Expensive beauty creams - are they worth it?

Guest Blog by Martine Gann, Founder & CEO at Martine: Pure & Simple

When I read the labels on skin care products, I’m often amazed at how well manufacturers hide their toxic ingredients behind long Latin words, and then intermingle them between harmless or helpful ingredients with flowery names. For my first post, we’ll go over what some very popular skin care lines actually have hidden in plain sight.

People often ask me why they should switch from a very expensive product, like Crème de la Mer, to my product. After all, their product costs up to 5 times as much as mine so it must be better. Well, let’s look at the ingredients! I won’t list out all of the 40+ ingredients, I’ll just go over some of the ones that are potentially toxic or somehow deceiving.

The 1st ingredient is seaweed algae extract. This is water with an unknown amount of seaweed algae in it. It could be one drop of seaweed algae per 100 gallons of water and still be called seaweed algae extract. Who knows? Basically, you have water (from what source? A tap in China? Purified water? Who knows?) with an unknown amount of seaweed algae in it.

The 2nd ingredient (and legally until you get down to 1% of the ingredients, they must be listed in order of amount in the product) is mineral oil/parifinnum.

That is a fancy way of saying mineral oil. Mineral oil is a byproduct of petroleum. At best it has no health benefits and at worst it has been linked to cancer and many other potential health problems too long to list here.

The 3rd ingredient is straight petroleum.

The 4th ingredient is glycerin, and unless it’s noted as vegetable glycerin, it’s most likely made from petroleum.

The 5th ingredient is isohexadane. This is a synthetic ingredient used as a cleansing agent and texture enhancer. It can be derived from animal or plants, but most often from petroleum.

The 7th ingredient is microcrystalline wax. And yes, I am afraid it’s also petroleum based.

In conclusion, out of the first 7 major ingredients, 5 are definitely petroleum based! After the first 7 we finally get into some ingredients which people like to see. But, by then, per the listing of ingredients, you are getting down towards the 1% or less in the product.

Petroleum based ingredients are by far cheaper than ingredients from non-petroleum sources. That is the only reason that I can figure that they are so widely used. Don’t be sold by their fancy labels and millions put into advertising.

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Wishing you health & beautiful skin❤

— Martine