Goop Clean Beauty Book Review

As my journey through Clean Beauty continues I found the book Goop Clean Beauty by Editors at Goop.

Please note: Anything in quotes is directly from the book, I take no credit!

Through reading this book I seriously learned so much! Not only does it touch on the importance of the beauty products that you use everyday, it dives deep into lifestyle changes, what you eat, stress, movement, etc. Now I know, in today’s go-go-go society, no everyone has the time to sit down and read. So I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to review the book & talking about the important points I noted throughout the book! (And there are A LOT!)

GUT HEALTH

One big thing I liked that the book talked about here is the visual representation of the gut, “When the gut is healthy, the intestinal wall keeps harmful pathogens and toxins from passing through to the bloodstream while allowing the nutrients we need to get in. Picture the lining as a net with very small holes. There are many elements that can cause this net to break and several of the more alarming threats have been multiplying.”

This graphic is referencing a leaky guy, that actually, 8 out of 10 people have and don’t even they have. Over the years of unhealthy eating, toxins getting in and/or food intolerances that are not diagnosed, it slowly breaks down your gut. That is why gut health is so important. Our gut talks to so many of our organs (even our brain!!!) There are a few standard ways to help a leaky guy they listed that I will list below:

“— Reduce the amount of gluten you consume

— L-glutamine

— Take a probiotic

— Find our what your personal trigger foods are

— Avoid potential threats to the intestinal flora”

In this chapter they also reference antibiotics and the affect they have on your gut biome and bacteria. I’ve heard this spoken about so many times but I actually saw it first hand when I got my wisdom teeth extracted. My stomach & health was at an all time high. I had built up tons of good bacteria in my stomach. Then I took the antibiotic for 5 days, it went in and killed ALL BACTERIA (good and bad) and the next few weeks were pure hell. So another things to note, don’t take antibiotics unless it’s dire.

YOGA

The whole chapter on yoga really fascinated me. It is something that I have been interested in for a while. These paragraph intrigued me the most:

“The ancient yogis presented the idea that we have not just one body, but three. The first is our physical body, made up of the food we eat and water we drink. The physical body can be strengthened, stretched, molded, and changed through diet and exercise. The second body is called the subtle body, and it is made up of breath, the mind, and our intellect. Our mind, according to the yogis, is the seas of thought, emotions, desire, and memory, which differs from our intellect, which is the faculty of discrimination….Our third body is the body of bliss, the bliss of contact with knowing who we are, our potential, our infinite creativity, our source of being as pure as consciousness.”

Following the three bodies, they got into breathing. While I am a huge fan of how much our breath can control our body (thanks Wim Hof) I thought this was interesting: “Yogic breathing, in particular, is a very good detoxification practice, because the liver literally sits on top of the diaphragm. Every time we inhale and exhale, the liver is getting massaged. For many people who are under stress, whether mild or extreme, the diaphragm begins to tighten, constricting the organs above and below it, like how you feel your chest sometimes get tight when you are under pressure, yet there are no problems with your heart, When the diaphragm releases and the breath becomes long, free, and deep, the pressure goes away.”

Dry Brushing

Have you ever heard of dry brushing? I think it has come up in a conversation or two in the past, but I didn’t know the facts about it until now.

“Like foam rolling, dry brushing is a lymphatic system stimulator…With its 17 square feet of surface area, skin is our largest cleansing organ, akin to our lungs and kidneys. Dry brushing stimulates the lymphatic drianage, moving nutrients from the blood in to the cells and removing toxins….Dry brushing can also serve as an emotional release if you’re truly present while doing it.”

Here is a link to a great article by Goop on how to dry brush!

SLEEP

Sleep is something everyone is always saying they are lacking. In today’s world if someone doesn’t say their tired, it’s weird. But sleep is one of the most important aspects to a healthy lifestyle. Lack of sleep is actually linked to the follower conditions:

“— Unsettling your metabolism and hormonal balance, leading to weight gain

— Negative moods

— Impaired memory and brain fog

— Leaky gut

— Inflammation

— Decreased immune function”

Plus if that wasn’t enough it even goes so far to affect our hormones like Cortisol, Free Thyroxin, and Human Growth Hormone. There’s more in this chapter like catching up on sleep being a myth and how naps can benefit sleeping (as long as they don’t interrupt the amount of sleep you get at night)

Nigh time rituals are key to a good night’s rest. I am going to share a few of the points that they say you can partake in before getting your needed shut eye:

“— Warm bath (may or may not include essential oils)

— 3-minute foot massage

— Indulgent pillowcases (or spraying your pillow case with essential oils)

— Supreme bedding”

A few of my favorite things to do before bed also include: reflecting on my day (could add journaling), reading a book and doing a round of breathing.

What’s In Our beauty/makeup Products?!

This is one of my most passionate topics: clean beauty and the chemicals and toxins that are in our everyday products that we don’t even know. I am going to go into depth later on in a blog post on my own list of ingredients to look out for but here are a few they note as “Not in Our Vanities”:

“— Parabens

— Formaldehyde Releasers

— Phthalates

— Fragrance (This one can even be hidden in labels as “Natural Fragrance”

— EDTA

— 1,4-Dioxane Contamination

— Ethanolamines

— Chemical Sunscreens

— SLS and SLES”

The reason this topic is so important is that just as I stated above, our skin makes up so much of us. Just as lotion gets rubbed into the skin and is absorbed, the beauty products and makeup we put on do just as much. It takes only 26 seconds for the products you put on to be in your bloodstream. Are the ingredients in the products you’re using ones you want floating in your bloodstream? Fun fact: “carbon black” to color that is used in conventional mascara and eyeliner, is the same ingredient they use in heavy-duty petroleum products like tires, inks, films & plastics. Yum!

Skin aging & skincare basic lineup

If you’re looking for more information on anti-aging and getting your skin to the youngest it has ever felt, BUY THIS BOOK. There is a healthy section on all things skin and how they affect the aging. While it is not a huge focus for me right now, they did touch on a lot of other good skin points I wanted to note.

Me and skincare did not used to mix. I didn’t know anything about it or what I should or shouldn’t be doing. I wish I had read this earlier, here is their rundown:

“— Fundamentals components of your regular routine…

— Moisturizers and creams

— Eye Cream: the skin around your eyes is the thinnest skin you have — that’s why you see aging around there first.

— Oils: women have been pressing and smoothing oils into their skin for centuries.

— Serums: a good serum infuses your skin with actives (say, an antioxidant like vitamin C) and is best used on bare skin, before moisturizers.

— Toners/waters

Another section they note is on hormones and how diet & exercise play into them. Additionally, how your skincare routine (whatever it is) is important to stick with every day morning and night whether or not you skin is breaking out.

Sensitive skin, rosacea & dry skin

Of course when you have dry or sensitive skin it is best to find the root cause of it. While that isn’t always a fast turnaround option the number one thing that can change the way your skin looks & how you feel in it, is how hydrated it is!

“Your hydration routine: Cleanse, how you cleanse your skin—both face and body— is an essential factor to look at if you are struggling with dry or sensitive skin. Pretty much anything that foams or lathers is your enemy. Consider oil, cream, or balm cleansers (nontoxic, clean ones are much more likely to include only moisturizing ingredients as opposed to fillers and texturizes), and consider cleansing your skin…..

Moisturize: how thick a cream or lotion is often indicates how moisturizing it is. But what you see isn’t always what you get…in addition to moisturizers, there is a handful of other classes of products that deliver the same results: balm, oil, cream, lotion, serum.”

So there you have it! My run down and review (including important points) on Goop Clean Beauty! Let me know what you guys think of these points & if you decide to read it in full yourself!