Naturally Beautiful

Because we all love the idea of something that's straight-from-nature of course - particularly as more of us become aware that we are what our skin eats. But until recently, that meant making some beauty compromises – on texture, perhaps, or the sheer sensuality of products. Not any more. Having trialled over 1150 natural and organic beauty goodies - ranging from cellulite treatments to mascaras and 'miracle creams' - for The Green Beauty Bible (Kyle Cathie, £19.99), the new book I've co-written with Sarah Stacey - I can put my hand on my heart and say that there are products out there which rival (and even, in some cases, out-perform) mainstream products.

In the toughest challenge of all - anti-ageing creams - for instance, we had our highest-ever scoring product: Logona Wrinkle Therapy Fluid, £28 (available at www.beautybazaar.co.uk), which earned comments such as 'Skin smoother, softer, more radiant and youthful: bigger wrinkles improving steadily; everyone has noticed', and 'two good results - faint sun spots nearly gone and frown-line, too - this product marks a turning point!' And with each product sent to 10 women to trial, over a period of months, who can argue with a score of nearly 9/10 from the panel of ten? Only in some of the make-up categories were there a few disappointments, frankly. (Partly because it's polymers and synthetic, petrochemical-derived ingredients which give foundation, mascara, lipstick etc. their 'staying power'.)

What Sarah and I did discover is that in the so-called 'natural beauty' world, there's a lot of greenwashing goes on. So we came up with our own 'daisy rating' for naturalness, to give a better idea of how natural the products in our book really are: one daisy for mostly botanically-derived (but with some synthetic ingredients), two for all-botanical and three for organically-certified.

But just what makes a beauty product organic? While it's not quite as simple as food (cosmetics need a shelf-life much longer than your typical jar of pasta sauce), the principle's essentially the same: it's down to how the ingredients were grown, without pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilisers (which are universally derived from petroleum – increasingly an issue, when we're all trying to reduce our carbon footprints).

'Sustainability' is a hot topic right now – and essentially, organic cosmetics are all about sustainability: ingredients that are harvested, and which can be gathered again, in future - a crop of shea butter, wheat germ, lemon or olive oil, for instance, farmed in sympathy with nature, without the use of artificial chemicals. (Whereas the ingredients in many conventional skincare products are derived from substances that have been pumped out of the earth's core, never to be replaced...) Today, we can enjoy truly eco-friendly beauty treats which deliver on their promises, while bathing our senses – touch, smell, sight – in sheer bliss. As the market grows, more and more ingredients become available organically – from moisture-attracting aloe vera to kind-to-skin rosewater, luscious cocoa butter to lemon and bergamot oils (a deliciously zesty, better-for-you-than-caffeine way to wake you up in the morning...)

It's a fact, of course, that many women (and increasing numbers of men) are drawn to organic beauty and grooming products because of anxieties about chemicals being absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream. But in reality, the jury is still out about how much of beauty products our skin actually absorbs. The oft-quoted figure is 60% - which Professor Rob McCaleb, President of the Herb Research Foundation, insisted to me some years ago. Not all experts, though, are so convinced that beauty products do anything but stay within the skin's top layers, where they belong; Professor Jonathan Hadgraft, one of this country's leading specialists in skin permeability, suggest it's actually a maximum of 2% that could get through.

But personally, increasingly, the pull of natural and especially organic products isn't a sort of beauty insurance policy, to safeguard my health in case that figure's closer to 60% than zero: it's because I care about how food (and skin foods) is produced. I don't want my lettuce to have been sprayed 13 times before it ends up on my plate, and I don't want the cocoa beans or the sesame seeds that go into my moisturiser to have been blitzed with toxic chemicals, either.

What I also know – though this is just one person's experience – is that my previously reactive complexion (the legacy of years as a beauty editor, exposing my skin to new formulations almost every day) has calmed down 100%, since I switched to more natural, preferably organically-certified skincare. End of story. And while at one end of the skincare spectrum, beauty brands are launching line-relaxers, peels, microdermabrasion and creams so high-tech they do everything but programme the Sky + box for you, for me, the real excitement right now is in the natural beauty world, where the menu of fabulous, good-enough-for-my-skin-to-eat beauty treats gets longer, all the time...

Signed copies of The Green Beauty Bible are available at Jo's natural health centre in Hastings, The Wellington Square Natural Health Centre, which now also stocks Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare and Neal's Yard Remedies products, two ranges which did incredibly well with her testers.

My Five Natural Faves

Essential Care Gentle Herb Shampoo, from £3.50 (www.essential-care.co.uk). The world's first organically-certified shampoo, this uses a natural detergent to gently but effectively cleanse hair, leaving it amazingly silky. (The aloe vera has a scalp-soothing action, too.)

Neal's Yard Remedies Organic Rose Formula Anti-Oxidant Facial Mask, £14 (mail order www.victoriahealth.com). One of three complexion-specific organic face masks from Neal's Yard Remedies, who are gradually converting their range to Soil Association status: this is packed with skin-plumping soya, sunflower and macadamia oils, with a wonderful rose bower scent.

Circaroma Skin Gentle Facial Serum Rose Otto + Apricot, £26 (mail order www.circaroma.com) Testers for The Green Beauty Bible gave this top marks, (8.22/10), commenting: skin softer, plumper, springy to touch' and 'fine lines on the brow and eye area were smoothed out.'

Balm Balm Rose Geranium Face Balm, £5.99 (www.balmbalm.com). The ultimate beauty multi-tasker - perfect for taking on a plane as it works as a cleanser, moisturiser, cuticle smoother and cracked heel treatment!

Vaishaly Cleansing Balm, £59 (www.vaishaly.com). I'm unswervingly devoted to this skin-softening, make-up-melting cleanser, with its addictive fragrance of lavender, geranium, chamomile, rose absolute and ylang-ylang.