Beautycounter Empowers Women with Safe Cosmetics

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Safe cosmetic ingredients is the name of the game for new body care line, Beautycounter.

“I believe strongly that women should never have to compromise their health in the name of beauty,” says Gregg Renfrew, who describes herself as a mother, wife, and friend. “I know we can do better, and that’s why I started Beautycounter.” Standing among a crowd of rapt women and men in a chic hotel in wintery Boston, Renfrew kicked off the launch of Beautycounter, a new beauty and skin care line designed around the safest cosmetic ingredients. Just how these products plan to save us may surprise you.

Beautycounter offers up the usual high-end face oils, shampoos, and sugar scrubs so popular with the organic set, but it promises its users much more than hydrated skin. It’s a social selling company designed to empower and educate women on the basic products we use daily, which oftentimes contain dangerous chemical ingredients. But Beautycounter also plans to inspire a country.

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The Beautycounter launch at The Liberty Hotel, Boston, February 26, 2013.

Renfrew promises that the Santa Monica-based company has “done the homework for you” by using only safe, qualified ingredients that won’t harm your health. Citing high cancer rates, Renfrew points out that “using [traditional] products has a cumulative effect, and it can really influence us over a lifetime.” She notes that the European Union has banned and restricted more than 1,300 beauty ingredients, while the United States has banned only 11. “Even tiny amounts of these toxic chemicals can disrupt your hormone system and impair your ability to lead a health and long life.”

Beyond selling body care products, Beautycounter plans to enact change in the United States. Working together with three non-profits: The Environmental Working Group, The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, and Healthy Child, Healthy World, the company aims to make a difference for the individual while also promoting a large scale movement towards safe, clean beauty in our country.

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And here’s how Beautycounter plans to do this: Styling themselves as “a social selling company,” they offer a $10 membership, with the proceeds allocated to one of the three non-profits working with the company. They also offer positions as consultants, where you can build a business around the products. As Renfrew explains, “You can sell Beautycounter anywhere, anytime—at a wine and cheese gathering, a Twitter or Facebook party, or just offer coffee with a friend.” Just think of your mother’s Tupperware party, but without the plastic and strange orange hues of the 1970s.

“What we all share is our common desire to move the needle in the right direction,” Renfrew promises. And with the right direction promising greater health among high-performing products, it’s a cause from which we all benefit.

You can learn more about the Beautycounter movement at Beautycounter.com.

Photos courtesy of Beautycounter

Katherine Butler

Katherine Butler is the Beauty Editor of EcoSalon and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.