What Clean Skincare Means to Us
"Clean skincare" is a phrase you see everywhere now, on drugstore shelves and in glossy ads, and it can mean very different things depending on who is using it. I want to share what clean skincare means to us here at the farm, how we decide what goes into our jars, and how I read a label when I am choosing something for my own skin. I share this from a place of inspiration, to create harmony and balance with the skin. There are so many beautiful gifts from the Earth and Soil that our skin loves.
What is clean skincare?
For us, clean skincare means making products from ingredients that come from nature and that you can recognize, and leaving out the synthetic ingredients we would not want on our own skin. When we start caring about our bodies, what we put in them and what we put on them both become part of that care. Our skin is a protective barrier, and it also absorbs some of what we apply to it. So I like to ask a simple question before I put something on my face or hands: would I be happy for this to be inside my body?
Clean also starts long before the jar for us. The herbs we infuse into our skincare come directly from the soil. The same goes for the oils and fats we choose as bases. Stewardship and how we care for the soil and plants and animals from which our ingredients come from matters. Organic and sustainable growing practices like intentionally choosing not to use synthetic chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides is important. We know these things impact the land and our body so we choose to keep our growing and sourcing clean. To me, this connection from the soil to the plant to your skin is the heart of what clean means.
What ingredients do we leave out, and why
We make our products by hand on the farm, and we keep the ingredient lists short.
- No essential oils. Essential oils are natural, but they are very concentrated distillations of a plant's volatile oils, and I use them with caution and moderation. A medical doctor friend shared a case where a patient, using a higher concentration of an essential oil, suffered a chemical burn when exposed to sunlight. In our own products we stay away from essential oils completely, opting to infuse the plants into our base oils and fats as a gentler formulation.
- No synthetic fragrance. A single word like "fragrance" on a label can stand in for many undisclosed ingredients, and fragrance is a common source of irritation for sensitive skin. Fragrance has also been noted as a source of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, many of which do not appear on the label.
- No harsh stripping ingredients. Ingredients like sodium lauryl sulfate can sometimes strip the skin's natural oils and leave it dry and irritated. I do not use soap on my face at all, and when I need a gentle cleanse I use honey.
- No fossil-fuel-derived ingredients. Many common skincare ingredients begin in a refinery. Mineral oil and petrolatum come straight from petroleum, and parabens, phthalates, propylene glycol, butylene glycol and PEGs (polyethylene glycols) are usually made from it too. PEGs can also carry traces of a manufacturing byproduct called 1,4-dioxane, which the FDA periodically monitors in cosmetics. We would rather every ingredient trace back to plants, animals and soil.
- No silicones or synthetic film formers. Have you ever tried a cream that made your skin look perfect the moment it goes on? Then when you wash it off 12 hours later, it feels like a film is being washed off and as soon as it comes off, your skin is back to having the same fine lines it had before. Often that is a silicone like dimethicone, or a synthetic polymer like an acrylates copolymer, laying a thin film over your skin. These ingredients are allowed in cosmetics and widely used, but to me that kind of smoothness feels like wearing a coat of liquid plastic. Silicones begin as quartz sand and then go through heavy industrial processing, and the European Union has restricted three of them (D4, D5 and D6) because they persist in the environment and build up in living things. We would rather your skin's softness come from herbs, oils and fats that come from the land. We would rather support the skin with natural ingredients and its natural glow than cover up "imperfections" with silicones.
What we do instead is infuse whole herbs directly into the base oils and fats of our products. When you touch an herb like sage or rosemary, you can feel something on your fingers, and when you smell it you are smelling its volatile oils. That is what essential oils are made from. Making an essential oil takes a lot of plant matter and a still to separate those oils out. We choose a different method. Instead we take the herbs and infuse them straight into the oil. Because the herbs sit in a fat, some of the fat-soluble nutrients end up in the oil too, and you get a gentle scent that is the plant's own.
Plant-based skincare for sensitive skin
Many people come to plant-based or botanical skincare because their skin has reacted to something, sometimes even to a product labeled "natural." If that has happened to you, it may be worth looking at whether essential oils or synthetic fragrance were part of it.
Our infused oils are simple and plant-based: calendula, chamomile and lavender flowers, each infused in organic golden jojoba oil. The calendula and chamomile are grown on our farm and other steward-aligned small farms, and the lavender is grown at our friend's farm in Catawissa. Our Harvest Balm is calendula, yarrow and comfrey infused in organic jojoba oil and set with beeswax, with no essential oils. The herbs in it are grown and foraged right here. The yarrow even grows wild along our pasture edges. I wrote more about how we think about reactive skin in this post on herbal salve and eczema-prone skin.
Not every product we make is plant-based. Our Evening Meadow and Mountain Ease creams are made with 100% grass-fed beef tallow, which is animal derived. Tallow has been in ancestral skincare for generations. People love it because it is rich and is often described as a natural source of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D and E. Clean, for us, describes how an ingredient is grown and made, and those creams follow the same rules of whole herbs and nothing synthetic. Since what the animal eats ends up in its fat, we chose 100% grass-fed tallow. Grass-fed cattle moving across pasture also give back to the land, turning their forage into natural fertilizer that feeds the soil and builds the soil organic matter.
Plant oils also differ from each other. Oils high in polyunsaturated fats, like soybean, corn and canola, oxidize easily when exposed to air, light or heat. Oils like jojoba and avocado are more stable, which is part of why we work with them. And because every person's skin is unique, allergies and sensitivities still matter with natural products, so patch test anything new on a small area first.
How to read a skincare label
Many skincare products have long lists of ingredients, and some of those names are hard to recognize. Here is how I approach a label.
- Look at how long the list is. I generally lean toward products with fewer ingredients, and ingredients I can recognize.
- Read the first few ingredients closely. Ingredients are usually listed from the largest amount to the smallest, so the top of the list tells you what you are mostly putting on your skin.
- Look for "fragrance" or "parfum." If your skin is sensitive, this is one of the first words I would look for.
- Check for essential oils. They often appear under the plant's Latin name followed by "oil." Natural does not always mean gentle.
- Look things up. When I come across a name I do not know, I look it up. The EWG (Environmental Working Group) database has safety profiles for many products and ingredients and is a helpful place to start.
- Ask where it comes from. This one is harder to find on a label, but it is the question I care about most. How were the plants grown, and by whom?
Clean skincare can feel overwhelming at first, so start small. Swap one product, read one label, and notice how your skin feels. Your skin is a living microbiome, and simple, gentle care from the Earth tends to promote more harmony.
Wishing you a gentle and grounded week from the farm,
Anne
From the farm
