Though food is very much a part of the Whole Foods brand (hence its name), the grocery store giant has long-since only sold fresh eats. Its utopian aisles cater to a larger audience, selling everything from natural and organic pet foods to tried-and-true personal care products. Now, while you're shopping for your family's week's worth of groceries, you can browse their Whole Body section and skip out on extra errands.
What's even better? You can feel rest-assured that the ingredient labels on the back of your shampoos, lotions, serums and more live up Whole Foods rigorous quality standards. In other words, they've done the label-sleuthing for you, so you can sit back and enjoy the addictive scents, nourishing ingredients and powerful benefits without wondering what the heck you're using on your precious face and bod.
"Whole Foods Market has set the bar when it comes to our strict standards for personal care products," says Jody Villecco, Global Quality Standards Coordinator for Whole Foods Market and part of the team who vets all the items in our store, from food products to pet care to body care. "For any new product we consider selling in our stores, we screen for more than 75 banned ingredients we do not allow on our shelves, including phthalates, microbeads, triclosan, BHT, BHA, aluminum chlorohydrate and many more." Try letting an unfaithful beauty product slink its way through that level of testing.
Most recently, Whole Foods added 10 new ingredients to their already extensive banned list that are common in conventional cosmetics. They've identified more than 400 ingredients they deem unacceptable for safe and natural use, all of which you can find on their Premium Body Care Unacceptable Ingredients List on site.
Sure, it might add a few extra line items (and bucks) on your receipt, but you'll be saving in the long run in more ways than one. Here are 15 beauty and body care products that are giving their mainstream competitors a serious run for their money.
This pure plant-based, multi-tasking balm is a quick fix for nearly all of your beauty ailments — it acts as a body balm, lip balm, hand balm, cleansing balm and everything in between. Contending with cracked lips? Battling dry heels? Massage on some of this balm and you're good to go! The secret lies in its use of pure plant oils butters and waxes (preservative-free, of course!), such as echinacea, rose-hip and pawpaw.
The search for a solid daily moisturizer that will do its due diligence without leaving you greasy and causing you to break out is a trying one, but a safer bet is to opt for organic and all-natural. Evanhealy's Day Moisturizer is made from hand-pressed Argan and organic Sea Buckthorn oils, which work to wake and refresh your skin while balancing its natural pH. It also hosts a slew of other nourishing ingredients such as rose geranium, carrot seed, vetiver and clary safe as well as botanical extracts such as kelp, horsetail and green tea.
Serums can pack the same moisturizing punch without leaving a heavy layer on your skin that never seems to seap in. This nourishing serum contains an active blend of ingredients that get an A+ for retaining moisture, soothing the skin and keeping collagen synthesis up, such as hyaluronic acid, sodium PCA, squalane, phospholipids and organic rosehip oil. And, true to Whole Foods' focus on quality, it's made without GMOs, gluten, parabens, petroleum, phthalates, silicones, sulfates and the whole shabang of no-nos on their Unacceptable Ingredients List.
An alcohol-free toner that contains the key ingredient used in this type of product for over a century, witch hazel, is hard to come by — let alone one that promises to clean out every pore and nook and cranny on your face. Thayers does just that, while cleansing and soothing so you won't be left with parched and flaky skin that's desperate for immediate moisturizing. It has a nice light rose scent too, that's pleasant, but not overbearing.
