What I Look For When I Shop For Skincare and Beauty

Something I greatly miss doing in person is beauty shopping. Oh how I cannot wait until the day we can freely wander, mask free throughout the isles of larger than life department stores and Sephoras, breaking up the overwhelming-ness with more intimate beauty boutiques of the Aesop or Deciem variety. I could spend an entire day testing creams and serums on the backs of my overly moisturized hands. I don’t mind sales pitches from fellow beauty lovers, I like how it starts conversations where I almost always learn something new about a brand or product. This experience is best suited for me alone, not that I don’t enjoy a companion, they just normally grow tired, hungry, or full of angst after the first few hours (I try to understand why but truly don’t see the lack of appeal).

Shopping online is something I can do alone, for as many hours as my heart desires or my eyes can stand. But the experience becomes two dimensional with products tickling only one sense to create an experience and convince me to buy. The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing my dislike for shopping beauty online, despite having done a great deal of it over the years, especially this last one. The only upside I can think of is the carefully crafted product info right there in front of your face. No need to squint at ingredient lists on glossy packaging - oh how I miss you glossy packaging. You have the freedom to browse as you please and watch all the videos of unattainable models and celebrity founders ooze over products in golden hour light to soft background beats (anyone else spent way too much time on the Sephora website?). I appreciate the overload of information I can find about products and brands when shopping online, but for the average person I get that this can be overwhelming. With no expert or brand rep to tell you what’s best for your skin, the task of shopping for beauty, especially skincare, becomes a tad daunting. So, despite my lack of love for the shopping medium, I’m here today to tell you the select few boxes I need to tick when shopping online for skincare, makeup, hair care and fragrance.

Cruelty Free | But Like, Actually

Obviously this need translates no matter how I’m shopping. But it’s much quicker and easier to find the information I’m looking for when shopping online. I only shop cruelty free beauty, as should any decent human being (I’m looking at you - YouTubers who still haven’t made the switch). But here’s the sad truth, not every brand who claims to be “cruelty free” or to “not test on animals” in their brand/product descriptions is actually telling the truth. There’s a shocking lack of legal legislations surrounding the ability to call your brand cruelty free. Brands could be selling in China, where the government requires animal testing on cosmetics by law. Brands could also be testing ingredients on animals in any step of their supply chain process. They get through on the loop hole that their final product isn’t tested on animals, but if every ingredient is, they shouldn’t have the right to call themselves cruelty free. Just further proof that you can’t judge a brand by their packaging OR their words. So how the absolute heck do we tell what’s right and what’s wrong? I turn to Cruelty Free Kitty or Ethical Elephant for confirmation on which brands I can happily support. They are full of incredibly detailed, transparent research about cruelty free and vegan beauty.

Ingredients I Watch for / Avoid

My attention is instantly caught when a brand is championing an ingredient based approach to consumer education. I like when brands experiment with less well-known ingredients in this part of the world. This especially applies to K-Beauty brands. Besides the weird and wonderful berries, leaves or other natural materials bringing up glowing skin from all corners of the earth, these are the staple ingredients I always look out for: Lactic acid, hyaluronic acid, rose derivatives, and Manuka honey. The common thread between the yummy ingredients is they give glow. Whether that be through intense hydration or gentle exfoliation, I know these are the best for my skin - but also what I’ll recommend to everyone because they are incredibly gentle to all skin types.

I’m very lucky I don’t have any skin sensitivities to specific ingredients. I’ve had great experiences with products that have “no-no” ingredients in the eyes of some skin care consultants. However, I do try to avoid certain additives that I know don’t actually help my skin or the product. Fragrance is the primary example of this. Essential oils have been known to be abrasive on easily sensitized skin, and are commonly used to add fragrance to skincare. Though some products I’ve tried use essential oils and haven’t bothered me, I do think it’s a safer bet to avoid them all together to fend off potential sensitivity.

An ingredient we should ALL be avoiding at all costs is palm oil. Often called mineral oil, the devil of the beauty industry: destroying our planet’s rainforests and perpetuating a horrifically unethical farming industry. This ingredient is commonly found in more affordable skin care, but luxury isn’t innocent either. It’s also something to watch out for in the food we buy - cough cough, Nutella. Here’s a great resource debunking the many names this harmful ingredient can hide behind. At the end of the shopping day, use your common sense when reading ingredient lists (please just read the damn lists). If you don’t think you should be putting mercury, coal tar, or lead on your face (surprisingly common ingredients in Sephora Collection products) choose something else. There is no shortage of options.

Brand Values

Brands don’t have more than 30 seconds to catch my attention. Though I’d love to say this isn’t done through visual appeal, I’m only human and do fall victim to marketing brainwash. I do pride myself, however, in looking second and second-foremost at the values the brand is trying to shove down my throat. What do they want me to know about the mission, vision, and ethics they build their brand on. How are they outwardly trying to explain to me their inward values? For makeup this is often shown through the colour diversity range of their products, for skin, it’s their ability to satisfy all skin types, and for any and all beauty brands, it’s their commitment to intersectional sustainability. I want to know where and how they make all of their products. I want to know where they source their ingredients and how they treat the people in their supply chain. And I want to know how their packaging is trying to combat the mess we’re in with post-consumer waste. As you can expect, most brands don’t give me all the answers I’m looking for, but some are on their way to being industry leaders in transparency. Some of my favourites are Ren, and Tata Harper, but you can find all my go-to skincare and beauty on the emeroo shop.

Thanks for reading

Em