By The Green Parent
10th September 2020
I had to look for a sunscreen for my daughter to use at school. Having failed to find a brand that suited my requirements i.e. all-natural with no toxic or unnecessary ingredients and not in plastic, I decided to make my own, researched the internet for the best quality and most effective natural sunscreen active ingredients, found non-Nano zinc oxide, played with it in various carrier formulas, found it worked brilliantly and friends and family also wanted it, and thus Shade was born.
SELF-CARE SECRETS
I have been vegetarian since I was 15, and vegan for the past 5 years. This has helped me keep well, energetic, largely in good shape and has helped my emotional wellbeing as well as my conscience! Secondly, I use toxin-free cosmetics and limit these to the essentials, and I use a natural hardwood charcoal (Toxin Buster) to help reduce my daily toxin intake and fortunately I’m not partial to alcohol or other dependencies. Thirdly, I believe my excellent mental health and overwhelming optimism and positivity is largely down to not having a TV for the last ten years! Its absence from my life has enabled greater harmony within the household, allowed me more time and ‘headspace’ to pursue other healthier activities and to concentrate on developing my business and focussing on my relationships; refraining from watching or listening to the news too often has gone a long way to helping me maintain a balanced perspective on the world and kept negativity and fear out of my life!
BUSINESS PLANS
Covid-19 has impacted the business massively this year and so really with Brexit looming in January we are going to be focused on trying to get back to where we were heading at the beginning of the year, get all our ducks in a row so we are compliant with any cosmetics regulation changes as a result, and once labs are open again we will be able to send some of our vegan formulas off for SPF and broad spectrum testing…fingers crossed we have one which is at least as good as Shade (we’re quietly confident!), so we hope to launch that, all going well. We also have another food supplement we’re working on, so watch this space!
THREE WAYS TO BE MORE SUSTAINABLE
1 - To read and understand ingredient lists and research anything that isn’t recognisable as having grown on trees or sprouted from the land. The more complex and synthetic a formula or a recipe the greater the carbon footprint as each ingredient needs to be sourced from somewhere or manufactured somehow…so the smaller the formula or ingredient list, and the fewer man-made ingredients, the lesser the impact of the product on the world.
2 - Consider greenwashing – just because something says it’s natural or sustainable, it doesn’t mean it is – do your homework.
3 – Refrain from automatic purchasing. Do you really need that, or do you just want it? What will buying it do to improve your life, the life of those around you, and the lives of those involved in its production? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves if we’re going to move forward more sustainably in future.
