What is oil cleansing, you ask? Well, let me tell you!
When you oil cleanse, you use a natural oil on your dry, dirty face to remove dirt and makeup. I know that sounds crazy. But here’s a fact: like dissolves like. Oil dissolves oil.
When you use the right oils, you can cleanse your skin of the bad dirt and bacteria while replacing it with the good oils that your skin NEEDS to be healthy. Oil cleansing has been shown to be effective not only for dry skin, but also for people with oily skin and acne and sensitive skin.
Many times we try to strip our skin of oil thinking it will solve our breakouts, but that is actually making it worse. Our skin needs oil. When we strip it, we then signal our skin to make MORE oil. So oil cleansing is an effective way to balance out our skin’s needs. Oil cleansing works with your skin, instead of against it, to protect, heal and moisturize.
The way my face feels after oil cleansing is like nothing I’ve felt before. Clean, smooth, soft….ahhhhh! Also, I think it’s way easier than typical face wash. I am so much more consistent with washing my face at night since starting with an oil cleanser. It really feels like..self-care. It’s such a luxurious feeling.
So how exactly do you oil cleanse?
First, pick a good oil! I’m a huge fan of the Countertime Lipid Defense Cleansing Oil! It’s a luxurious, lightweight cleansing oil that gently yet effectively removes makeup and other impurities without stripping essential lipids from the skin. Rich in vitamin E, fatty acids, and our plant-derived Retinatural Complex, the formula reinforces the skin’s fragile moisture barrier for a soothed, nourished complexion
Step 1: Use two pumps of oil and massage into your dry, dirty face.
Take your time here. Give yourself a little facial massage. You deserve it!
Step 2: After a minute or so you will be able to feel that the dirt has dissolved from your face. Then take a warm, wet washcloth and hold it to your face for a second. Let the steam open those pores. Wipe it all off.
Y’all it’s National Lipstick Day! So you know I couldn’t miss the chance to tell you about:
1) My favorite lipsticks and why I am a lipstick convert and
2) Why safer lipstick MATTERS.
Prior to Beautycounter I NEVER wore lipstick. I was a lip gloss girl all the way. Lipstick always dried my lips, I hated the way it felt and I’m not sure I had the confidence to pull off bold colors. When I joined Beautycounter I had no intention of changing that. The lip glosses are amazing (truly) so I wasn’t going to bother with a lipstick. Except I got one for free when I signed up…clearly I had to try it. Holy butter on my lips! That Twig Lip Sheer blew me away. It was smooth, hydrating and had the most delicious vanilla scent (all natural of course). The color was subtle and I was hooked. My next order included several more colors. Petal is still my all-time fav for when I want a natural look.
Just last year Beautycounter introduced our Color Intense Lipstick, which is long lasting and more intense color pigment. Again, I shook my head and said “that’s nice” assuming this new product was meant for other women, not me.
Wrong again.
At a training event Beautycounter gave every consultant a Color Intense Lipstick to take home. I got Sunset (a holiday special edition) and at the urging of my friends Brooke and Megan I tried it on. Instant love. My lips still felt hydrated, the peppermint scent was so fresh and the color was perfection. I think I wore sunset everyday this past fall/winter. Since then I’ve played with more of the colors and it’s so much fun. For the most part, they are bolder colors so the mood has to feel right for me. But I mix them into my makeup routine more than I ever thought I would. I love that they last all day and still feel good on my lips.
But this is the important part – lip products are one of the first things you should be switching to clean. Why? Well, because you eat it! There’s some crazy stat floating around about how many pounds of lipstick women eat in a lifetime. I’m not sure the accuracy of that one, but regardless, if you put it on your lips it is making its way into your mouth and into your bloodstream.
Traditional lipstick is made will all sorts of fun ingredients like:
Lead and other heavy metals
Fragrance
Parabens
Coal Tar (yes, you read that right)
Lead is a neurotoxin, which has no defined “safe level”. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics published a study in 2010 revealing they found lead in over 400 lipsticks. In addition to neurotoxicity, lead is also linked to fertility issues and hormone disruption.
Even more concerning, UC Berkeley published a study in 2013 that detected not only lead, but cadmium, chromium, aluminum and manganese in 32 lip products. These heavy metals are toxic.
Fragrance is a trade secret which means over 3000 chemicals could be hiding under that name, many of them harmful to your health.
Parabens are hormone disruptors linked to cancer, infertility and obesity.
Coal tar is a carcinogen, but is often used in dark lipsticks (and mascara).
I’m only scratching the surface, but hopefully you are getting the picture. Lipstick can be a landmine of harmful ingredients and if you’re using it regularly, it is certainly cause for concern.
Beautycounter not only forbids the use of the above ingredients and over 1500 more on our Never List, we also 3rd party test all our cosmetics for heavy metals and other Never List ingredients.
Heavy metals are natural. No one is intentionally adding them to their formulas. They exist in the ground where companies source their colorants, so it is impossible to be at “zero” when making cosmetics. That’s why we test for them in every batch of our makeup and ensure that if there are detectable levels that they are at or below the strictest international allowable levels. This blog explains it better than I do.
Today I’m celebrating with one of my go-to bright pink Color Intense lipsticks, First Date. What’s your favorite color? Go ahead, have some fun …without the concern 🙂
Infertility changed my life. Yeah yeah, in all the obvious ways- but really, if it wasn’t for infertility I wouldn’t have learned about the harmful ingredients our beauty products, I wouldn’t have searched for and found amazing safer products or joined a company with a mission to educate people about this issue. And I would 100% not be writing a blog. My whole world looks so different now- my makeup bag does too!
We don’t know what we don’t know, right?And back in 2014, I didn’t know. But there is nothing quite like a good medical issue – ahhmmm infertility– to send me into research mode. In the face of our repeated failure to get pregnant, I started to research the crap out of all things fertility. What boosts fertility? What hurts it? What should I eat, and not eat? Terms like luteal phase, mucus, ovulation and sperm morphology started to become regular vocab words in my house.
Eventually, I couldn’t ignore that fact that article after article told me I should also be looking at the products lining my bathroom counter. The words nontoxic, hormone disruptor, parabens and phthalates popped up so much that I had to dig a little deeper. And there it was: many of the common ingredients in my personal care products are known to disrupt our delicate hormone system and are linked to many things, among them, infertility.
I almost took a gas can and a lighter to all the products in my house right then and there, but practically speaking, I couldn’t afford to replace it all at once. So, little by little, one product at a time I searched for a fertility-friendly alternative. That process is a whole other blog post in itself. For the purposes of this post, I want to highlight a few key ingredients for you to look for to make it a little easier to spot a fertility-friendly product on the shelves.
Now you might be thinking, “Nicole, I am a fertile myrtle, so this doesn’t apply to me”. To you my friend, I say, “yes, it does”. Did you know that when your grandma was pregnant with your mom, you were forming as an egg in your mom’s ovaries. Let that sink in for a minute. On a cellular level, the things your grandma ate, drank and was exposed to had influence on your developing DNA. Talk about passing things down for generations.
So, you might not be on the same infertility journey as I am, but your choices impact future generations. What you put on yourself, your kids and your husband impacts THEIR hormone systems. And really it’s not just about fertility, these ingredients are linked to a whole host of other issues that we won’t get into today.
Fertility is a growing issue. One in eight couples struggle with infertility. Doctors are sounding the alarm- why? Because infertility is on the rise and male sperm count and quality is diminishing at an alarmingly quick rate. We don’t have all the information yet. They really haven’t studied the impact of these chemicals thoroughly, but there is enough data to cause concern.
So what are endocrine distrupting chemicals (EDCs) and why should we avoid them? Simply put, they are any chemical that can mess with your hormone function. Many of them mimic hormones, like estrogen, in your body and cause confusion in the way your hormones and cells communicate. Others, like phthalates, have been found to be destructive in nature. EDC’s have been linked to cancer, infertility, thyroid issues, depression, learning disabilities and more. (See resources listed at the end for more information.)
Let’s get to the ingredients. There are many places that we find EDC’s- our food, furniture, plastic bottles, flame retardants etc. Today, I am looking at our beauty products, specifically-things like moisturizer, shampoo, lipstick, foundation and soap.
Here’s my top tip: become a label reader. Yes, they will make you go cross-eyed, but if you know a few key things to look for it will take you a LONG way. You can also turn to resources like the EWG Skin Deep database to find easy to understand information. In fact, I encourage you to go to EWG, search for one of your current personal care products and check out the ingredients and their ratings. It’s eye opening! Here is an example comparing body butters:
Top 3 Ingredients That Hurt Your Fertility
At minimum, learn these three ingredients to look for. If you can find a product that is free from these three ingredients you’re going to be looking at a significantly better product for your fertility.
1) Parabens– a common, inexpensive preservative that mimics estrogen in the body. They have been shown to accumulate in our hormone-regulating organs. Among many things, studies suggest this EDC can impact a woman’s egg production, ability to become pregnant and maintain pregnancy. They also suggest a negative effect on male sperm quality. (Parabens have also been strongly linked to breast cancer)
You will find parabens listed on the ingredient list under these names. Basically if it ends with “paraben” then you don’t want it.
Methylparaben
Butylparaben
Propylparaben
Ethylparaben
Isobutylparaben
Benzylparaben
2) Phthalates– these are a little tricker because they aren’t usually listed as “phthalate” on the label. They are considered reproductive toxicants and are found on labels under these names: phthalate, DEP, DBP, DEHP and fragrance. These EDCs have been linked to a decrease in male fertility and altered sex organ development. Yikes!
3) Fragrance/Parfum– nothing frustrates me more than seeing a product marketed as safe and natural and then reading the label to find “fragrance” or “parfum” listed as an ingredient. Synthetic fragrance is basically a cover-all term for all the ingredients that make up that “fragrance”. A huge loophole in the federal law allows phthalates (and many other harmful chemicals) to be added to fragrances without disclosing those ingredients to consumers. So basically, companies can (and do) hide endocrine disrupting chemicals- like parabens and phthalates- in “fragrance”. The Environmental Working Group found that about 75% of products that listed “fragrance” as an ingredient contains phthalates. The average fragance contains 14 secret chemicals that aren’t listed on the label. There is a really great documentary called Stink! that takes a deep dive into fragrance and this loophole. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t wear something that smells yummy ever again. There are great products that use natural and safe fragrances, but generally the term “fragrance” or “parfum” is a red flag.
Bonus ingredient- BISPHENOL A or “BPA”- BPA is used to harden plastics and has been banned from baby products because of it’s hormone disrupting properties, however you can still widely find it in other plastic packaging. Look for BPA-free packing, or even better, glass packaging for your beauty products. Glass is hard to find, but any company promoting themselves as clean SHOULD be using BPA-free packaging at the very least.
I am a huge advocate for being an informed consumer. Greenwashing is a real problem in the “nontoxic” and “natural” product world right now, so I don’t really trust what any company says about their products until I research it myself. That being said, I feel confident in Beautycounter’s mission, ingredient selection process, Never List and foundational value of transparency. Beautycounter is actively advocating for more health protective laws- like closing that fragrance loophole- so that everyone will have access to safer products. Switching to these products has made it so easy to feel good about what I’m using on my skin and has significantly reduced the number of headaches I get from going cross-eyed while reading labels.
High performing and significantly safer for my family and my fertility- sign me up!
I love love love helping people find safer products- even if they don’t want to try Beautycounter. For real, message me and I will help you figure out how to start switching to safer. But avoiding these three ingredients is a great first step!
Y’all – in my pre-mama days I would spend enormous amounts of time in front of the mirror doing my makeup in the morning. I actually really enjoy doing makeup. It’s fun to play with color combos and eyeliner. But this season of my life really doesn’t leave me with much time to paint my face. That being said, I still want to look put-together when I walk out the door.
Let me introduce you to the Flawless in Five set from Beautycounter. This makeup routine takes me less than 5 minutes and I do it in the car on most days. It has totally simplified my beauty routine and I’m always impressed with how it perks up my face without being overdone. It is an absolute busy mama must-have!
Before I tell you about the set in detail, let me spend a minute telling you why safer makeup is so important. Makeup sits on our skin all day long and touches some of the most sensitive areas like our eyes and mouths. We are absolutely absorbing the ingredients that our makeup is made out of. The build up of toxic ingredients over time in our bodies is proving to have serious negative impacts on our health; things like cancer, infertility and hormone issues and autoimmune diseases.
Most drugstore/department store makeup contains harmful ingredients like parabens, fragrance, SLS and heavy metals to name a few. Beautycounter makeup contains none of that. In fact, they promise to never use over 1,500 harmful ingredients in any of their products. That’s way more than the US or the EU has banned.
But, Nicole. I’ve tried “natural makeup” and it just … sucks.
Yes, that can be true. But let me tell you, Beautycounter is the real deal. Our stuff is high performing- used on the red carpet by celebs like Connie Britton and Alessandra Ambrosio. It. Is. So. Good.
Check out how easy this is:
So here is the rundown…
For $150 you can get everything you need to have a flawless, simple yet put-together look in under 5 minutes! Clean out your makeup bag!
The Flawless in Five Set includes:
Tint Skin Hydrating Foundation– a hydrating, creamy formula that is actually good for your skin. It’s buildable for light to medium coverage. I’ve worn it for many professional pictures and formal events with great results!
Touchup Skin Concealer Pen– like a magic eraser for my tired eyes (along with the Rejuvenating Eye Cream)
Color Define Brow Pencil– brows have become my favorite makeup! They instantly make my face look alive and dare I say… younger 😉
Mascara- pick lengthening or volumizing. Both are fantastic. It took us 3 years to formulate a safe and effective mascara!
Satin Powder Blush– the texture and staying power of our powders is crazy. They are made with butterpowder which feels as dreamy as it sounds.
Lip Gloss– another must-have. I love the texture- not sticky! It’s a moisturizing formula so I actually have stopped using lip balm. The scent is a yummy vanilla made from REAL VANILLA.
The colors are fully customizable! I can help you color match. Just send me an email or DM on Insta 💕
Of course you can buy these items separately, but your getting an amazing deal if you buy them as a set. If you love eyeshadow and liner- add the Get the Look set to your cart and you’re literally set for makeup!
If you’re not sure how your current makeup stacks up on terms of how clean it is, look it up on the EWG Skin Deep Database and see what you’re working with.
Looking and feeling great doesn’t have to involve hours in front of the mirror. Six products, five minute, flawless face!
“Embracing chaos might be the journey we take to finding peace” – Rachel Hollis
Can I get an amen?!?!
As a true INFP (Myers Briggs!) I struggle with routine, structure, rules, step-by-step ANYTHING. It’s not my natural inclination and when you add a heap of inner rebel {don’t tell me what to do} it makes following any sort of daily/weekly schedule near impossible. The harder I try to white knuckle my way through sticking to a strict schedule the more I end up with a tension headache and less accomplished than if I had just winged it. It’s also one of the quickest ways to send me into storm of negative self-talk and anxiety:
“Why must you ALWAYS fail at this one, Nicole? If you just tried harder and weren’t so lazy, You never follow through on what you say you’re gonna do. You are sucking at this mom thing- don’t you know that kids need structure?! Everyone else can stick to the schedule and do it all, all the time, perfectly- why can’t you?”
I literally laughed as I wrote that because it sounds so ridiculous when you say it out loud. SO MANY LIES! But somewhere along the line I had internalized that the women who were really winning at life were the ones who could follow their planned out life to a tee and never dropped the ball. I don’t know any of those women in real life though…I think the internet created her??
Alas, I do recognize that structure and routine can be very helpful in getting things done. I have a lot of roles and responsibilities these days {coach’s wife, mom, high school counselor, Beautycounter consultant, friend, daughter, sister…} and if I want to bring my best self to each day, I have found that a **LOOSE**plan for each day and a few simple routines do help me tackle my to do list. More importantly, they help me stay positive and motivated and help prevent me from burning out.
Here are some of my tips and tricks:
Plan only the week ahead. When I am in a place of anxiety, I will try to plan each day of the rest of my life, knowing full well I won’t follow any of the plan I just made, which stresses me even more. So I’ve committed to only planning out my week ahead. Of course the big calendar events get planned ahead of time, but the little details, like when I’ll be hitting the gym and when I’ll fit in paying the bills happens on Sunday.
Prioritize the things that matter most. Know your goals and the things that fill your life with joy. Make sure you are planning in a way that lets you have those things in your life. Don’t expect to do them all in one week though.I can’t have a date night, girls night, family time, me time, workout 3-4 times and spend solid time working on my business all in the same week. But, I can pick what is most important and add one or two into my week. So maybe this week we get a date night and I really need some solid biz time so I schedule longer chunks of time for those two. Then, instead of girls night I can call a girlfriend on my commute home and make one of my workouts a walk to the park with Austin- my neighborhood hill is a killer.
Be careful what you commit to. Don’t make promises (including to yourself!) that you won’t realistically keep. If that means you only hit the gym 2 times this week instead of your wishful thinking 5–so be it. Better to feel good for hitting your small goal than beat yourself up for failing to hit the one that was never going to happen anyway.
Have a set wake up and bedtime. Don’t let them be compromised. I’ll be honest, this is a work in progress. I LOVE MY SLEEP. Going to bed early is no problem. Waking up early, not so much. But, I notice a huge difference in my day when I go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up early. I aim for 10pm bedtime and 5:30am wake time.
Streamline your morning routines so you can get the day started on a positive note:
Start with a little me time- fill your cup first. For me, that looks like a little time in a devotional and prayer (currently loving 100 Days to Brave), writing down my goals and what I’m grateful for and setting a priority list for the day.
Simplify your beauty routine (check out my routine here!)! I used to spend way more time in front of the mirror, but I’d rather spend it sipping coffee in silence before little man wakes up. Beautycounter’s Flawless in Fivemakes looking put together so easy! Most days I do my makeup in my car. If you can- let your hair air dry. I know my hair could look better if I styled it, but I pull it into a bun most days anyway.
Try taking a shower the night before and make that be bath time for the little one. Two birds, one stone. #winning
Make sure you have easy, portable breakfast options for the family. I don’t cook in the morning-ever.
Have just a few non-negotiable afternoon routines – these are mine:
Spend at least 15 minutes just playing with Austin. Getting lost in play with my son will ground me and uplift me every time. He soaks up the quality time and I really think it makes a difference in his behavior through the evening.
While making dinner, make lunches and tackles dishes. Then be done with the kitchen. I keep meals simple so that I’m spending the least amount of time in the kitchen as possible. You can read more about my meal planning here.
Set out as much as you can the night before – clothes, fill water bottles, purse, kids backpack, gym bag, setup coffee maker, etc. I spend about 10 minutes running through my mental checklist of things I’ll need in the morning and just speed through it.
Bring bags to the car so you aren’t juggling all the things AND a toddler {but don’t leave valuables in the car. People can still be jerks}
Spend 10 minutes before bed writing down what you’re grateful for that day. Gratitude is the key to basically everything- I swear. I just bought this Five Minute Journal to use in my morning and evening routine and I am really excited about it!
There you have it. If I try to get more planned out than that, I set myself up for failure. Because come on… no two days are the same when you’re juggling all the things, especially if you have kids in the mix. I believe as women we can have and become all the things we want, but we probably can’t have it all in one day, or even one season of life. You have to be flexible and roll with it or else every day will end with frustration. Embrace the chaos, give yourself loads of grace, and focus on what matters most to you.
Charcoal is having a moment and I am totally on board! After a weekend of sun, sweat and sunscreen my pores need some love. Remember when those Biore pore strips were all the rage? Well, charcoal has the same pore cleansing effect, but better and also…safer.
Activated charcoal is like a magnet for the dirt, oil and gunk in your pores! It pulls them out and they wash away as your rinse your face. It is amazing for oily and acne prone skin, but honestly, all skin types can benefit from a weekly charcoal mask.
Important note: this mask is NOT the kind you peel off, which can actually be pretty harmful to your skin. You just wipe it off with a wet cloth.
The Beautycounter No. 3 Balancing Charcoal Mask is an essential in my skincare routine! It’s like a 10 minute spa-grade facial <3 Once I’m done my skin feels clean and firm. Here are some of the benefits:
Refines skin and cleanses with a matte result
Draws out impurities and toxins
Immediately reduces the appearance of pores
Leaves skin brighter, clearer, smoother, and more even-toned
Soothes and calms skin, reducing redness, irritation, and blotchiness
I usually wash my face with the Charcoal Cleansing Bar first to get the first round of dirt off my face which leaves my skin ready for a really deep clean from the charcoal mask! Then I follow with the Cleansing Balm as an overnight hydrating mask and holy smokes my skin is perfection in the morning.
Step One:
Step Two:
Step Three:
Okay soooo let’s address the elephant in the room…why do I have the charcoal mask on my armpits?
I switched to natural deodorant about 2 years ago as I was making my transition to safer products. Conventional deodorant contains aluminum, parabens and other harmful ingredients. Aluminum has been linked to alzheimer’s and breast cancer. And parabens are known hormone disruptors. They have actually found parabens in breast cancer cells. On top of that, it’s actually not good for your body to not sweat. It is one of our natural ways to detox our body and it an important, albeit annoying, bodily function.
Sweat itself isn’t actually stinky, it’s the bacteria that the sweat comes into contact with that makes ya smell.
::enter charcoal::
As I made the transition, my hubby made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t a fan of my new “hippie” deodorant choices. It takes your body a hot minute to adjust to being without its trusty aluminum. Using the charcoal cleansing bar to wash my armpits daily and the charcoal mask weekly really helped reduce the…odor…I was emitting because it draws out any bacteria that might cause said odor.
Although, I’ve adjusted now and I don’t get quite so stinky anymore, I still use my charcoal products to maintain. It’s not glamorous, but I’ll do almost anything in the name of safer beauty 😉
Finding a safe deodorant that works took a lot of trial and error and honestly, I think different brands will work better for different people. I love Native! My favorite scent is the Coconut & Vanilla, but they always have yummy ones to choose from. If Native doesn’t work for you here are a few more brands that are definitely safer and get great reviews from my fellow safe beauty babes:
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Infertility. The word sounds as harsh as the diagnosis. I’m sitting here waiting for my ultrasound to check how my uterine lining is progressing and having one of those surreal- is this really my life- moments. I don’t mean that in a “poor me” way, but it’s still baffling sometimes that the word infertility is so common in my vocabulary. That I write about frozen embryo transfers and estrogen. That I don’t blink anymore at getting blood drawn. That a doctor is in the room with my husband and I when we “get pregnant” 😳 Not exactly what you picture on your wedding day.
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This is why I’m on a mission to share safer products. This is why my Beautycounter business isn’t really about a great lipstick or eye cream. It’s so freaking personal for me. It got personal the day the doctor sat down across from us and explained that in vitro fertilization was our only viable option to have children. It got personal the day that I gave myself my first {of many} hormone shots. It got really personal when my doctor sucked a bunch of my eggs from my ovaries with a needle..through my vagina…(mmm hmmm) and even more personal when he put one beautifully fertilized embryo back in my uterus.
Yeah. That’s personal.
(can you tell I’m a little feisty about this topic)
Most personal care products are packed with things like parabens and phthalates that are KNOWN to impact our hormones and contribute to infertility. I didn’t know that. Not until we couldn’t get pregnant and I started scouring the internet for anything that might be a clue. They are everywhere; just flip over your shampoo bottle, or face lotion. I didn’t know that the last significant law regulating the personal care industry was passed in >>> 1938 <<< I didn’t know that over 80% of the ingredients in our beauty products have N E V E R been tested for safety.
Now I know. And I can’t un-know. So, I have to share. I want you to know. I want everyone to know.
And you might be thinking…this doesn’t effect me..I’m a fertile myrtle over here so it’s all good. Wrong. It’s not just fertility; it’s cancer. Autoimmune disease. Skin conditions. Learning Disabilities. It’s our health.
We deserve better. We should NOT have to sacrifice our health or fertility for the sake of “beauty”.
If you want to learn more, please ask me questions.
I have fallen in love with oil cleansing. 
