The Eyes Have it

They say the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul. That’s great, but they’re also key for flirting and can complete that sexy look that gets noticed…

And thus, few vanities and handbags would be complete without that go-to, mascara. So we wanted to provide a few tips to get the most from your lashes – both today, and for years to come.

I always marvel at my toddlers’ eyes – they look like Bambi and can most definitely get their way with a quick bat of those long, beautiful lashes. But many women notice that over the years lashes can become damaged, shortened, and thinned. According to dermatologist Jeannette Graf, MD1, everything from stress to diet to environmental impacts can put strain on your lashes. She goes on to stress that a woman can actually be her own lashes’ worst enemy. “Wear and tear can result from rubbing or tugging at our eyelids, sleeping in mascara (the stiffness can break lashes), and wearing water-proof mascara, which can be drying. Usually the process of removing mascara, especially waterproof formulas, is the problem,” Graf says.

Eyelashes, after all, are hair much like that on our heads. While many women pamper their locks with organic shampoos, conditioners, and styling products, they take for granted the TLC those batting-beauties deserve. And like hair, once lashes have been plucked out, and the follicles damaged, they’re less likely to grow back.

Fret not, however. With a few pure beauty tips you can maintain that daily-dazzle while nurturing your lashes for the long haul. Here are a few of the tips we like best to keep the lashes you’ve got looking lovely:

  • Use a gentle remover like pure petroleum jelly and pat or dab at the lids rather than rubbing or pulling.
  • Never tug at lashes.
  • If you use a lash curler, make sure you’re not pulling on your lids at all.
  • If you want to remove clumps from mascara, you must do it when the mascara is still wet and easy to comb through.
  • Replace your mascara every three to six months to prevent germs that can lead to infections (replace eye cosmetics immediately if you get pink eye or any other eye infection).
  • Condition lashes just like you would your hair. Petroleum jelly can help, but products like jane iredale PureLash Lengthener and Conditioner are a more effective, elegant solution.

So go on and repurify those lashes. They’ll thank you with years of loyal service.
1Source: WebMD, May 19, 2010, Liesa Goins, reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

The Great Indoors

What is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.93% Argon, 0.038 Carbon Dioxide?

YES, It’s AIR! You astrophysicist you.

I have been interested in air and air quality ever since I learned that there are many particles and gases in the air that are harmful for our bodies. We are exposed to many of these everyday.

As we are now in the colder months (in the Northern Hemisphere) we tend to stay indoors a greater percentage of the time. Indoor air can be harmful if it is not properly circulated or treated. Indoor air can contain constituents such as VOCs from paints and coatings as well as formaldehyde concentrations from carpeting and insulation.  On top of that indoor air that is not circulated/recharged properly with the outdoors can be oxygen deplete.

There is a solution:

Indoor plants such as the Money Tree, Mother-in-laws Tongue can literally ”Grow Clean Air” as proven in a TED talk by Kamal Meattle and are easy to maintain in the home or in the office.

For a more compact solution check out: Andrea, a pure product that uses a single potted plant to rid up to 144 ft² of VOCs and formaldahyde, as it lists in its product specs.

When it’s too cold to open the windows, recharge and purify your air the natural way. Stay healthy in the Great Indoors.

…..And no, this wasn’t named after that John Mayer song.

Feed Your Skin Right

There have been a lot of people out there stressing about how to improve/maintain the look and quality of their skin through means of a special diet. Although I believe “you are what you eat”, I also realize that the skin “eats” too.

The skin, our largest organ, breaths, dies, protects us and absorbs every day.  On top of that, our skin has the main function of retaining fluids within our bodies. The funny thing is that most of us, including me, only immediately care about how the first few layers look. From experience, most of my skin problem occur through absorption through pores in my skin. The skin simply gets irritated. Choosing pure skincare products that don’t contain harmful chemicals and cleanse your pores can help this. Natural oils can help your skin glow while cleaning/protecting your pores. I challenge those same people to put the flipside in perspective, your skin IS what it eats.

Feed your skin Right

Some nerdy research about how skin absorbs.

What “Fragrance” Really Is

Watch the EWG’s take on the harmful potential of fragrances in your everyday consumer products here:

EWG on Fragrances

Pure Gratitude

Pure skincare, pure makeup, pure cosmetics — these purer standards of living didn’t exist only a decade ago. I’m grateful to live in a time of empowerment. I’m excited that, every day, people collaborate to support and create higher quality products, health standards, and lifestyles.

Thanks for showing up, for being here and supporting healthier living with the Pure Mavens. You inspire me.

Lotion by the gallon

As my ever-increasing scrutiny over the products we use continues, I turned my attention to an ever-present product in our home – hand lotion. This is not the first time I’ve noticed the revolving door of lotion bottles that is our bathroom vanity, but I’m no longer only irritated by the fact that you can’t get the top off  and end up throwing away about three handfuls along with the plastic container.

No, I went a step further and engaged in my now ritualistic – and love / hate practice – of checking our lotion brand in the EWG SkinDeep database. We use Vasoline Intensive Care Advanced Healing lotion. I recently mandated the switch to “fragrance free,” pleased with my step to get one more trace chemical out of our home.

Pleased, that is, until I reviewed the Skin Deep report on our beloved salve. I hit enter and watched the cold, unflinching SkinDeep database report its cruel facts as to the litany of chemicals my “high hazard” (an 8 out of 10) lotion contained, and the ghastly health problems to which those ingredients are linked. I might as well have enjoyed the fragrance, as its absence has no bearing on the purity (or lack thereof) of this lotion. As helpful as I find the database, it doesn’t exactly sugar coat the news:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/product.php?prod_id=61047

And with a few deft calculations, I estimated that my wife and I each rub approximately 143 ounces into our skin in a given year. That’s well over a gallon.

At least there’s good news, I thought: we use J&J Baby Lotion on our kids. Surely Johnson & Johnson, “The #1 Choice of Hospitals,” would deliver the goods. Whoops… another “high hazard” 8 out of 10.

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/product.php?prod_id=47660

I also found some disconcerting back-and-forth on the iconic Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. A lone, ironic tear ran down my cheek…

http://safecosmetics.org//article.php?id=521

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/product.php?prod_id=147083&refurl=%2Fbrowse.php%3Fcategory%3Dbaby+shampoo%26

I didn’t bother torturing myself with the annual tonnage the kids get. I’m taking action.

The first product we tried was a pump container of Avalon Organics hand lotion – a solid, “low hazard” 2 according to the unbiased SkinDeep. I put it by the sink in the kitchen, a high traffic torture test of Madge’s proverbial dishpan hands. Not only is it a great product, the family has made sport of dispensing the absolute tiniest mini-droplet possible with each fraction of a pump. A little goes a long way.

It’s more expensive than “regular” lotion, but we use so much less I bet we’ll come out ahead (and that’s not even considering the peace of mind of not pumping chemicals onto our skin). Plus the bottle is cool looking and actually looks good next to the sink.
Lotion - Avalon
Our gross tonnage of lotion just got less so.