The Real Cost of Supermarket Skin Care

Supermarket beauty products are cheap, well-marketed and totally convenient. But is the money and time you save in the short-term going to cost you in the long run?

The skin is the body’s largest organ and absorbs up to 60% of what we put on it. This is why it is important to understand what ingredients are in your skincare products. The alarming truth is that the law is very relaxed and does not protect the consumer against toxins that can be found in some skincare products. Products are allowed to be marketed without government approval of these dangerous ingredients.

Generally speaking, supermarket/drug store beauty products use a lot of mineral oil, perfumes and colorants – none of which are good for your skin long term. Mineral oil can make your skin smooth short term, and perfumes can give off a great smell, but long term these are essentially counter-intuitive to your skins health. Colorants like pink and green can be used to market the product as special but again, colorants do not belong in your products. Additional ingredients such as parabens, phylates, sulphates and cheap fillers are used in most supermarket products.  These are what make the product feel nice and are economical to use in formulations, regardless of the common side effects such as dermatitis and eczema.

So what make a good skin care product?

There are four factors that decide the efficacy of a product:

1. The active ingredients in the product
2. The form of the active ingredients in the product
3. The percentage of active ingredients in the product
4. The delivery system of the product

How these elements are combined makes the difference to your skin, whether the skin care product is natural or not. The truth about Supermarket products is that they do not tick all of the points above – they are generally mass produced and therefore will generally contain chemical preservatives so they cannot have a delivery system. Avoid products that contain carbomer, parabens, sulphate, and mineral oil as these are not good for you skin and can be carcinogenic.  

You will seldom find active ingredients in a supermarket product and if you do it will have a very small amount of that ingredient which delivers minimal results. The reason being, active ingredients are costly and therefore is not economical to sell products containing these ingredients at a low price.  However there are times when they are marketing these active ingredients in products, but not using them in the amounts necessary to be active so beware of clever marketing tactics that promise you what they can’t deliver. 

This is why the results you may see in most supermarket beauty products, specifically skin care, will only offer limited benefits.

Natural skin care products contain ingredients like hyaluranic acid, pure cold pressed oils, natural butters and plant extracts which contain active ingredients. When the right active ingredients are used together, it provides a delivery system that produces pleasing results. We use generous amounts of active ingredients in our products, because we know they work when you use them in the right percentages.

Make wise choices in your future purchases and investment in your skin. Long term, the chemicals in these mass produced products affect our environment as well as our health, so choose wisely and enjoy the long term benefits of using products that allow your skin to absorb healthy ingredients that will nourish your whole body.