Get clean without detergents

Save detergents for your dishes and laundry. Dont treat your body and your face like dirty dishes. Detergents compromise your skin barrier. Most skincare lines in drugstore and department store either contain detergents or are loaded with ingredients that strip your skin off of its natural oils. FDA has not defined a term like "detergent free" yet, so it can be quite daunting to find something that is detergent free.

A common list of detergents or oil-stripping ingredients can be found here. Go grab your current cleanser and see how many of its are in that list. I am sure that you will find at least 2 or 3 ingredients.

So what do I do, you ask? Simple - Do what our ancestors (or their great grand fathers) would have done. Go natural. Use simple and natural cleansing formulas that are detergent-less.

Here are a few that I use and love.. I have NO affiliation with these products or manufacturers or retailers, other than the fact that I love them. I get NO free products or samples or money from them. They probably dont even know that I am writing about their products here in this post.

• Wheatgerm cleanser - very good for dry skin.
• Rose hip cleanser - good for normal to oil skin. Dry skins can use this after using an oil like jojoba or EVOO to remove the makeup and sunscreen off.
• AHA cleanser - this has an active ingredient of glycolic acid at the right pH for your skin. I like to rub this on my face and leave it on for 5 minutes while I shower for the AHA to work its magic.
  

[I buy these here.]

For the body, I love using natural recipe mixes, some of them are what small villages and towns in southern India use even today.

• Ground mung beans - coarsely powder dry mung beans (not the sprouted kind, the dry kind) in a food processor or spice/coffee grinder.
• Oatmeal or coarsely ground oats
• Brown sugar in any oil base. I like using EVOO with a few drops of vanilla essence.
  

All these work well to not just cleanse the skin on your body, but also to exfoliate gently.

Have you gone detergent-free yet for your skin? Do share your experience!

Wear Sunscreen

Seriously, the single best thing that you can do for your skin is to wear sunscreen! Dont reserve sunscreen only for afternoons on the beach or a lazy outdoor picnic. You need a good sun protection for your skin every time you expose it to sun.

Exposure to sun can result in various conditions from premature aging, dark spots and hyper-pigmentation to skin cancer.

Glowingly, I enter the blogosphere

Another beauty and skincare blog? Do we really need another one?

The way I look at it, yes we do.

There are so many good beauty reads out there, but very few of 'em for glowing darker gals from the indian subcontinent, the chicas from Mexico and Spain, and the gorgeous Middle Eastern beauties.

Every so often, while reading the reviews of a certain face peel I wonder ... how is my darker toned skin going to react to this? do I need to go slow while using it? While standing at the MAC counter looking at a stunningly beautiful lipstick shade I wonder... is this going to turn grey on? is it going to wash me out?

This blog is my chance to share my numerous beauty and skincare explorations with all the other beauties of color.