Ingredient Snob
I think it's fairly clear that I like products. Hair products and cosmetics. I'm only a tad bit of a product junkie. I would be a HUGE product junkie if I wasn't an ingredients snob.
Ingredients I try to avoid in general:
Propylene glycol
Phenoxyethanol
Parabens
Cyclopentasiloxane
Ingredients I avoid specifically in hair products:
Mineral oil
Silicones
Sulfates
It's absolutely amazing how common those ingredients are, even with records showing that they can be harmful. Pick up a random product near you right now, I'd put money that they are in the ingredient list.
Label checking is annoying. But I research pretty much every ingredient on EWG Cosmetic database and anything that has ever been linked to cancer, I will not buy a product with it in there. I will not. I try to stick with products/ingredients with 0-2 ratings.
I will be the first to admit that I check labels more frequently on cosmetics than I do on food...which I know is BAD, but I'm working on it! I do make most of my meals from scratch, and 95% of our meat comes from Five Star Home Foods and is natural/organic so I'm not doing horrible in that department. I also actively avoid high fructose corn-syrup, and pay attention to the order of ingredients in food to see what it's really filled with.
Are you ingredient conscious? What ingredients do you actively avoid?
I'm a product snob and it sucks as a blogger because it limits what I use. I'm pretty picky but mainly because my skin is insanely sensitive. I'm actually okay with parabens as a preservative but synthetic fragrances and dyes is something I really try to run away from.
ReplyDeleteYea, that's a thing too. I would love to be able to review and use more products. I'd be able to take advantage of those monthly natural hair boxes!
DeleteI definitely check food products more than I do beauty products mainly because I know what is good/bad for food products and I don't for beauty products.
ReplyDeleteThis is a handy basic guide: http://www.ewg.org/files/EWG_cosmeticsguide.pdf
DeleteI am pretty ingredient conscious, food wise. Like you, I also check the order of ingredients in certain foods.
ReplyDeleteI usually check for the word "natural" on the front of package labels, and then double check the back to ensure the ingredient list is mostly pronounceable (& that I'm familiar with those ingredients). I'm a stickler for real sugar, and prefer to see it listed over high fructose corn syrup.
I do this all mostly for flavor reasons, more so than health.
Yea, real sugar > artificial sugar.
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