Rest assured, slow beauty is not about demonising certain products, refusing to pamper ourselves or deciding to go make up-free. It's not about drastically changing our beauty routines, but about being in touch with our needs and being informed about what we use and how we live. It's a learning curve to help us better understand that some ingredients can harm our skin (those that are sensitisers or irritants) and our environment (ie products and items that are non-biodegradable or non-soluble). The idea is to lighten up on our beauty routines and to use only the essentials. It involves avoiding all petrochemicals, dyes, chemical preservatives, alcohols, pollutants and processed products.
The golden rule for slowing down your beauty regime is to go 100% natural: think about replacing your usual products with those that include as their ingredients vegetable oils, mineral powders and floral hydrolats. With the right dose and the perfect blend, they really will work wonders. Our faves? Jojoba oil, hazelnut oil, argan oil (in fact, all natural oils), rosewater, blueberry, honey, shea butter, aloe vera and donkey's milk. The choice is yours; but what a choice it is from nature's wealth.
While we may care about the ingredients that are used in our cosmetics, there may not always be room to compromise. One example? Appealing to our senses. Fragrance and texture play a key role when it comes to choosing our favourite products. The slow beauty trend doesn't really take this into account. Any others? Yep, the question of preservatives. Homemade treatments don't use preservatives, meaning they don't have a shelf life, which could result in wasting products that end up having to be thrown away. However, progress is always being made in these areas, so watch this space.