So you've heard the hype and read all the literature but you're still contemplating which beauty products to spend your organic pocket money on. Here are a few tips to start you on your organic journey.

Start with leave on products. The skin is the biggest organ of the body and can absorb up to 60% of all substances applied to it so a leave on product like moisturiser can have a big impact our internal health. Parabens, mineral oil, synthetic fragrance or propylene glycol have more opportunity to be harmful the longer they are left on your body so ensure you choose a moisturiser that does not contain any of these nasties.

The skin of your armpit is more sensitive than most other areas of skin on the body. The ingredients to avoid in deodorants are parabens and aluminium salts. These are not found in natural deodorants.

The skin on the inside of the mouth is very thin and thus highly absorbent making toothpaste a top member of our first-switch products. The potential harm of swallowing the nasty chemicals found in conventional products makes the idea of a natural alternative all the more appealing.

Soap and shower gels are next up. Although these are wash away products most people do use them at least once every day, sometimes two. That's a daily dose of harmful substances for the skin to lap up unless you are using a natural alternative.

In addition to dead hair follicles, shampoos and conditioners touch the scalp and run over the body whilst being washed out. Though totally organic versions are hard to come by switching to a more natural version would again make for a lower dowsing of chemicals for the body.

Our Go Organic Kit has six essentials to start you off on the journey of switching your toiletry and beauty products to organic.

A question eco-shoppers everywhere want answered is why is it so much easier to find certified organic food than it is to find other organic products with full certification?

Firstly, there is no legal definition on how the word organic should be used in relation to health and beauty products. European legislation legally protects the word ‘organic' for the food industry, but in the non-food industries (skin care, baby care, household cleaners etc) it does not. Because of this, companies can market their products as organic without them actually containing any organic ingredients. This has led to the misconception amongst many consumers that they are buying all-natural products when in fact they are buying a partially natural product often containing Paraben preservatives, SLS, synthetic colour and fragrance and petroleum-based mineral oils.

For those consumers savvy enough to spot the misleading marketing ploys, there is still the difficulty of finding a truly natural product that has been certified by a legitimate regulatory body. The problem is certified organic products are hard to make. Most cosmetics need to contain a certain number of functional ingredients to work effectively and for safety and hygiene reasons.

Current organic Soil Association standards state that a product must contain 95% or above organically grown ingredients to be labelled ‘organic' but also allows products to bear their symbol and the phrase ‘made with organic ingredients' if they contain a minimum 70%. What's more, there are certain completely natural ingredients that cannot technically be called organic, for example water and chalk. Chalk, a key ingredient in toothpaste, is a naturally occurring mineral, takes the earth millennia to create and cannot be made organic. Water and chalk cannot be organified by man and therefore can't be counted as part of the 95% organic quota.

To get around the Soil Associations tight regulations some companies are replacing ‘un-growable' ingredients with organically grown ingredients. Organic aloe vera juice, for example, is used by some manufacturers as a substitute for water.

Over 2,300 people die from skin cancer each year in the UK, which is more than in Australia, even though Australia has more cases of the disease.

Exposure to tanning beds before age 35 increases melanoma risk by 75 percent.

Up to 6,000 tonnes of suntan lotion is approximately released into the world's oceans each year.

It's easy to ignore the stats when the sun isn't shining in the UK but protecting ourselves from the harsh UV rays of the great golden ball or the beauty salon sunbed is something we must consider before browning our bods this summer.

Beyond covering up and avoiding the sun completely sunscreens can help protect you from those meanie melanomas and it doesn't have to be a chemical exercise.

Organic and natural sunscreens are better for a number of reasons:

• They are as effective as traditional chemical sunscreens, protecting from broad-spectrum UVA and UVB, but use minerals rather than synthetic sun filters.


• They are free of synthetic chemicals and parabens


• They are gentler on the skin, often containing antioxidants like natural vitamin E, beta carotene and botanical extracts to protect the skin from premature aging


• They are often scented with essential oils rather than synthetic fragrance so you don't have to walk about smelling like... well sunscreen


• Natural ingredients will do less harm to our ocean life than the UV bleaching chemicals of synthetic based creams which are killing our coral

As the largest organ of the body we really don't want to be slathering our skin with these nasty chemicals so when it comes to using sunscreen to avoid skin damage this summer organic is the way.

Israeli scientists from Tel-Aviv University claim they have created a computer that judges how attractive a women is.

The program was created by mapping the geometric shape and symmetry of facial features from the photographs of one hundred different women which had been rated from one to seven in terms of attractiveness by a group of men and women (the human kind). The computer is trained with various predictors such as skin texture and is given the average human attractiveness score for each face. In comparison to previous machine learning inventions the ratings produced by this new computer program highly correlate with human scored ratings.

So who, we hear you ask, really cares if a superficial computer thinks they are a yummy mummy or not? Plastic sugeons are most likely to get the most from this computer beauty judger by using it as a guide in reconstructive surgery.

Somehow the idea of applying technology to my face doesn't really appeal. Think I'll stick to the traditional application of natural cleansers and face moisturisers.

My favourite product is the Trilogy Purifying Masque. This mask is really good for normal to oily skin and as I get quite oily during summer and a few more spots it's ideal for me. I apply it once or twice a week, depending on the season. It always leaves my skin feeling extra clean and purified. You only need to use a tiny bit for your entire face so the 35g pot lasts several months. The rosehip, witch hazel and rose geranium scent is quite subtle once applied which is good because I leave it on for the maximum ten minutes.