Unfortunately, there is much confusion and misinformation regarding this subject. Everything is a chemical. The air we breathe, water we drink, the building blocks of very life itself are chemical compounds. Everything in every skin care product, every nutritional product, and every food is a chemical.

Then, there is the hazy subject of natural vs. synthetic.

Put succinctly, there is no such thing as all-natural, pure cosmetics. They don’t exist and if they did, they would not automatically be good for the skin. Whatever preconceived or advertising-induced fiction that you have heard regarding natural ingredients being better for the skin has no basis in fact or scientific legitimacy. Not only is the definition of “all natural” hazy, but the term isn’t even regulated, so each cosmetics company can use it to mean something different. If a company wants to call their products natural, it can, and it doesn’t matter what they contain.

So what is all-natural? It can mean anything and nothing. For most cosmetics companies it means including plant extracts in their formulations. The ingredient list may include aqueous extracts with a long list of plant names following. Even if an all-natural product did exist, you wouldn’t want to use it on your skin anyway. Think about a bunch of plants, fruits, or vegetables sitting in your bathroom. What would happen in a very brief period of time if they didn’t contain preservatives? They would become moldy and disgusting in just a few days. Skin-care products contain very unnatural sounding preservatives, and that’s great. According to many cosmetic chemists, a reliable preservative system helps avoid the risk of microbial contamination, which could cause problems for the eyes, lips, and skin. For most people, the possibility of an allergic reaction to a preservative is the lesser of the two evils. So-called all natural ingredients can themselves cause allergies, irritation, and skin sensitivities. Just think of how many people have hay fever, and you will start to realize just how unfriendly certain natural ingredients may sometimes be. The notion that all natural equals good skin care or better makeup will waste your money and probably hurt your skin. I’m not sure if the majority of women who buy cosmetics are ever going to be able to believe this. The pressure to believe the lie about all natural products being better for the skin is hard to resist, and women want to believe it. Cosmetics companies spend lots of money to reinforce their message about the benefit of natural ingredients through their ads, sales force, and brochures. Despite the corroboration from countless physicians, cosmetic chemists, and other scientists in a variety of academic research, it still isn’t easy to counter the hype surrounding products claiming to be all-natural or pure. It gets even more confounding as the natural sources become more exotic and eccentric, such as sea plants or foliage from the rain forest or herbs from India

What makes this natural craze so annoying and undesirable is that it perpetuates myths that can hurt a woman’s skin. The label might say pure and natural but you could be buying a purely irritating product that might cause an allergic reaction. All natural ingredients is one of the most bogus, misleading components of the cosmetics industry because they focus attention on the wrong information. I’m not saying there aren’t some natural-sounding ingredients that are good for the skin, because there are, but the idea that they are still natural once they have been extracted from their source and mixed into a cosmetic is ludicrous. One of the more potent examples of how the natural craze gets in the way of good skin care and good information concerns alpha hydroxy acids. AHAs have gotten a lot of press over the past several years, and many women know that AHAs work as effective exfoliants for sun-damaged skin. Of the several AHAs used in cosmetics, lactic acid and glycolic acid are the most popular and the most researched.

AHAs have been promoted as being natural because lactic acid is derived from milk and
glycolic acid is derived from sugarcane, but derived from doesn’t mean the original ingredient has anything to do with the extracted ingredient. Milk and sugarcane are not the same as lactic acid and glycolic acid. Rubbing milk or sugarcane on your face won’t have the same effect as applying a product with lactic or glycolic acid, just as rubbing moldy bread on your body isn’t the same as taking penicillin, even though penicillin is derived from moldy bread.

Next time you’re faced with marketing claims about all natural being better for the skin, remember the following:

1. Food-type ingredients in products increase the need for additional preservatives to decrease mold and bacteria contamination.
2. Food can feed the bacteria present in skin, increasing risk of breakouts.
3. Plant extracts are no longer plants.
4. Yeast or bacteria cultures (from products that do not contain preservatives) in cosmetics can exacerbate rosacea and psoriasis.

Just to test your knowledge of what is natural vs what isn’t. Look at these chemicals. which do you think is natural and which isn’t?

• (3R,4S,5S)-6-(Hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol
• 2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol
• (3β,5Z,7E)-9,10-secocholesta-5,7,10(19)-trien-3-ol

What did you guess? So would you want any of these in your body? Well these are all very natural, harmless, chemicals. you may know them better as glucose, vitamin-c, and vitamin-d. So just because it sounds like a chemical and is a chemical, doesn’t mean it is harmful.

– Contributed by Russ Barton, M.S., C.N.S.,