Food Grade Products: Good Enough to Eat
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Photo: Levi Brown
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If you wouldn’t eat something because of all the preservatives and stabilizers listed on the label, why would you slather it onto your skin? Food-grade products are categorized as safe enough to eat, full of the kind of recognizable—and pronounceable—ingredients you know to look for in your diet. They just happen to be good for your skin and hair, too. Definitions for “all-natural” and “organic” can be blurry, but food-grade? You know exactly what you’re getting.
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Brands like LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, TastyFace Organics, Bite Beauty, 100% Pure, RMS Beauty, The Body Deli, Ilia, and Dr. Alkatis all embrace so-good-you-could-eat-them ingredients. And it’s not just a gimmick. Erica Vega, product and brand trainer for LUSH, says, “The skin is breathable and porous and readily receives what we put onto it, so we want to use fresh, natural, organic ingredients as much as we can. Using products with food-grade ingredients means delivering high-quality nutrition that is easily understood and processed by the body.” It’s why you’ll find fresh fruits and vegetables, honey, salt, and aloe on the brand’s labels.
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Photo: Bite Beauty
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Vega points out that though preservatives kill bacteria, “they also kill the vitality of a product, so we don’t want to negate the fresh ingredients we use by smothering them in preservatives.” In fact, about 70% of LUSH’s extensive line is 100% preservative-free, while some ingredients, like cocoa butter and honey, have natural preservatives in them. Vega says the buyers are so progressive in trying to find the absolute best ingredients that they’ll get fruits and veggies from the same suppliers as 5-star vegetarian restaurants.
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Not surprisingly, Shah agrees that natural ingredients can be safer and more beneficial to the skin. “One big difference between natural organic companies that use food ingredients is that they typically don’t have sulfates, phthalates, and parabens and they’ll be less irritating to the skin,” says Shah. “Ancient cultures were on to something. Lots of foods contain fruit acids, vitamins, and minerals, which are anti-inflammatory and antibacterial. Ingredients like oats and ground almonds can exfoliate from their own texture.”
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Photo: 100% Pure
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Of course, the downside to no preservatives is that products don’t last as long—we’re talking just a few weeks to about a year. Shah advises keeping an eye on changes in color or texture, and storing products with food grade ingredients in a cool, dark environment. With traditional products you’ll see an expiration date like 12M written on the back (that date reflects how long you can use the product after you put your hands in it), but it could have been sitting on the store shelf for years. Brands like LUSH state when it was made and packed, so that you know exactly how fresh it is.
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Let’s get one thing straight: just because you can eat food-grade products does not mean you should. “We do have lip scrubs that we encourage people to eat,” says Vega. Their fair trade sugar and jojoba oil are combined with tasty, lickable flavors on purpose, but cosmetics companies aren’t bakeries, and she wouldn’t recommend tasting anything else since cleansing ingredients and essential oils aren’t delicious. Shah says you also shouldn’t assume you are free and clear using beauty treatments with natural ingredients. “Just because products are made with organic foods doesn’t mean you can’t develop skin irritations,” says Shah. “Essential oils, fragrance, and parabens can all cause allergic reactions.”
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Photo: Lush
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As people become increasingly aware of harmful additives, the demand is there for preservative-free products. Recently Ambrosen made three of LUSH’s best-selling products— Dream Cream, Ocean Salt, and Mask of Magnaminty—completely self-preserving by rebalancing the formulas to lower the water content while bulking up on fresh honey, soy glycerine, tofu, and natural vegetable butters. “We will be selling these side-by-side, so people can have a choice, like buying milk at the supermarket,” says Vega. The company hopes to make their whole line 100% preservative-free.
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At the end of the day, Shah says that despite the great scientific advances in skincare products, going natural can be safe, beneficial, and even fun. She suggests looking up recipes for masks and treatments and making your own. “Turmeric masks are great for acne and skin issues since it’s a brightening antioxidant,” Shah says. “Honey is moisturizing and antimicrobial, grapes and grape juice contain antioxidants, and ground rice, oats, and rice flour could be used to make a mask or scrub.” No matter which option you choose, both experts share the same advice: read the label.
