Less expensive organic beauty products

When greening your world, your beauty routine may end up costing you. Natural and organic lotions, cleansers, soaps, makeup, and other body care products can be super costly.

That said, it does pay to use greener body care products. Organic beauty is healthier for your body and the planet. An ethical green beauty company won’t test on animals, will use recyclable packaging, and will keep all that chemical junk on the down-low or out of their products entirely. If going green with your body care is a goal, but you don’t want to get a second job to support your habits, read on for tips on how to save on organic beauty products.

Get to know your products: Just because a label says “organic”, “natural”, or “green” doesn’t always make it so. Always check the ingredients and make sure the company is on the green up and up. It’s a waste of money to buy inferior green body care. For more tips read: How To Choose Greener Body Products.

Go local and handmade: Your local Farmer’s Market, co-op, art fair, and small boutiques likely carry many locally made green beauty products like soaps, skin care, lip glosses, and hair care. You still need to check out the maker, but often these green beauty products cost less than prepackaged larger company products. Another option is to check out green body care at Green Etsy. Buying from a place like Etsy or locally scores you extra points for supporting small companies and a local economy.

Look to bargain stores: In my area we have lots of those grocery outlet type stores. I see organic beauty products all the time at these places, for seriously 70-80% off normal costs. Shampoos, makeup, and soaps can be had for a song at an outlet.

Shop around online: The web makes it easy to find organic product reviews so you know what you’re getting before you buy. Another perk is many online organic and natural beauty merchants carry items you can’t find in real stores, often at a less expensive cost. Some greener beauty markets I like that you can visit online include:

• Manor Hall Soap Company – they carry oodles of less expensive, natural, and organic body care products, offer great deals, and their products work great. My fave product is their All Natural Facial Grains.
  
• Organic Wear – offers good, green, less expensive make-up.
• Tarte Cosmetics – read my review of their products.
• Head to a massive market like Drugstore.com to do some major comparison shopping on green goods. Bonus, right now they’ve got their green products available for up to 50% off in honor of Earth Day.

Above is only a small sampling. Take a look around the web and see what you can find.

Make it yourself: Hands down, the best way to save on organic and natural beauty is to make it yourself. This also saves on packaging. If you’ve never made homemade beauty products you’ll need some tips and basic recipies. No worries though, most homemade beauty items are super easy to make once you catch on.

• Homemade Organic Beauty Safety Basics
• Homemade Organic Beauty: Refreshing Herbal Facial Toner
• Homemade Natural Cranberry Lip Gloss
• Homemade Organic Herbal Hair Conditioning Spray
• Strawberry Face Mash
• Fast Homemade Organic Fresh Kitchen Face Scrubs
• Homemade Organic Facial & Body Cream
• Homemade Sugar Body Scrub

Is the cost of organic beauty care products stopping you from using them? If not, how do you save on these products? Share your tips in the comments.

[image via Jennifer]