Asalaamu Alikum,
We all come to a point in life when we say to ourselves "I need to get it together", "I need to rely on Allah more, in crease in Tawakal Allah", "I need to learn more about my Deen (religion), my prophet", "I need to love myself more", I need to "do me". We may arrive at these points numerous times in life, simultaneously, independently you name it. But in sha Allah we all reach moments of self reflection, where we are able to improve on ourselves. Perhaps the scariest place to be (for me) is in a state where we think he are perfect and infallible, where we think we have no need to improve. In Islam arrogance is a disease of the heart, in fact our prophet Muhmmad said One will not enter Paradise, if one has an atom’s weight of arrogance in his/her heart." May we be protected from that, Ameen.
I have reached a point in my life where I have realized that I have soooo much work to do on myself. I embarked on a journey to get closer to Allah (SWT) and that journey took me to many places. For one, I found the niqab. I had decided to wear it for Ramadan, and fell in love. Much like the way I fell in love with hijab and Islam some 10 odd years ago. Hand in hand with loving Allah is increasing my love for the things that Allah loves. This includes but is not limited to Rasullah and Quran.
This journey also lead me to myself. I know that may sound contradictory and narcissistic, but they affect each other. In fact disobeying Allah and not striving to increase iman, that is the ultimate form of self hate. Not loving yourself enough to protect your soul. As women we tend to give our all to our children, husbands, family and friends. However we often fall short in taking care of ourselves. We need to be sure to take care of ourselves, spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally etc. Somewhere in the middle of these reflections this blog was born.
It was born out of a search for love. Love of Allah and love of self.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Stumbling through Beauty.
Ironically something about starting to wear niqab gave me the desire to wear make-up. Perhaps its because I feel more feminine, or because I now could with out fear of "displaying my beauty", Allahu Aleem. The problem with this is that in my 20 (cough) years of life I never had any interest in make up. This meant I didn't own make up to experiment with, nor did I know where or how to begin. Eventually I decided to approach it how I would anything else. I decided that before I would purchase something it had to pass a few test. The basic screen for me is four part, is it "natural", preferably organic; is it halal (vegan or kosher); is it safe, and lastly is recommended.
In general I am VERY particular on what I put on my skin (and child's skin) and what we ingest. I typically look to see if the ingredients are ones that I can pronounce. Are they words I can recognize or a bunch of cancer causing chemicals. I also try to stick to five ingredients or less, and preferably organic. This goes for my lotions to my bread. I am an stickler for label reading. With that I look to see if the product can in some way be defined as natural. Now keep in mind that the FDA hasn't defined natural, nor do they even review make up. For your convenience I've included links to their page. With that "natural" is very much a marketing tool used at the discretion of the manufacture of the product. So basically do not think whew it says natural it must be! Nope, still do your due diligence and research the product and read the ingredients.
The word "natural" is a starting place, not an ending place for me. Furthermore, as a Muslim "natural" doesn't mean plant based. To bring this point home, I was shopping in a beauty supply store that only sells natural products and stumbled across a natural bristle toothbrush (why did they open up walking distance from me, smh dangerous). Well I almost purchased one for my daughter and I until I had a thought, humm what are the bristles made of. The label didn't say, the cashier of the store was kind enough to call the company and inquire for me. And lo and behold the bristles were made out of bore! Bore aka swine aka khanzir aka haram. Pig being in my mouth, that's a negative. Allhumdullilah, I didn't purchase that. There are some excellent toothbrush choices, but that is outside of the scope of this post so I will write about them another time. (If you can't wait you can get some ideas here, please read not vegetation as not halal aka bore bristles).
This brings us to my next requirement halal. I first look to see if a product is certified halal, if it is hip hip hooray, my work is done. Unfortunately we do not have a plethora of products that are certified halal. Next I see if it is kosher, if it is then check. If that fails, I see if it is vegan or vegetarian. Honestly, I look for all three labels simultaneously and if it has either or it's approved. For me, and item being vegan or vegetarian means no animal product was used, which makes it usable for me. An item being kosher or halal means no pork was used which again makes it acceptable for me.
Now of-course all of this doesn't mean that the product is in fact safe. You may be questioning what I mean by safe. Basically, one of the reasons why I look for natural products is because many of our conventional cosmetics are created with chemicals that are known to be carcinogenic, that is cancer causing chemical poop storms. If you haven't read Not just a pretty face by Stacy Malkan, you must. One day I will link a review here. But in short she talks about how the cosmetics are laced with chemicals that are known to be toxic for humans. And being as our skin absorbs 60 to 100% of the products we put on it, depending on age and body part. So a child's body is more likely to absorb 100 %, as are your underarms and private areas. No matter the percentage, having known carcinogenics in our everyday products should be illegal, but it's not so you have to be aware. One thing that I do to check the safety of a product is use the Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep data base. They have ingenuously created a system for checking the risk of products. People send them in products they review the ingredients and give them a score. What is even more awesome they have created an app. and yes I use it. You simply scan the bar-code of the product and the products score and detailed description of the score appears for you. So not only does it tell you if it is bad for you, but why it is bad for you.
Lastly, I take these recommendations and combine them with recommendations of the lay person. That is I ask around. I may ask friends, family, I may you tube, read blogs etc.; I seek nasheeha. So if a product is natural, halal, safe and sucks, well I'm not buying it. With that said, this is the framework I use to purchase a product. This is also what I will be looking for as a review products for you. I will use a five star system. Natural, halal, safe, and effectiveness will make up the first four stars and my overall like or dislike of the product will be the fifth. I love reading reviews, because they give me a jump off place for purchasing products, in sha Allah you will find the information I post here useful as well.
سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ أَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ
Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.
"How perfect You are O Allaah, and I praise You. I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except You. I seek Your forgiveness and turn to You in repentance"
(Abu Dawud, At-Tirmidhee, Ibn Majah).
In general I am VERY particular on what I put on my skin (and child's skin) and what we ingest. I typically look to see if the ingredients are ones that I can pronounce. Are they words I can recognize or a bunch of cancer causing chemicals. I also try to stick to five ingredients or less, and preferably organic. This goes for my lotions to my bread. I am an stickler for label reading. With that I look to see if the product can in some way be defined as natural. Now keep in mind that the FDA hasn't defined natural, nor do they even review make up. For your convenience I've included links to their page. With that "natural" is very much a marketing tool used at the discretion of the manufacture of the product. So basically do not think whew it says natural it must be! Nope, still do your due diligence and research the product and read the ingredients.
The word "natural" is a starting place, not an ending place for me. Furthermore, as a Muslim "natural" doesn't mean plant based. To bring this point home, I was shopping in a beauty supply store that only sells natural products and stumbled across a natural bristle toothbrush (why did they open up walking distance from me, smh dangerous). Well I almost purchased one for my daughter and I until I had a thought, humm what are the bristles made of. The label didn't say, the cashier of the store was kind enough to call the company and inquire for me. And lo and behold the bristles were made out of bore! Bore aka swine aka khanzir aka haram. Pig being in my mouth, that's a negative. Allhumdullilah, I didn't purchase that. There are some excellent toothbrush choices, but that is outside of the scope of this post so I will write about them another time. (If you can't wait you can get some ideas here, please read not vegetation as not halal aka bore bristles).
This brings us to my next requirement halal. I first look to see if a product is certified halal, if it is hip hip hooray, my work is done. Unfortunately we do not have a plethora of products that are certified halal. Next I see if it is kosher, if it is then check. If that fails, I see if it is vegan or vegetarian. Honestly, I look for all three labels simultaneously and if it has either or it's approved. For me, and item being vegan or vegetarian means no animal product was used, which makes it usable for me. An item being kosher or halal means no pork was used which again makes it acceptable for me.
Now of-course all of this doesn't mean that the product is in fact safe. You may be questioning what I mean by safe. Basically, one of the reasons why I look for natural products is because many of our conventional cosmetics are created with chemicals that are known to be carcinogenic, that is cancer causing chemical poop storms. If you haven't read Not just a pretty face by Stacy Malkan, you must. One day I will link a review here. But in short she talks about how the cosmetics are laced with chemicals that are known to be toxic for humans. And being as our skin absorbs 60 to 100% of the products we put on it, depending on age and body part. So a child's body is more likely to absorb 100 %, as are your underarms and private areas. No matter the percentage, having known carcinogenics in our everyday products should be illegal, but it's not so you have to be aware. One thing that I do to check the safety of a product is use the Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep data base. They have ingenuously created a system for checking the risk of products. People send them in products they review the ingredients and give them a score. What is even more awesome they have created an app. and yes I use it. You simply scan the bar-code of the product and the products score and detailed description of the score appears for you. So not only does it tell you if it is bad for you, but why it is bad for you.
Lastly, I take these recommendations and combine them with recommendations of the lay person. That is I ask around. I may ask friends, family, I may you tube, read blogs etc.; I seek nasheeha. So if a product is natural, halal, safe and sucks, well I'm not buying it. With that said, this is the framework I use to purchase a product. This is also what I will be looking for as a review products for you. I will use a five star system. Natural, halal, safe, and effectiveness will make up the first four stars and my overall like or dislike of the product will be the fifth. I love reading reviews, because they give me a jump off place for purchasing products, in sha Allah you will find the information I post here useful as well.
سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ أَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ
Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.
"How perfect You are O Allaah, and I praise You. I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except You. I seek Your forgiveness and turn to You in repentance"
(Abu Dawud, At-Tirmidhee, Ibn Majah).
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