OBS: Is your education in nutrition what first made you aware of the toxins in cosmetics?

JG: For a beauty editor, it was imperative to be a cosmetic junkie, and I happily used conventional skincare and makeup products until I began planning my pregnancy. For some reason it never occurred to me that I was doing something wrong. Only when I started researching what do I need to do to have a timely and healthy pregnancy, I realized that I must let go of all the cosmetic junk beauty, just like I eliminated junk food from my diet. You see, our skin eats, too, and if you are eating organic, it simply makes no sense to continue using synthetic beauty.

OBS: How big a role do you feel nutrition plays in the health and beauty of our skin? Can we improve our skin with what we eat alone and think of skin care and cosmetics as icing on the cake?

JG: I suffered from adult acne for many years, and my skin got clear only when I switched to purely organic diet. Phytonutrients and vitamins in food can do amazing things to prevent and treat skin problems. It’s a well-known fact that vitamin A supplementation is very helpful for acne, and drinking green tea can prevent skin cancer. The opposite - that certain chemicals can trigger DNA changes in our skin - can be true for many artificial ingredients in food and cosmetics that we ingest daily.

OBS: You make the point that organic cosmetics do not have to be more expensive than their mainstream counterparts. Do you see more affordable, safe organic products in drugstores in the near future?

JG: There are lots of amazing all-natural and organic beauty products in health food stores and drugstores today. For example, Dr. Bronner’s soaps are organic, inexpensive and very versatile: they can be safely used to remove makeup, shampoo your hair and cleanse your home. Skin Food by Weleda is a gorgeous moisturizer to use when your skin needs a bit more moisture and nourishment, especially in the winter time.

Unfortunately, most manufacturers of organic beauty are making their lines more and more expensive, mostly because they overload their products with too many wonderful plant ingredients - but in fact, you don’t really need much to achieve great results. Aloe vera, rose, calendula, tea tree oil don’t cost a fortune, and you can make well-performing products without super-expensive exotic ingredients that have to be transported across the globe. In my line, Petite Marie Organics, I only use basic, local food-grade ingredients, and most of them have been in use for centuries. Why would you need an extract of some rare, exotic orchid if plain rose oil would work just as nicely - but without a steep price?

OBS: How about some of the luxury organic brands in the big department stores? A Jo Wood counter next to Chanel?

JG: I love Usiki fragrance line by Jo Wood, by the way. In our department store in Tunbridge Wells there’s an enormous section of natural and organic beauty lines - almost as spacious as all the Chanel, Estee Lauders, and Clinique counters combined. They carry Jo Wood, Annick Goutal, Serge Lutens, Dr. Hauschka, REN, Korres, John Masters Organics, as well as more affordable Burt’s Bees and Weleda. That’s the perfect combo, for me. It’s just about time to make organic beauty a symbol of status and prestige. But unlike the prestige of Chanel which is mostly based on their elegant packaging and glorious history, the prestige of green beauty comes from pure, healthy, and extremely effective ingredients that truly work, not just look pretty on a bathroom counter.

OBS: Since cosmetics labels can be difficult to decipher, I feel the easiest way for a consumer to realize a safe product is to follow those cosmetics companies who are dedicated to safety. What do you think is the single most important thing consumers can do to protect themselves from toxins in skin care and cosmetics?

JG: There’s no way around it. You must read the ingredients list because even companies that are dedicated to the green cause can often slip up and include a PEG ingredient or a synthetic preservative in their otherwise perfectly green and natural formulations. And it happens really quickly! Some of the products I recommended in THE GREEN BEAUTY GUIDE as safe and natural have changed the formulations in the past few months, so I won’t be able to recommend them now. Don’t trust the claims on the box and don’t listed to sales people. A few days ago one lady in a white lab coat told me that Clinique is a green brand and they don’t use chemicals. I nearly laughed! So don’t be scared to request the box and read the ingredients list. Simply scan it for the PEGS, parabens, and anything that has -ETH in the name. You can find a neat magnifying glass to read the labels, if needed.

OBS: What is the first skincare item you would switch out for “green”?

JG: It would be a moisturizer. Anything that remains on your skin longer than two minutes will do much more harm than a non-green cleanser that is rinsed off quickly.

OBS: What is your one can’t-live-without-it beauty product?

JG: It’s Skin Food by Weleda and Silver Mountain Water fragrance by Creed. It’s expensive but it’s very long-lasting. A one-ounce bottle lasts me a year with daily use.

Thanks Julie!

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