When choosing skin care products, of course you pay some attention to the ingredients, but do you ever really give any thought to where those ingredients are coming from? Are the ingredients retrieved from local providers?

There are many advantages to investing in products that have locally sourced ingredients, benefits that go far beyond the support of your local community.

The Many Benefits Sourcing Skin Care Products Locally

Of course, the most obvious benefit from using locally sourced ingredients is that you end up supporting the local economy.

As a product manufacturer works with other local businesses, it helps to keep those businesses up and running and contributes money back into the local economy. Take for example a business like Lowen’s, where we have a strong belief in establishing solid relationships with buyers in the local area of Calgary.

While ordering locally, we are not only putting money back into the local economy, we are also insulating our business against unnecessary import expenses and currency fluctuations.

Nevertheless, local investments are really where it is at and the benefits are substantial:

With local businesses providing the canola, hemp, flax and camelina oils, honey, beeswax as well as other unique active ingredients for our products, the distance from a supplier’s location to our business is relatively minimal; thereby also minimizing the carbon footprint it takes to transfer goods from supplier to buyer.

There is less fossil fuel used to transport the ingredients from one location to another, and the shorter distance between buyer and supplier means less costs in terms of delivery overall!  

Aside from the carbon footprint comes another element that isn’t often discussed in the realms of skincare and that is freshness…  

The “Farm to Face” Concept in Skincare

You may have heard of the term “farm to fork.”

We’d like to borrow that phrase and discuss farm to face.  

What does farm to face mean?  

Well it boils down to freshness.  

Just like eating foods fresh from the farm is generally regarded as better, so too is using fresh ingredients in your skincare products.  The longer ingredients spend in transit, criss-crossing the planet, the less potent they will inevitably become.  

So, farm to face sounds funny but it is a clearly simple concept; one that you should factor in when selecting your next wonder cream.

Try these 3 Farm to Face Winter Skin Masks!

Not All Ingredients Are Sourced Locally, and That’s Okay…

Bear in mind that a business cannot always get all of its ingredients locally and that is okay too, provided the business makes every effort to do so and invests the proper due diligence in evaluating potential suppliers.

What’s more, by relying on smaller communities at a distance, the business can establish a nice balance of supporting local communities as well as small businesses abroad that are well deserving of an edge in the small business sectors.

In this way a business can support communities on a global level as well as locally, all while promoting fair trade, and the notion of supporting fair trade when it comes to skincare products is on the rise as well.

Does a Product Have To Be “Fair Trade Certified” ?

You might note the appearance of Fair Trade labeling on beauty products like body butters, moisturizers, and shampoos, but have you ever wondered what the labels mean?

The labeling essentially tells the consumer the product is made with ethical standards in place and with concerns pertaining to sustainability and the rectification or eradication of social inequality.

The Fair Trade labeling says a lot and in fact expresses that the product is made in working conditions that are humane, the direct trade between the farmer and business has been established, and that profits can be returned back onto the community from where the product’s ingredients were first derived.  

The coconut oil as well as shea and cocoa butter that Lowen’s uses, all fall under this category.

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