Being new to the Etsy community, not just as a seller but also a shopper, I have spend mucho hours surfing and being totally delighted at what I've found there. The art, jewelry, home decor, and fashion is just amazing - to say the least, but what has gotten me tingly recently is the wealth of personal care products. Personal care products you say? Well, this lady LOVES her lotions, creams, soaps, shampoos and sweet smelling ANYTHINGS! I'm not going to go into the Etsy perfumers in this post, but trust me, they are there and beckoning me. I'll address that at a later date - say spring, when my focus shifts away from my winter ravished skin.
I love the term "considered consumerism". Now that we all (well, most of us) have less to spend, we want our shopping to be a somewhat uplifting experience. It's kind of hard to get that "feelgood" fix when buying personal care products these days, even if you resist the big box drug stores and purchase from your local co-op. After Burts Bees was bought out by Clorox for $925 million and Tom's of Maine by Colgate-Palmolive for $100 million I started to get a tad cynical that I could ever trust those products again. I'm not going to go into the list of all the natural skin care/ hair care products I've tried - trust me, it's long. Some of them have been great and some I have found are not so safe after all. When I don't recognize an ingredient, or I want to know if a product line is safe I go to
http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com and look it up. It's a great resource.
But even if a product is safe, it's never going to have the love and attention put into it at a factory that you get when you shop handmade. The ingredients are simple and few- and you know what they are. They say you are what you eat, and you might as well be eating what you are putting on your body too.
There is soul and delightful creativity in these products that give us a shopping experience that's satisfying on every level. We don't need to buy more if we just buy better.
And slathering all that good vibe from real people has gotta be a fabulous thing, right!
Below is the shave soap that started my journey into the land of Etsy personal care products. Purchased it for the hubby, and oh my goodness - I MEAN oh my goodness - it smells divine! Went out Saturday night and couldn't keep my nose out of his neck!
I had to add that last one cause it's just so sublime!
This was great fun to read and you are definitely right. Up to 60% of what we put on our skin is absorbed, and many 'store brands' contain known toxins and dangerous chemicals. Cosmeticsdatatbase is great for no nonsense info, I've been using it for years now. Thanks for the illuminating read! :)
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