I have a friend who flatly refuses to use a microwave, spends copious amounts of cash a month on a nutritionist and a fancy yoga club membership, but happily fills her face with synthetic fillers because she simply can’t stand her marionette lines, quite a contradiction, but one that has not gone unnoticed in the world of beauty journalism! Welcome to a new lifestyle breed, the “Chemi-ganics”.
According to Helen Brown at The Times, Chemi-ganics are women who are just as likely to be found among the seeds and pulses aisle of their local Fresh & Wild as they are in the waiting rooms of their dermatologist.
It seems the natural-meets-high-tech approach to beauty, is becoming quite a phenomenon, with larger than life media icons spearheading the movement. Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore have all adopted holistic, macrobiotic, spiritual and organic lifestyles, avoiding chemicals in their quest for the fountain of youth. However, these women are clearly embracing the chemical laden “quick fix” that their dermatologists are offering too.
We are at an important cross roads in the beauty industry, as consumers we are becoming more conscious of the negative effects of chemicals on our bodies and to our environment, and we want change, however we do not want to change anything that might be detrimental to our product’s performance. In short, if pushed, we choose beauty over moral philosophy, but ideally we want both! Since this movement is in its infancy it will take some time for these contradictions to iron themselves out.
At Kitten Vixen we face this dilemma daily as we endeavor to make our products as clean as possible without compromising the integrity or quality of the final product. I know from experience that currently, mixing up color cosmetics that are totally free of chemicals produces sub-standard and sometimes nauseating formulations. Our team rejected countless formulations when creating our lip-glosses because we wanted to ensure that the product was as organic and natural as possible, without compromising on the integrity of the products.
Our philosophy is “If we can use a natural or organic ingredient without compromising the performance of our products, we will and we will never test on animals”.
So at least for now our global awareness, coupled with current industry limitations means as women, as consumers and as cosmetic makers we must all compromise and walk the fine line that is “chemi-ganic” in the hopes that one day we are able to blossom into satisfied and possibly even smug Pure-istas.
