Beauty

The Body Shop is one of the beauty brands that I have been using on and off for most of my life, and I deeply respect their no compromises, no BS, business fundamentals. They had a focus on ethically sourced ingredients and the environment long before it became trendy, and they have never tested their products on animals, even back when animal testing was still normal procedure among many other beauty brands.

When I was a teenager, I absolutely loved the lip balm, which smelled and tasted like strawberries, and the hair shampoo with banana and coconut, but now that I am older, I have also come to love some of the more functional products, which do more than just smelling good. Here are some of the products from The Body Shop on my bathroom shelf right now:

Vitamin C Glow-Revealing Liquid Peel

This is a revatively new favorite that I have been using for a little more than a year (I have previously written about Vitamin C Glow-Revealing Liquid Peel here). I love how the gel turns into small clumps, when rubbed over dead skin cells and leaves the skin clear and glowing. You can use Liquid Peel every day, but I only use it a couple of times each week, so there is more stuff to peel off.

Pear Bath Blend

The Pear Bath Blend creates lots of fluffy foam and has a nice and fruity pear scent, which is not too synthetic. The pear scent disappears soon after you are out of the bathtub, but the skin feels nice, soft, and moisturized for a long time.

Tea Tree Gel Shampoo

My hair always gets a little weird in the winter. It is as if it cannot decide whether to be dry and brittle or greasy and dull. After spending December in Denmark, my scalp was acting out, and something had to be done, so I decided to try the tea tree shampoo to mend my hypersensitive scalp. The shampoo really worked wonders and my scalp feels healthy and balanced again. Though the shampoo does not do a lot for my hair in terms of shine and softness, so if you try it, I would recommend that you follow up with a conditioner or a hair mask (which you apply to the hair, not the scalp), to add nourishment and shine to your hair.

Launching your own beauty brand in Europe is not an easy task. You need to comply with some of the strictest regulations in the world, and extensive lab testing and documentation of ingredients and shelf life are required.

Furthermore, many smaller beauty brands do not have their own production facilities, but pay to have their products made at an external factory. If you want to use your own formulas and customized packaging, the minimum order quantity and the production costs are often prohibitively high. Beauty products have a limited shelf life, so you risk spending a lot of money before you even know, if there is a market for your products.

If you want to start your own beauty brand without investing too much money, you can instead choose to buy from factories that make generic, unbranded products (so-called white label), and then add your own label/brand.

The white label factories obtain the necessary documents for selling in the EU, and they are also responsible for documentation and laboratory tests, so you avoid all the paperwork and the high associated costs, which has significantly lowered the barrier to entry and flooded the market with new brands.

Many of the new products on social media are of this type, and if you see an influencer with a beauty brand, more often than not, it is white label, ie. generic products that the influencers just labels as their own.

How can you tell if a product is white label?

Do not expect the beauty brands to be particularly eager to tell you that their products are really just white labels, and that they did not come up with the formulas themselves, so how can you tell if it is white label? Here are some of the things that might give you an idea:

If you develop your own products, this is something you want to use in your marketing, because it makes your brand standout and adds credibility. You can therefore be sure that brands with their own laboratory and research facilities, will mention that on their website and in their marketing. Since you cannot lie or mislead the consumer, brands built around white labels would instead either completely omit mentioning product development, or use very vague terms when describing the research and development behind the products.

A good place to look for clues is the brand’s About page. What is the story of the brand? Who are the people behind and do they have any skills or expertise that make them particularly suitable for starting a beauty brand? What makes the products different from what is already on the market?

Should you avoid white label beauty products?

White label products are not necessarily bad, as they have to undergo the same tests as all other beauty products sold within the EU. On the other hand, you should not expect to buy something particularly unique, as the white label factories sell the same products made from the same formulas to many different brands. The expensive influencer hair shampoo that you saw on Instagram, could thus be exactly the same shampoo available at a discount brand that buy from the same white label manufacturer.

When it is cold outside, my skin requires a little extra care, and I have discovered that Avène’s Eau Thermal works wonders for my dry, sensitive winter skin. The gray and rainy winter months also calls for a dash of color, and the playful shades from Etude House have recently started invading my bathroom shelf. I’m probably 20 years older than the brand’s target group, but I love the sweet packaging, the bright color scale and the budget friendly price level.

Another fun product that I want to highlight this month is the Vitamin C Glow Revealing Liquid Peel from The Body Shop. I am going through a bottle each month, because I am also using it on my hands and my feet and I love how the dead skin just crumbles off. Finally, there is the liquid eyeliner from Stila, which has been my favorite eyeliner for years. Here is the list of this month’s beauty products, straight from my bathroom to my blog:

Avène – Eau Thermale

Expensive thermal spring water in a spray bottle? Sounds, like a scam, but I’m telling you, this is a miracle for my skin. When the weather gets colder I have a tendency to rashes and weird little itchy bumps, but the Thermal Spring Water spray from Avène calms my skin and prevents any outbreaks and rashes. I usually buy the small 50ml bottle but when I saw this big 300ml at the pharmacy, I thought I might as well get that one, because I am using it all the time, and the bigger bottle was a better deal. Though when I’m traveling by plane, I bring one of the small bottles that I can carry in my hand luggage, so my skin does not go crazy from the dry, conditioned air.

The Body Shop Vitamin C Glow-Revealing Liquid Peel

I have previously tried the FIRMx Exfoliating Peeling Gel from Peter Thomas Roth, and I was looking for a refill, when I found The Vitamin C Glow-Revealing Liquid Peel at The Body Shop. The Vitamin C Peel is similar to the FIRMx, but at a lower price point, and I love it! When massaging into the skin, small clumps start forming and peel away dead skin. To me, this feels gross and strangely satisfying at the same time, and I am always excited to see how many clumps I will be generating. Afterwards, the skin has a nice, fresh glow, but unfortunately, it does not last very long. You can use the Vitamin C peel every day, but I prefer to use it once a week, so I can accumulate a lot of dead skin cells to peel off.

Etude House – Face Blur

Face Blur is one of my latest finds from Etude House. The light formula smoothes the skin, minimizes the pores and adds a nice glow to my complexion. I think Face Blur is meant to be a primer for your make up, so if you are used to wearing heavier makeup, you might feel a bit naked with Face Blur alone. Though I like the light coverage and the natural look, so I often go to the mall wearing nothing but Face Blur and a colored lip balm (and clothes of course:)).

Etude House – Berry Delicious

Berry Delicious is Etude House’s popular series of strawberry-colored cream blushers. Each shade has a strawberry-themed name, and they even smells like (very synthetic) strawberry. I bought the shade called #1 Wild Strawberry, which is nice pink color with a bit of gold shimmer. The blush comes with a flat round application sponge, which is impossible to use, as it picks up way too much color, so I suggest you use your fingertips instead for application.

Stila – Stay All Day Liquid Eye Liner

It took a while before I fell in love with the liquid eyeliner from Stila, because right out of the box, the pen is very runny, and the color seemed thin and watered-out. Though after a while, the pen dries up a little and becomes much easier to work with, so just give it some time, and I’m sure you’ll learn to love it too.

I have been writing about beauty before, but to get more consistency, I have decided to write one blog post a month about the beauty products I am currently using, and what I think about them. Here are the products that made it to my bathroom shelf in September:

On my last Sephora haul I got the Fresh Sugar On-the-Go Lip Kit Fresh) with mini versions of three different lip products. I had previously tried the Sugar Advanced Therapy, and it worked really well for my lips, but I was unfamiliar with the other two products in the set.