A beautifully natural, luxurious & convenient skincare routine
No matter where you are on your daily skincare routine journey - whether you’re into the most expensive liquid gold going around or you heart simplicity, we have a some divine staples that can seamlessly bring simple, natural and heart-warming luxury back to your temple. We're talking chemical-free, plastic-free and zero waste goodness which is utterly nourishing, fulfilling and liberating.
1. Face & Body Wash vs. Soap Bars: what’s the deal these days?
We’ve been conditioned to think that we can’t use ‘Soap’ on our precious faces and bodies - it typically contains chemicals that aren’t great and are too drying on the skin. Today's soap though is not always the mass-produced version that can have these effects, and we now think of our soap more like a solid, beautiful elixir that is heaven in the bathroom.
We’re most certainly not chemists or dermatologists, so we thought we’d take a look at the ingredients of three different general groups of face and body washes purely on an objective level, to share the info with you for your own exploration and discernment.
I) Conventional supermarket face and body washes contain around 14 - 25 ingredients including things like water, Triethanolamine, “fragrance”, BHT Benzophenone-4, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, and Methylisothiazolinone, which we understand is a common preservative.
II) Looking at an Australian organic skincare brand’s face wash, it contains around 29 ingredients including things like water, natural extracts, essential oils, Xanthum Gum, Benzyl alcohol, and Sodium Benzoate, which we understand occurs naturally and is typically used as a preservative.
III) And now turning to a Beauty and the Bees Soap Bar, it typically contains around 11 ingredients including things like coconut oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, soy wax, soap nut infused spring water, Australian beeswax, honey, essential oils, vinegar, and sodium borate, which - from Beauty and the Bees directly - ‘...is a naturally occurring mild alkaline mineral salt … used as a water softener; limited preservative; and an aid to emulsification and stabilisation of cream foundations.’
In addition to these glorious soap bars, the thing we love most about Beauty and the Bees is their golden ethos - it’s beautiful in every way. They only use natural and beneficial ingredients which have been used by humans for centuries (wisdom), they don’t test on animals (because who would), they choose local products as often as they can to support local industry and reduce their environmental impact (triple tick), and they source organic and certified products whenever it is possible to do so (smiling all round).
And almost the very, very best? Their ethos extends to their packaging - it’s predominantly recyclable, compostable or biodegradable, and the Soap comes in a paper box - nothing else. Our favourites include the Unscented Wild Jojoba Soap Bar, the Apple Cider Skin Tonic Soap Bar, the Australian Hemp Seed Oil & Leatherwood Honey, and the Leatherwood Honey & Tasmanian Lavender Flower, amongst the many divine combinations to choose from in our Body & Beauty Collection - find one that will cleanse, soothe and nourish your particular type of skin.
And to hold your favourite natural soap? Our Undyed Hemp Soap Bags which have been handmade by the beautifully values-aligned Boho Things in country NSW. They are a totally divine combo.
2. Natural, reusable face cleansing cloths
Have you ever looked at the aisle with rows and rows of face wipes and wondered how we got here? Convenience is so enticing and an essential for most these days, and it can be replicated in a much more beautiful and natural way, and reused over over so it becomes an economical solution (and of course, an all time soul and earth-honouring solution too).
You might already be a convert or thinking about becoming one, but organic cotton face cloths are simply divine. Handmade by the women of Life Wild, they come in convenient 9cm x 9cm squares or 18cm x 18cm for a fuller face or body wash. Both replace the face wipes we can buy to use once, and instead you can use these in the same way, but you just wash them in your normal clothes wash when you’re done and they’re ready for the next round. We typically have 7 on rotation for the night cleanse which works well for our laundry timetable.
My absolute favourite part? You literally never need to buy a bottle of face wash again - when you’re a morning shower’er but you’re also cleansing your face at night, you can simply wet your cloth with hot water and rub onto your soap bar to add the cleanser, then wipe your face with the cloth as you normally would, and rinse and repeat until you’re happy you’ve removed what you need to. It gently removes makeup on your face and eyes without too much rubbing (including heavy makeup), and leaves your skin feeling fresh and cleansed. Then you’re ready to go forth with your night time love routine.
For an extra or regular exfoliation, our Hemp Face Cleansing Pads handmade by Boho Things are great to cleanse your face and gently exfoliate the skin at the same time. They can be a beautiful compliment to your routine.
3. Luscious locks: Shampoo Bars could be your unicorn
So essentially it's a huge ditto for all of the above on our Soap love letter with respect to our hair. You’ll have most likely seen Shampoo Bars going viral in your feed and seen all the positive feedback on them. Beauty and the Bees Shampoo Bars get RAVE reviews, and are so beautiful and convenient it’s not even funny. The absolute zero waste and natural solution for your hair.
But to be super real and transparent, we can’t make a personal comment on this one… yet. One thing about me which isn’t au naturale is my hair, and having passed these beautiful bars around to my family, I feel like we might be genetically pre-disposed to some sort of weird stand off with Shampoo Bars as our hair seems to just retain the oil forever. I tried using one for 2 weeks where I could only wear my hair up, and boy did it have body! Eventually I really just wanted to have clean hair again and wear it out, so I gave up (for now).
But the even bigger But and the best, best, best thing about trying a Beauty and the Bees Shampoo Bar? They are so gentle and divine that you can use it on your face and body too. So if the Shampoo Bar is for you, then you have found an amazing solution to cut your toiletries bag situation massively and you could use one bar for your whole physical realm. That one just needs a moment of appreciation all on its own........ toiletries bag and travelling NIRVANA.
In the unikely event that the Shampoo Bar you try is not a match made in heaven, then you have a beautiful bar for your face and body instead. So good.
4. Looking after your body, naturally
Many of us will have read about the benefits of body brushing for an all-year-round glow, and Eco Max’s Natural Body Brush is a lovely solution for your back to your ankles. The brush is made of Sisal fibre, a cactus that yields an ideal medium strength fibre which is perfect for wet or dry brushing.
With your body sparkling, get the same consistency on your feet with our Natural Eco Max Foot Brush. It does soft and supple like a weekly pedicure. It's made from coconut fibre which is anti-bacterial and firm enough to brush away your week’s walking and soft enough to not hurt your precious toes.
And we all like nice hands and nails but if you're a parent, an adventurer, a gardener, horse rider, or you just love meticulous hands and nails, chances are a nail brush will be a staple in your set. Keep your nails fresh and free from dirt with Eco Max's Natural Nail Brush and its beautiful Tampico bristles. Tampico is a form of cactus which yields an ideal medium strength natural fibre for wet scrubbing, and the fibres won’t bend or flatten.
And what better than to beautify your natural nails even more? Go with the most lox tox, conscious nail polish around: Sienna Byron Bay, see them all here. It's Ambrosia that's radiating throughout this piece { heart }.
You can find these beauties in our Wild You Kit and more in our Body & Beauty Collection.
Big love,
LW x
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