Resources
My go-to resources for becoming a more informed consumer and making healthier choices. Stay tuned as I am always finding great new sources of information!
Environmental Working Group: EWG is basically the know it all when it comes to the ingredients in our food, household, and skincare products. Aside from the informative articles they post, there are two main sections of the site that I use the most:
- Skin Deep: This is the section of the database that deals with skincare, makeup, cosmetics, and oral health products. You can search their huge database for a specific product and it will list all the ingredients of that product, give the specific concerns of each ingredient, and rank their safety.
- Food Scores: This section is very similar to the rating database mentioned above except that it is for food products. You just search for a specific food product and it will rank it on a scale from 1-10 citing their top findings. It also provides the nutritional value for the food.
I have to also point out a specific page on their site that I visit often. Their Top Tips for Safer Products page breaks down the most important ingredients to look out for by product type, age, and ingredient.
COSDNA: This cosmetics database is similar to EWG’s Skin Deep database as you can search for a particular cosmetic product and it will rate the ingredient or product on a scale from 0-5 according to any health or skin concerns. I wanted to point it out because on COSDNA you can search for a product or ingredient in a few different ways:
- Product search: input a product name and it if in their database, it will list the ingredients and rate each one’s safety. You can always input a new product if it’s not already in the database.
- Ingredients: here you can input a specific ingredient to look up it’s safety rating and how it is used in cosmetics.
- Analyze Cosmetics: In this section you can directly input an entire ingredients list and see the breakdown of each ingredient’s purpose and safety rating. I find this section especially useful if I cannot find what I am looking for in the product search section. An easy way to look up a particular product is to google it until you find the ingredients list and then copy and paste it into this section.
Garden of Wisdom: This is a great site where you purchase a variety of oils (essential and carrier oils) as well as raw ingredients to make your own skincare products. Their prices are very reasonable and the quality, in my opinion, is high. You are able to order samples of their carrier oils based on your skin type which I think is an excellent way of experimenting with finding out what does and does not work on your skin. You can even have a live chat with a skincare consultant to ask questions about different products and formulations. I find myself constantly referring to their Shelf Life of Oils page quite a bit when thinking about trying out a new oil.
