Organic Beauty Week...
Good things happen when you go organic.

Get £5 off when you spend over £50 during organic beauty week. Enter code BEAUTY at checkout. Offer ends 27.09.16.

Organic YOUR September...
Good things happen when you go organic.

It’s here again already!
September the traditional harvest month, time for back to school and new routine resolutions, is also the time when we celebrate all things organic for #organicseptember.

All month long we'll be sharing our knowledge to help demystify organic products.

To help explain the benefits to you, your family and your environment for making the choice to go organic, and with loads of offers available too, there has never been a more affordable time to Go Organic.

Follow us on twitter and facebook and sign up for our weekly offer newsletters to ensure you always stay up to date.

Happy Organic September.

Now the sun is out we have been receiving lots of questions about why our organic sunscreens don't have the UVA star rating system widely found on conventional sunscreen brands. There's no need to worry, these products do still protect against UVA rays and UVB too, but it's a complex area. Read on and we'll try to help make things clearer.

It is important that sunscreens protect against both UVB and UVA radiation to give protection from the burning (UVB) & the cancer causing / ageing (UVA) rays. The cosmetics industry considers that the UVA protection of a product should be in relation to its SPF.  This means that that the level of UVA protection provided by a product is at least 1/3 ratio of its SPF.

The star rating system was created by Boots and is only licensed to brands that are stocked by Boots in exchange for a license fee and is therefore not something that the organic brands can take part in. That is why you don't see the stars on their packaging. There is a very telling article about this here.

The industry wide symbol for UVA protection in a sunscreen product is a small circle with the word UVA inside it.

We have obtained statements from our 3 main sunscreens brands regarding their UVA rating and these are as follows:

Lovea: “The Lovea sunscreens have the highest possible rating for UVA protection.  This is because the UV screening ingredients are made up entirely of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. Both these ingredients offer the highest possible protection from UVA & UVB.”

Lavera: “Our UVA filter is a 1:3 ratio, so for every 3 UVB rays the sun product protects you from it will also protect you against 1 UVA ray.  There is also a UVA logo on the front of the sun product to show that it protects against UVA as well.”

Green People: “Our UVA protection is equivalent to 3 stars but unlike the conventional brands our products are packed with great ingredients and help sensitive skin. They are extremely well tolerated by eczema & allergy sufferers too.

• Under testing our SPF30 sun lotions filtered out 81.6% of UVA rays and gave a UVA/UVB ratio in excess of 0.60 of the claimed SPF level which is the standard set in the EU Recommendations.


• SPF15 filtered out 78.2% of UVA rays under testing. Because the SPF is lower, this still exceeded the 0.60 ratio and came in at 3-Star protection under the Boots system”

The advice in the media is to look for the highest SPF possible to protect ourselves and our families. But many people are surprised to find that an SPF50 does not in fact offer double the sun protection of an SPF25. The reality is that an SPF30 sunscreen already offers 97% protection against UVB rays, moving up to an SPF50 only offers 98% just 1% more. 

For some people wearing a high factor such as an SPF50 gives a false sense of security and tempts them to reapply less often and stay in the sun longer than is really sensible. Something they won’t do if they are wearing a lower SPF.

Staying out too long without reapplying seriously increases the risk of UVA sun damage because in order to achieve efficacy of the UVA protection the most important thing you can do is reapply frequently and liberally no matter how high the SPF factor.

We highly recommend the sunscreens we stock at So Organic and we use them on ourselves and our children. If you need any advice or help in choosing the right product please don’t hesitate to get in touch or call us on 020 8465 5600.

So Organic shows us how to update our look for the coming season with spring with make up tips to leave you feeling in the pink.

Step 1. Create the perfect base.

Getting flawless looking skin doesn’t always mean piling on tonnes of heavy products. A tinted moisturiser to even out skin tone and give you a glow will create a natural fresh faced look just right for spring, without looking caked.

Step2. Enhance what you have.

If you have beautiful almond shaped eyes or a perfectly shaped lips, work with that feature and choose products to accentuate it. Allow either your eyes or your lips to lead the look, if you go for both you’re in danger of looking far too heavily made up.

Step 3. Try something different.

It’s all too easy to get stuck in a make up rut, using the same products day after day, year after year. But seasons change, and so do we. As we age we need to update our make up to ensure it still flatters our skin tone and style. Change one small thing and feel like a new woman. A gorgeous shade of eye shadow or a fabulous new lip gloss will give you a huge confidence boost without breaking the bank.

Step 4. Nurture your nails.

Taking a little extra care of your hands, by remembering to use a good hand cream and perhaps having the occasional manicure will pay dividends. Well groomed hands and nails complete your look and now the weathers warming up and it’s time for the gloves to come off, if you’ve been neglecting yours now’s the time to put things right.

Browse all of our spring make up selections...

If you need any help in choosing products, or have any questions on concerns about any aspect of beauty and skin care, drop us an email. We’d love to help.

Give yourself a mini facial at home with our easy to follow step by step guide and reap the skin care benefits. The products we recommend all use certified organic ingredients and are free from parabens, SLS, synthetic fragrance and other undesirable ingredients.

Paying a little extra care to your skin care is a simple way to pamper yourself and eliminating harsh ingredients from your routine often brings comfort and harmony to skin that  is stressed, sensitive or out of balance.

This mini home facial treatment is perfect to help you wind down after a long day, use slow gentle movements as you apply and inhale gently after each stage of the facial to calm the mind.

Mini Facial  - Step by Step:

1) Prepare a warm basin of water; two drops of Lavender essential oil or Dr Hauschka lavender bath gives a wonderful fragrance and helps hard water feel gentler on the skin.

2) Warm face with flannel or muslin cloth; when face is warm apply cleanser in upward circular movements, then remove with the warm cloth for a mild exfoliation.

3) Apply your favourite mask, and relax for a few minutes while it does its work.

4) Remove with a fresh muslin cloth and warm water.

5) Apply facial toner; either spray on the whole face or apply to cotton wool pads for deep hydration.

6) Make sure skin is dry; apply an appropriate moisturiser in upwards smoothing movements, avoiding the eyes.

7) Tapping your eye cream on gently relieves puffiness and swelling, ensure you do not put too close to the eye, on the bone is perfect.

8) Take a couple of minutes to massage in your facial oil. Oils are deeply nourishing and give the skin a real glow.

9) Finally relax wile you sip a warm cup of organic herbal tea, (we like organic hibiscus which is packed with antioxidants to boost skin function), before getting an early night and topping up on your beauty sleep.

If you have any questions or need help choosing the products that would be right for your skin we are here to help. Take our online skin consultation to help you discover your skin type and email or call us on 020 8465 5600 for one to one advice.

With the bulbs shooting up in the garden and a few days of sunshine there is definitely the sense that spring is on the way. It’s the perfect time to think about updating your makeup, to a fresher faced spring look and the new make up just in from Lavera has a number of new products that make it simple.

The new Lavera Natural Mousse Blush is absolutely gorgeous.  It's feather light texture means that you can apply just a hint of colour exactly where you need it and it's perfect to keep in your handbag for top ups on the go. The classic nude shade is sure to be a best seller as it would suit anyone.

To make a amends for discontinuing some of our favourite an best selling shades (why do they always do that!) there are 6 new organic lipstick shades  including a couple of super wearable nude shades that are perfect for everyday wear.  

Our favourites are Casual Nude and Tender Taupe, as well as the questionably named; Modern Camel. We thought that might have been a typo and the shade was modern caramel, but no, Modern Camel is the name they actually chose! If you can get past the name, the shade is a really lovely brown.

Eye shadow solos have been updated with 3 new shades, and for the first time a cream eye shadow has been introduced to the range in Gleaming Gold and Soul Plum.  The Airy-light texture makes application a cinch. The eye cream melts effortlessly onto the skin yet provides intense colour for the eyes.

And the pièce de résistance must be the new Lavera Front Row Curl Mascara. With a specially designed wand and flexible vegan formula that allows you to gentle curl your lashes to dramatic effect without the need to use a separate eyelash curler. We predict that this is going to be a new best seller.

If the products themselves aren’t temptation enough, try them out this weekend and we’ll send you free mini product plus extra samples with your order when you spend £20+ on makeup.

It will be a lucky dip, we have free mini products for face and body from Dr Hauschka, Lavera and Madara and they will be allocated randomly.

Go on treat yourself, you deserve it!