When I was in college, I began to study food and nutrition. What started as a quest to heal my stubborn and painful acne, landed me in a career where I wanted to help others do the same. My journey began with taking countless courses at UNH, studying the Slow Food Movement in Italy (a highlight!), and working on various organic farms.
I ultimately landed a job in a holistic clinical practice teaching nutrition courses, hosting tours of the local grocery store, working one on one with countless clients. My favorite part of those 9 years was helping to simply the VERY confusing and overwhelming eternal question of “what to eat?”
After years of this work focused mostly around food, Well Beyond the Kitchen was born. You can imagine that 9 years of working with hundreds of patients, my mind expanded, I learned a ton, and I also began to question, are we really just what we eat? Sure, food, it’s important!! But it’s not the end all be all. Being healthy and feeling well is so. much. more. than. food. To name a few, it’s mindset, movement, what we put on our skin.
If you’ve been following my posts for any length of time, I am sure you can tell I am very passionate about cosmetic reform and the whole personal care industry. About 4 years ago, I learned some astonishing statistics thanks to a little mission based company out of Santa Monica. The facts BLEW ME AWAY. How could I, who had spent a decade of her life committed to health and wellness, not know how under regulated these products are that we wear on our skin every single day? That terms like natural, organic, safe, clean and green…are not regulated, and any company can use them on their products, no matter the ingredients.
Some of the facts that blew me away (ps: nothing has changed in the 4 years since I originally learned this):
– The United States has not passed a major federal law to regulate the safety of ingredients used in personal care products since 1938. (Read this again, let it sink in. At the time lead paint was legal, smoking on airplanes was allowed, and a postage stamp cost 3 cents)
– Over the past two decades, the European Union has banned close to 1,400 chemicals in personal care products. The United States? Has banned 30 to date.
– The average woman uses 12 products before she leaves the house in the morning, resulting in exposure to more than185 potentially harmful ingredients.
The more I learn about this industry, the more I want to go to the source and use my voice for change. And so here I am, trying to earn a spot on the bi-annual advocacy trip to Washington DC with Beautycounter. There are 2 spots per state, and I am working hard for one of the two in MA.
What does the trip entail? Three days of lobbying for more laws to protect our health, pushing for a cleaner future for us and the generations to follow. Working towards changing the narrative of the personal care industry.
How can you help? The two consultants from each state with the highest number of points at the end of January and February, will earn the trip. Points are earned from sales and adding voices to our mission (joining me team!). If you’ve been wanting to transition to some safer products that perform incredibly well, now is a great time because it will help me earn the chance to advocate on behalf of you! And if you are already a client of mine, THANK YOU! You are voting with your dollars. Any order in January or February gets me closer to this goal!
If you’ve ever been curious about Beautycounter and the work we are doing, I’d love to chat. Please email me: sara@wellbeyondthekitchen.com. And if you’re not, maybe put a bit of good juju out there for me?!
One last way to help: Text BETTERBEAUTY to 52886 to ask your member of Congress to support better beauty laws. It will auto generate an email for you – it takes 2 minutes and couldn’t be easier!
I believe in what we are doing so much and I want to walk those halls of Congress and show up for #betterbeauty. I want to show my kids that advocating does make a difference. And I want to show myself that I can do the hard things that are so far out of my comfort zone… like this post!
