Since you use soap in the shower on a daily basis, it’s smart to check the ingredients of your favorite soap brand before rubbing it all over every square inch of your skin. When you read through the list, be on the lookout for these red flags… 1. If you see the word fragrance, it’s [...]
Read more >>Stuff to Learn
Want to know how the beauty industry really works? Learn what goes on behind the scenes in the business of beauty.
First Noble Truth
In this section you will learn the truth about ingredients in your favorite beauty products and how you as a consumer can protect yourself against the manipulations of the beauty industry.
The Great Sun Debate
Summer is here and the Internet is drowning in articles about sun exposure and sunscreen…writers warning of the evils of the sun and the necessity of sunscreen all packaged in skin cancer statistics and delivered with a bow. If you’re as sick of it as I am, there’s good news: Much of what they say [...]
Read more >>The Acne Drug
A Beauty Guru reader recently sent me an email in which she mentioned that her dermatologist had just prescribed her a generic brand of Accutane. Her email made me want to share a little bit about what Accutane (and its generic versions) do to the body. Roche Holding AG, the manufacturer of Accutane, has been [...]
Read more >>The Dermatologist’s Protocol
So you’re having some breakouts and you realize Proactiv isn’t going to cut it. What do you do? You schedule an appointment with a dermatologist, right? Well, I’m going to suggest you cancel that appointment. And here’s why… About 85 percent of Americans have trouble with acne at some point in their life, and most [...]
Read more >>Organic Beauty
If you haven’t stopped by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) lately to read about their Coming Clean Campaign, you should. Why? Because they’ve been working tirelessly to clean up the “organic” cosmetics industry since 2004 and they’re finally starting to make some real headway. Due to poor labeling standards, many beauty products that claim to be [...]
Read more >>Eat Your Lipstick
It’s been said that the average woman ingests four to nine pounds of lipstick in her lifetime. Just pay attention to how many times you taste what’s on your lips in one 24-hour period and you’ll realize that those numbers may actually be accurate. So what exactly are you ingesting when you accidentally eat your [...]
Read more >>What’s in a Fragrance?
When you read the ingredients on the back of a beauty product, you’re likely to come across one simple word: Fragrance. Sounds harmless enough. But what you should be asking yourself is: What’s in a “fragrance?” Because the answer, more often than not, inclues phthalates. Phthalates are chemicals that disrupt hormones and are known to [...]
Read more >>Product Safety 101
As you already probably know, many ingredients used in beauty products are questionable at best and downright dangerous at worst. Since 1938 the FDA has only banned 10 of 12,000 synthetic ingredients used to make personal care items. (In sharp contrast, the Cosmetics Directive in the EU has banned 1,100 compounds suspected of causing cancer, [...]
Read more >>The Art of Story
The Beauty Industry doesn’t experience a downturn during depressions. Why? Because “The Story” is powerful enough to survive even the worst economic circumstances. The impact of storytelling within the beauty industry cannot be overstated. We never take beauty products at face value. We look at the packaging and then determine whether or not we want [...]
Read more >>Why I Dropped Out of Beauty School
Yes I, the Beauty Guru, am indeed a beauty school dropout. But before you start humming that dreaded Grease tune, give me a moment to explain myself. I enrolled in a beauty school that shall remain nameless in order to gain a deeper knowledge of all things beauty. I chose an esthetician program mostly because [...]
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