Nowadays it is definitely not at all WILD to eat meat exclusively on a regular basis, but have you scrutinised your beauty regime? Clemmie Fraser has a four-step plan to help you clean up your act in the bathroom. Artwork by Michalis Christodoulou
STEP ONE: Pick a position. With farting cows being the source of mankind’s destruction, it’s vital to align your bathroom with whatever else is going on in your wardrobe and kitchen. The good news is unless you’re a full-blooded carnivore (a definite no-no), there are several dietary options. In order of wildness you have flexitarian, pescatarian, pollotarian, ovolactovegetarian and vegetarian all of which mean you can go to dinner without announcing your dietary preferences every five minutes and making all your friends want to eat a double hamburger with bacon for breakfast. And most importantly all the above options include eating cheese, which is obviously the root of all happiness. But if you want the full body/temple thing as well as being environmentally pristine, you have to go full, uncompromising VEGAN.
STEP TWO: Now, the most important thing about going vegan is that you MUST tell everyone that you are a vegan otherwise (and this is a known fact) you are not a proper vegan, no matter how many sausages you make out of cauliflower and kidney beans.
Having decided to go unadulterated vegan and having purged your kitchen accordingly, you now need to go through your wardrobe and cleanse it of all leather, wool, cashmere, feathers and fur. You will now be essentially naked except for a pair of flip-flops and some sustainably sourced cotton pants. You could go and buy some man-made fleecy garments from Mountain Warehouse, but washing these expels tiny, plastic micro-particles into the environment. So that is also a no-no, I’m afraid. (Rich people: proceed straight to Stella McCartney for a hemp leather kilt and a braided wooden clog.)
STEP THREE: Take a long, stern look at your beauty products – although you will hardly need any beautifying due to the glow from the warm, possibly smug, feeling of being such a morally virtuous, healthy person. (Of course, this glow could also be from clenching to keep in the gas from all the beans).
Here are a just a few of the things to look out for in the small print that means you need to throw the offending item in the bin. Even if it cost you £95 in Space NK just last week.
Cosmetics – Shellac (millions of secretions from lac bugs),guanine (fish-scale scrapings that make your eyeshadow glittery), cochineal (crushed bugs), various types of animal hair in your makeup brushes.
Moisturisers – Lanolin (sheep oil extract), glycerin (animal fat – although there are some great plant and vegetable glycerines on the market and it’s more likely your favourite moisturiser will use these), squalene (shark liver oil – sometimes used in deodorants), collagen (all those lovely anti-ageing products that are currently holding up your eye bags might just contain fibrous animal protein unfortunately), beeswax (bees are currently enslaved to us to provide honey and nourishing wax – forbidden for vegans, but you could opt for being a beegan which is basically vegan but with bee-related benefits), N-acetyl glucosamine (a chemical that comes from the outer shells of shellfish, often found in anti-wrinkle creams).
Hair products – Keratin (crushed animal horn, or human skin, hair or nails), stearic acid (derived from pig’s stomach), casein (derived from cow’s milk).
Lip balms – This seemingly innocent product oddly often contains most of the above substances.
Perfumes – Castoreum (a secretion that comes from the anal glands of beavers. Who knew? Luckily, it’s mostly illegal now).
STEP FOUR: So, now that you’re entirely plant-based from top to toe, inside and out, with nothing but cannellini beans to call your own, what do you do for your beauty regime? Here at How To we are not entirely sure but CURSORY RESEARCH SUGGESTS that crushing some rose petals/lavender/grass clippings and steeping them in olive oil/coconut oil and applying to your face and body liberally MIGHT HELP.
If this sounds a bit labour intensive, not to mention slippery, then fear not as all of the Wildsmith Skin range is vegan – with the exception of the cleansing balm, which contains beeswax. Considering how utterly delicious every product is, there is a possibility that your bathroom cabinet will be more enticing than your fridge. Why not explore our range of skin serums and moisturisers designed to not only to help you, but the planet as well.
