Be a natural beauty

Our skin soaks up 60 per cent of what we put on it. When that includes mineral oils, parabens and the 5,000 other unpronounceables commonly found in skincare products, the thought is alarming. While the long-term effects of these man-made chemicals on our skin remain to be seen, chances are they could do more harm than good.

Growing evidence of the link between the pollutants we encounter in our daily lives - everything from cleaning products to car fumes - with health conditions, such as allergies, suggests that we shouldn't be adding to them by using artificially manufactured compounds in our food or on our skin.

Organic beauty (made from ingredients grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides) is now taking off as quickly as - and for similar reasons to - organic food.

Wholly organic skincare is still hard to find. Soil Association certification is awarded only when a product is 100 per cent organic - difficult to achieve when working with complex blends and random elements such as water. However, a number of beauty brands are rejecting synthetic preservatives, petroleum-based and animal-tested ingredients and GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to create products that, in some cases, are good enough to eat.

Choosing products labelled 'natural' is no longer enough - manufacturers need only use one per cent natural ingredients to put the term on their packaging.

The new buzzword in beauty is 'biodynamic', which means the ingredients used in the products are grown without chemicals and are sown in sync with the cycles of the sun, moon, planets and stars, making plants more potent - and more effective. There's no doubt these products are closer to nature: just what organic beauty is all about.