Sustainable Beauty That Gives Back: Alaffia, Giving Beauty, Cleanup, Skincando, Amazon Beauty and Sa
Sustainable, ethical beauty products are about more than just the purity of their ingredients. How those ingredients are procured and how beauty products are manufactured matters, too. Paraben-, petrochem- and synthetic-fragrance-free products don’t just feed and nurture our skin, they also can help feed and nurture a community in need.
Alaffia founder Olowo-n’djo Tchala has developed a line of shea butter skin care that helps promote sustainability and Fair Trade in his native Togo, West Africa. The shea trees that produce the oil that goes into Allafia’s handcrafted shea butter and luscious skin care products—we love the yummy Virgin Coconut & Shea Hydrating Soap and the refreshing Lavender Mint Shea Butter Moisturizing Lotion—are grown and harvested without pesticides or chemicals by a shea butter cooperative that provides income, and assistance with health care, to community families. As part of its Fair Trade philosophy, Alaffia also donates 10 percent of its sales to community enhancement projects in Togo and in Tchala’s new hometown of Seattle, WA.
Under the Giving Beauty label, Kahina gets 100 percent of the organic argan oil in its skin-saving products from women’s cooperatives in Morocco. Giving Beauty generously donates a whopping 25 percent of profits from its Kahina line—we’re big fans of the toning and brightening Facial Cleanser, with 99 percent organic ingredients—to support initiatives to improve the lives of the women who work to provide the raw materials for its products.
The simple act of washing your hands can keep the Earth free of landmines. Molded into the shape of these devastating explosives, Cleanup is an all-natural, never-animal-tested soap that donates 25 percent of each sale to the Cambodia Landmine Museum, where an education center, school, orphanage and feeding station benefit Cambodian children still threatened by landmines’ nearly 40-year legacy in the country. As the soap disappears, so do the landmines. Point taken.
For three years the Skincando company has been donating its best-selling Combat Ready Balm to U.S. troops stationed overseas. Rumor has it the all-natural balm, which contains vitamin A, beeswax, black tea and fish oils (don’t worry, you can’t smell them), is the only thing that works to calm and soothe soldiers’ sunburn and sand-flea bites, and we love how it softens our super-dry civilian skin. Buy one for yourself and, while you’re at it, donate one to a serviceperson—when you do, Skincando will also send $1 from each sale to Fisher House, which supports the families of injured military personnel.
Products in the Amazon Beauty organic hair care line from New York City “hair shaman” Fabian Lliguin and wife Anna Ayers are chock full of hair-strengthening herbs and nut oils harvested by the Quechua-Shuar tribe in Lliguin’s native Ecuador. We’re addicted to Amazon Beauty’s Rahua organic shampoo, conditioner and elixirs, which repair our damaged hair with rare native ingredients Amazon women have been using for thousands of years. While they’re protecting our hair, Lliquin and Ayers are also helping tribal men and women protect their intellectual property rights and preserve the Amazon’s natural beauty and diversity through Ecoagents, the nonprofit that the couple founded.
For every product purchased from its collection of affordable skin, body and hair-care products, Save Your World preserves one acre of rainforest for a year. This year alone, that has added up to more than 200,000 acres of South American rainforest that might have been destroyed by logging and mining. We love to lather up with Save Your World’s organic aloe soap, infused with tiny bits of organic yerba maté. Stock up on Save Your World’s citrusy Oasis Fruit or sweet Regal Blossom products and smell great, plus get bragging rights to how much rainforest you saved in just one shower.
Get 20% off Save Your World’s personal care products through end of May when you enter “ ECOSTIL20” at checkout.
—Spirit Demerson
Spirit Demerson is the President and Founder of Spirit Beauty Lounge, an online boutique specializing in luxury organic beauty and eco-lifestyle products. A recovering product junkie, eco-activist, former model and beauty school dropout turned “eco-preneur,” Spirit has spent over a decade searching for effective organic beauty products. Frustrated by the less-than-luxurious selection available at natural foods markets and misleading labels at department stores and drugstores, she sharpened her expertise, spending hours obsessively researching ingredients, often mixing up batches of lotions and potions in her kitchen or importing products and ingredients from around the world to treat the skin conditions of friends and family. In 2007, Spirit began hosting and producing elite Organic Spa Parties in New York City and San Francisco with organic facials, pedicures and cocktails to promote the green and glamorous life. Her Spirit Beauty Lounge webstore was developed of bringing the Organic Spa Party home! Spirit and/or Spirit Beauty Lounge have recently been featured in Natural Solutions, 944, Boho, Family Circle, Vegetarian Times and Lucky magazines.
