If you’ve read any of my previous blogs you will understand my new found mission in life to understand what businesses are up to and make my choices more wisely. I say new found; I have been aware that a lot of my products ‘weren’t good’ for a long time, I just didn’t really know why.
It’s my belief that as consumers we should at least try to become more responsible for what we consume; as well as continually holding businesses responsible for their actions. I made myself a promise a year ago that when I run out of cosmetics from now on I will replace them with something well researched and better.
I’d like to share my newest change to the beauty regime. This one was actually a struggle for me; I’ve had a reluctance to switch out on toothpaste for fear of bad breath and rotten teeth! When lush bought out their ‘Toothy Tabs’ around 5 years ago I didn’t try them.
I did however follow some advice from a random article that popped up on facebook about keeping your teeth white; I went and bought myself some apple cider vinegar to water down then rinse around my mouth after flossing and before brushing. (The order is important to stop the acid in the vinegar from eroding your teeth). Whether or not it made my teeth whiter I have no idea but it made my teeth feel so clean and kept them feeling clean for so much longer; so I kept to it! And so far my teeth haven’t fallen out!
So why switch?
I’ve paid a visit to ethicalconsumer.org, such a useful site; I didn’t even know it existed outside the magazine. It allows you to sort through products and businesses by animal welfare, environmental, human rights, and political factors; each company / product has its overall score but you can change the criteria based on what is important to you; for example I generally chose animal rights and environmental factors as the two things that are most important to me.
Keeping to my rule of doing some research before replacing a product when it runs out, I had a look at Colgate which I’ve always used. Colgate is owned by Colgate-Palmolive Co. Looking into this company I’ve actually been quite pleasantly surprised; in my opinion they’re going in the right direction. For example the majority of their product research comes from data bases and ‘non-animal alternatives’; it turns out the company is an advocate for ‘non-animal methods’ and have invested money into this cause. They also have a strong commitment to sourcing palm oil sustainably according to the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists). I will defiantly dedicate another blog to exactly what this means as I’ve seen the hype on palm oil and only have a short understanding of the subject; according to what I’ve read on Ethical Consumer, irresponsible production of palm oil has contributed to climate change.
Despite the good stuff I found, Colagate-Palmolive Co does still test on animals where they ‘have to’. Don’t quote me on this and do correct me but I believe this is because some countries have this as a requirement and if researching databases and non-animal alternatives doesn’t suffice they are left with little choice.
Okay, so a little personal information on the way my mind works as a total and complete animal lover (and this is where my bias comes in), I can’t see a situation where you don’t have a choice but to endanger an animal for a product that’s made for vanity purposes. I have no opinion on medical research because a) I’m not a doctor or scientist and b) if my son or a family member was ill and a medicine was available that could save them the last thing on my mind would be whether or not it was animal tested.
To me having nice smelling pits or beautiful full lips is far less important than the life of a beautiful animal.
Here’s another insight into my bias; I absolutely love Lush as a company, I love their products and although it took me a while; after using so many of their products and loving them I decided to give their toothy tabs a go.
When looking into lush one thing is very clear; they don’t test on animal’s full stop. They also fought successfully for a legislation to stop animal testing for vanity products within the EU (European Union). Animal rights are the top of my agenda when choosing cosmetics so for me this is a sure win. However, when comparing against the same criteria as I’ve cited for Colgate-Palmolive Co, Lush apparently aren’t so transparent when it comes to the sourcing of palm oil. This doesn’t mean that they do use irresponsibly sourced palm oil in their products; it just means that their usage is unclear. They’ve made past commitments to eliminate irresponsibly sourced palm oil from their products however currently there is nothing to say that their usage now is entirely responsible. I suppose that’s a question for them.
I still have a genuine trust in this company and I hope as my research continues I don’t find anything untoward, though this won’t stop me from researching (and sharing)!
I did give the toothy tabs a whirl… and I love them! Personally I found that they complimented my new regime of flossing, using apple cider vinegar and brushing. I was using this combination with Colgate for about a year before I switched and I actually found that the Toothy Tabs left my mouth feeling cleaner than Colgate.
They are also a lot more fun! So far I’ve used the Limelight and Oral Pleasure flavours, Oral Pleasure being my favorite as the flavour is amazing and fruity whereas the Limelight is a bit funny tasting. Here’s a point I’d like to make; if like me you’ve been used to the minty fresh taste of Colgate or Aquafresh your whole life the Toothy Tabs will take a bit of getting used to. But if given the choice I would definitely stick to them now, I love the taste and can’t wait to try the other flavours; Boom is next on my list as it apparently tastes of cola!
They have also been winner with the family as my boyfriend hates the taste of mint so brushing has always felt like a chore for him. It wasn’t until our little one hid his toothpaste that he was forced to try them and he’s been singing their praises ever since, though he did express a slight disappointment that in his opinion Oral Pleasure wasn’t exactly what exactly what it said on the tin! (His own interpretation)!
I’m glad I looked into this and I’m genuinely pleased with my findings; I know not all big brands are bad and it’s nice to see a big household brand making some good decisions. I also know I’m only at the start of the rabbit hole but if I run out of Toothy Tabs I won’t feel too guilty about switching back to Colgate until I get the time to pop into Lush!
I hope you enjoyed this read, please comment, share and advise!
I’m defiantly up for requests so if you have any suggestions I want to hear them. Comment or find me on twitter – @LucyCarolynX
I got my info from the below links, please check them out. Apologies I’m a subscriber to ethical consumer so to get all the info you may need to subscribe too!
Thanks for reading and have a fab day!
Lucy Carolyn x
http://draxe.com/6-ways-to-naturally-whiten-your-teeth/
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/scoredetails.aspx?productid=249536
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/companies.aspx?companyId=506085
letsliveresponsibly.com 