And for that matter what are “all natural anti aging products”?

The market for all natural anti aging skin care products is growing at a huge rate. Recently L’Oreal purchased The Body Shop, we expect because L’Oreal recognizes the future of the natural anti aging products industry and wants to get a toehold in that industry. And for good reason.

Here on this website we seek to alert our readers about some of the dangers of many of the ingredients that are found in so many of the skin care products (and other personal products) that are found on the shelves of your local stores and which you may be using right now.

If you’d like to find out more about those dangerous ingredients in skin care products please read some of our other articles because today we want to talk about all natural anti aging skincare, what it is, what it isn’t, and what you should be looking for if you’re seeking to find effective and safe anti aging products.

The first thing to say is that the word “natural” has no formal definition in the anti ageing industry and there is no formula to determine whether or not ingredients used in any products, whether they be advertised as “natural” or not, are really “natural”. This also applies to “organic” anti aging products which equally have no formal definition.

In our research we have found products which are advertised as natural skin care products and when you look on the label you will see so many of the ingredients that so many people consider suspicious listed there. Parabens are an example.

There are no laws or regulations which govern when a manufacturer can claim that their skin care products are “natural” or “organic”. And of course there will always be manufacturers of anti ageing products that will take advantage of this.

Therefore if you’re seeking to find safe and effective “natural” skin care products it is not sufficient just to rely on the advertising. You need to go further.

How you do that? Firstly lets examine why people are searching for anti aging natural products.

Clearly one reason is that many people now recognize the risks inherent in mainstream skin care products and therefore they are seeking a safe alternative. They also recognize that many mainstream skin care products are not very effective because the amount of money spent on active ingredients is minimized so that the maximum amount of the budget can be spent on advertising.

Therefore, if that is the case, you need to discover something about the company that makes the products that you are considering purchasing and in particular its business philosophy. The big skin care companies tend to focus on sales and marketing rather than product quality and safety. This means that their products are not their main concern.

The best skin care companies that make natural skin care products reverse that equation. They focus primarily on product quality and safety and tend to spend less money, or none, on marketing and in particular on television advertising. Rather they know the quality of their products and they also understand that their products will sell through word of mouth and that once they have a customer they will often have that customer for life.

They may not be able to quickly ramp up sales as the big companies do by spending millions on television advertising but over time they can develop a committed and happy customer base that understand the quality and safety of the products.

This is a totally different corporate philosophy to the big anti aging companies. The big companies tend to have a very small moral compass when it comes to producing their products, and are happy to produce a product that will sell whether it’s effective or not and whether it uses safe ingredients or not.

There is one company that we have found that has a corporate philosophy about its products that gives us a huge sense of relief. They are committed to both the safety and quality of their all natural anti aging skin care products.

Their commitment to the safety of their products started even before their first anti aging product was even produced. Their brief to their development team was that any antiaging products that they were to develop had to be “safe enough to eat”.

And that is their first commitment to their customers, that their products are safe enough to eat. For this reason none of their skin care products contain fragrances.

Their second commitment to their customers is about their product quality. They seek to produce (and do produce) the finest anti aging skin care products in the world. They do this by maximizing the money they spend on product quality and they use a range of natural ingredients that are way more expensive than the chemical alternatives used by the big companies.

As we said there is no definition of natural, and even natural products can be dangerous. This company, called Xtend Life, will only use products that are known to be safe and known to be effective. This includes a wide range of natural oils, extracts from seaweed and the wool of sheep and a wide range of other natural products all of which are known to be both extremely effective and safe, though many of them are expensive.

Their natural skin care products work very well however they fully understand that people are suspicious of this because of a poor result that they may have previously obtained from mainstream skin care products and so, as evidence of their commitment to their products, and so that prospective customers can have some of the worry eliminated from buying the products they offer a full 90 day money back guarantee. That is extremely unusual in the antiaging industry.

Because they spend much larger amounts on product quality and ingredients they do not have the money to spend on television advertising and they don’t advertise at all. This reason, even though their products contain expensive ingredients, they are still able to market them at an extremely competitive price. They do not need to factor in the cost of advertising. And you’ve probably never heard of them for that reason.

So if you understand the risks inherent in so many well known anti aging skincare products, and if you’re looking for safe and natural alternatives, you also need to understand that simply buying products advertised as  “all natural” or “organic”  anti aging products is no guarantee of either the effectiveness of the products or the safety of the ingredients.

You need to find a company with a demonstrated commitment to both product safety and product quality, it is only the company’s corporate philosophy that tells you how good, and how safe, their anti aging skin products really are.

Why should you avoid anti aging products that make you smell nice?

People of any age like to smell good. However there is a few things that you need to know about smelling good, including about fragrances in your anti aging products. Aging isn’t something that many of us look forward to and so many women use anti aging skin care products to limit the effects of ageing on their skin. However some of the ingredients, like fragrances, are not quite as good for you as you may think.

Here at Restore My Skin we like to tell you about the risks as well as the benefits of so many modern anti aging skin products. And one of the most common ingredients in anti aging products as well as a host of other products is fragrance.

Fragrances have no anti aging properties. They are merely there because people like to smell nice and so if the products contain fragrances that make them smell nice they are more likely to buy the product. However fragrances are not an inert ingredient.

Of course fragrances are not limited to skin care products, they are found in a massive range of other personal products including, of course, perfumes.

There are thousands of different fragrances, some estimates are that there are over 4000. Virtually all of them are synthetic chemicals designed in a laboratory. Many of these have been shown to cause cancer or are toxic in other ways including toxic to the central nervous system.

Not all fragrances are dangerous, for example many essential oils are not, however chemical fragrances are usually used in such products as anti aging skin care products because they are much cheaper than safer alternatives such as essential oils.

The risks to our health are real from the ingredients found in so many anti aging products. Aging afflicts everyone and so the market for antiaging products is massive and billions of dollars are spent every year on lotions and potions to make us look younger. So many people are now using products on their skin that contain potentially dangerous ingredients like fragrance.

Some organizations are battling against this is. For instant the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (see link at right) is one such organization that attempts to publicize the risks inherent in so many modern skin products.

And it is even possible to search the ingredients found in so many products at the Cosmetic Safety Database (right) to see what the suspected risks are from those ingredients.

If you go to the Cosmetic Safety Database and search “fragrance” you will find some disturbing results. Various fragrances that are used in commercial products that anyone can buy are listed as being linked to cancer, allergies and immunotoxicity and neurotoxicity, disruption of the endocrine system and lastly, irritation to the skin, eyes and lungs (and more).

But the reality is for most people that is extremely hard to know whether the ingredients in the anti aging products that you may use now include fragrances like these.

So if you’re ageing and are interested in finding effective anti aging skin care products that don’t contain dangerous ingredients such as fragrance, what do you do?

At least one small company has made the decision to eliminate all potentially dangerous ingredients from their anti aging products. This company is called Xtend Life and they have decided not to use any fragrances in their products at all because firstly there is a risk attached to them and secondly that it is not essential to add a fragrance to any ageing products.

Their recommendation is not to use fragrances at all, or if you really wish to do so then use a perfume instead of buying anti aging products with fragrance added.

Why would you use a perfume? Surely perfumes are just a fragrance? Surely perfume too, if it’s a fragrance which it is, is equally risky?

That is in fact true, however when using skin care products you usually cover a reasonably large area of your skin with the product, and therefore the chemical ingredient that creates the fragrance covers a large area of your skin. The chemical can be absorbed into your skin and is therefore absorbed in a larger quantity.

Generally speaking when you use a perfume a couple of dabs on the neck is sufficient which greatly minimizes the surface area of the skin which can take up the fragrance into your system.

And if you’re buying perfumes you should also choose them very carefully for obvious reasons.

Xtend Life have a total commitment to making anti aging products that are not only safe to use but are also highly effective. At the commencement of their research into anti aging products the chairman of the company tasked their technical staff with developing a range of anti aging products that were “safe enough to eat”.

In other words all of the ingredients used in these products would be safe for your body even if you ate them. And in effect that’s what happens when you put them on your skin because they are absorbed into your system just as if you ate them.

The result is a safe and highly effective range of skin care and anti ageing products.

If you’re starting to realize the risks involved in modern personal products such as skin care products you may be moved to spend more time finding out about the ingredients that go into these products.

Or alternatively buy your products from a company with a demonstrated commitment to product quality and product safety.

Now that you’re aware of the risks of fragrances in so many personal products you should choose your products with care. Whilst Xtend Life make a range of excellent anti aging products they do not make so many other products that also contain fragrances.

So when buying so many personal products, bath and beauty products, cosmetics, shampoos and conditioners and so many more, don’t just buy what you see on the shelf without spending some more time considering the ingredients.

Why would anti aging skin products be dangerous?

“Over the last 100 years, the rate of cancer in the U.S. has sky-rocketed from 1 out of 800 people diagnosed, to 1 out of 3 today. Are you Wondering WHY?”

Do you know who said that? Ralph Nader said it and you’ll find it quoted the forward the book “The Safe Shopper’s Bible”.

Here’s another quote from the book: “Not a single cosmetic company warns consumers of the presence of carcinogens in its products – despite the fact that several common cosmetic ingredients or their contaminants are carcinogenic themselves or are carcinogenic precursors.”

The sad fact is that cosmetics, as well as a wide range range of personal, beauty, skin care, bath and anti aging skin products contain ingredients that may both be damaging to your health and damaging to your skin as well.

This has been the case for a long time. Unfortunately the FDA is not required to satisfy itself that any of these types of products, including for our purposes anti aging skin products, are either safe for the public to use or for that matter that they work as advertised. The result of this is that there is a wide range of ingredients found in many anti aging skin products, cosmetics and much more that so many people in our country, including you, may well have used on their skin today.

It’s not just a small range of obscure products. Many of the names that are household names in the anti aging skincare industry are suspect. You know the ones. The big expensive ads on television with a highly paid movie star who probably has never used the products. Those are the ones that you will probably find contain ingredients that, if you knew exactly what they were, you wouldn’t want to put on your skin.

Even those advertised as the best anti aging skin products in the world can be just as suspect.

Here’s a couple of the ingredients that you may find in anti ageing skin care products on the shelves of your local store. Many of them are petrochemical products, meaning that they are a byproduct of the distillation of crude oil. In other words many of these products come from oil. And you have to ask whether you really want to put them on your skin. But you shouldn’t find any of these in top quality anti aging skin products.

1. Mineral Oil.

Mineral oil is a petrochemical product and is found very commonly in our personal, beauty and skin care products. Baby oil is pure mineral oil, often with a fragrance added (and many fragrances can also be suspect too). If you’re in doubt just look on the label of the next bottle of baby oil that you see.

Mineral oil is found in many anti aging skincare products. It is intended to be used as a moisturizer however mineral oil does not have moisturizing properties. What it does is to cover the skin in a thin film of oil and the intention is that this will stop moisture loss from the skin, and to some extent it does. However mineral oil does not actively moisturize your skin.

Mineral oil is considered to be a carcinogen. You might be familiar with Material Safety Data Sheets. A Material Safety Data Sheet lists all important information regarding individual chemicals that should be known by any one who may come into contact with them. A Material Safety Data Sheet on mineral oil states that “mineral oils are suspected carcinogens of the skin and scrotum, larynx, lung and alimentary tracts” and “may cause eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation” and “pre-existing skin disorders may be aggravated by exposure”.

2. Propylene glycol.

This too is a petrochemical product and is intended to moisturize the skin whilst having no moisturising properties at all. A Material Safety Data Sheet on Propylene Glycol states that it “causes irritation – avoid contact with the eyes, skin and clothing” and “wash thoroughly after handling” and recommends the use of goggles and gloves when using this product.

That’s just two ingredients that you will commonly find in so many anti ageing skin care products. And you may not even know that they are there because they go by a range of different names, many of which you won’t know, and they usually on the label in the smallest font possible to make it as hard to read as possible.

It is our intention, over time, to alert you to a whole range of these types of ingredients that you will find in so many common and well-known skin care products. To list them all now would make for an extremely long read, so come back often to find out more.

The obvious question is why do these companies use these ingredients in their products? The answer has to do with cost. Many of these ingredients are extremely cheap to buy. You’d expect that companies would strive to make the very best anti aging products that it’s possible to make, however that seems rarely to be the case. Rather what they do is to seek to make the cheapest anti aging products it’s possible to make and to spend as many of their available dollars as possible on marketing rather than product quality.

That’s why you see so many of those extremely expensive television ads. If they spend that much money on advertising and also used expensive ingredients in their products their products wouldn’t be cost competitive.

That’s the dirty truth of the anti aging skin care industry. The reality is that the products are made down to a cost rather than up to a quality and the result is that, because they can, they include a range of very suspect, cheap, ingredients.

The next obvious question is this. If you want the best anti aging skin products how do you find them? Are there any good anti aging products or are they all as bad as each other?

Whilst it seems that there are few ethics in business (and not just the skin care industry) that doesn’t mean that you should tar all skin care companies with the same brush. There are small companies which strive to make extremely high quality products and which succeed. There are excellent natural anti aging skin products available that work extremely well and which do not have any suspect ingredients.

However you should be aware that even products promoted as “natural” anti aging skin care products are not necessarily free of suspect ingredients. It’s a case of buyer beware and we hope we can help there.

In our research we have found one small niche anti aging skin company that makes excellent natural skin care products which do not contain harmful ingredients and which work well. This company is called Xtend Life.

Over time we shall talk more about the sorts of ingredients that you should be avoiding in your anti aging products, the sorts of ingredients you should actively look for and how to source the best natural anti aging skin products in the world. Whilst we can’t cover at all right now if you’re keen to get started than visit the website of Xtend Life and have a look at their products. You won’t be disappointed.

The skin care industry is alive with pitfalls. Educate yourself both here and elsewhere about the dangers and risks of so many common anti aging products.