler during my first trimester. Although a little too pricey in my opinion, their Bump Gloss was certainly better than Palmer’s and smelled a lot better and milder. (Milder is a must when dealing with morning sickness.) Overall I would say pass on the pregnancy line (at least the small sampler) but definitely spring for the postpartum MILF skincare line. It is worth the price tag, with products that really work, are organic and vegan, and are rich enough to last through many applications.
Walgreens Brand Face Wash, Health & Wellness Products
This is a compensated post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.
One of the easiest ways to save money in your beauty routine is to go with store brand products where you can, and the store brand I purchase most often is Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products. My husband worked at Walgreens for two years or so and in that time we shopped there a lot, much of which was for their store brand products. Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products are recommended by Walgreens pharmacists and have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
I recently reviewed Walgreens Brand Oil-Free Acne Wash, which is comparable to Neutrogena. Like most Walgreens brand products, the active ingredients are the same as the name-brand version but the product costs less. Having used both the national brand and the Walgreens version, I can say that the quality is the same and I would buy the Walgreens brand face wash 100% of the time.
In addition to being affordable, the purchase of Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products goes towards Walgreens Way to Well Fund™, bringing preventative wellness services to local communities.
Bikini Kitchen Booty Butter Review
Bikini Kitchen Booty Butter sells for $27.95 (USD)
I was happy to receive a sample of Bikini Kitchen Booty Butter to review this summer. Being knocked up, I’m a lot more aware of what I put on my body and, unfortunately, most commercial tanning products have a high toxin rating. I love that Bikini Kitchen discloses their ingredients, and this natural product felt great even on my sensitive pregnant skin. Booty Butter contains coffee, which softens skin and improves circulation, as well as vitamins A, C and E.
I’m not sure how much this product actually accelerated my tan, but it did provide a slight shimmer upon application and felt decadent. The only downside was that while I love the scent of most tanning products, this one smelled a bit funky to me – Then again, I do love that it doesn’t contain artificial fragrances, and my nose is admittedly sensitive right now. I hardly ever deal with bug bites but the Booty Butter potion also claims to be a natural bug repellent.
Overall, I recommend Bikini Kitchen Booty Butter as an alternative to chemical tanning products, especially if you invest the time in sprawling out poolside.
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