When we started this quest to find safe natural alternatives to traditional skin care products we quickly learned just how much mis-information was out there. Most of the so called best skin care companies use the approach and sales gimmick of one “magic” ingredient that will miraculously repair and rejuvenate skin cells into younger smoother skin.  This is so far from the truth.  When you understand what our skin cells are made of, how they function, regenerate, remodel, metabolize oxygen and nutrients, store toxins, etc. it is impossible for one ingredient to magically fix these cellular processes on its own.

So why as a society do we buy into this bull…?   Marketing – television, magazines, and the internet are all plastered with testimonials from supermodels, commercials with famous actors, photoshopped images, and advice from the so called medical experts. We are so convinced that these people have it all figured out that we trust their opinions.  Somehow, we forget that they are getting paid millions to lie to us.

Take Doctors for example… For years we were taught to never question the doctor, they are all wise and know everything. But when you really look deeper you find the truth. Most Doctors just prescribe chemicals to treatment symptoms and not actually treat the cause of a condition. Unfortunately, they apply this same philosophy to skin care.  I will admit that there are chemicals that you can put on your skin to temporarily improve its appearance for a few hours, but nothing that offers real lasting results. And in the long run, many of these chemicals can be very damaging to the skin cells and in effect make your skin worse.

Take acne for example. For years Doctor’s believed that it was caused by bacteria alone. So as Doctor’s do… they prescribed antibiotics, which helped some people but you can’t stay on antibiotics forever, because the bacteria will become stronger and immune to them over time. So, what are you going to do then? take a stronger antibiotic?  Then these same Doctor’s “discovered” that acne was now caused by an over production of oil from the skin cells due to hormones. So again the Doctor’s bright idea… we need to dry out the skin as much as possible.  Well guess how our skin cells responded to this form of treatment. They over-reacted. See…when the skin gets used to being very dry, it actually starts making MORE oil…. in fact making the problem worse.

At Pelle Dolce we look at things from a completely different point of view. If something in the cellular process is out of balance, our skin cells will not functioning properly and cause a problem.  Our approach to healthy skin is to first address skin problems like aging, scars, eczema, acne, dark spots etc. and find out what is causing them.

Then search the globe for the best natural flowers, herbs, oils, vitamins and minerals that have specific medicinal purposes known for helping these conditions. Next we test these ingredients to see how much we much we can safely use in our products to be achieve their maximum medicinal benefits. Then we formulate these ingredients so they will work well together to achieve our desired outcome.  Also, it is vital to our process that we use the proper deliver system to penetrate deep into the skin so these ingredients can be their most effective. This process takes thousands of hours but it is only the true way to achieve lasting healthy results from a skin care product.

When you are thinking of trying a new skin care product, how do you usually judge it ? By its SMELL and FEEL on your skin.  I am sorry ladies but that is wrong. I beg you…Please read the label. Look for ingredients that you know are healthy. You may find some, but the majority of the ingredients will be chemicals with names that you can’t pronounce. Why do most companies use these chemicals? because chemicals are cheap, offer temporary results and give the product longer shelf life.

Look at most Moisturizers. Did you know that most moisturizers don’t actually provide moisture to your skin? They are designed to provide a barrier to help keep moisture from evaporating. The most common of these so called moisturizing agents is Dimethicone. Dimethicone is liquid SILICONE, need I say more. There is no way that covering your largest organ with silicone can be good for it.  Plus, Dimethicone stays on the surface of the skin, which means it is a terrible carrier for nutrients because they will stay on the surface of the skin where they won’t do you any good. Big companies love to use Dimethicone because it is extremely cheap, but most important, it FEELS silky on your skin.

Here is another secret. If you open a jar or bottle of skin care and the product is white… it is full of chemicals. We are led to believe that white is actually good, but when you look at the label just know that all the chemicals are white. Everything in nature… like herbs, oils, flowers, and extracts have color because of their pigments. It is impossible to mix together something that is white and something with pigments and still get white.  Don’t believe me, throw in a red shirt to your white laundry and see what happens.  So how can companies say that they use natural ingredients in their products?  Quite simply they put them in the product in such small pixie dust amounts, they don’t affect the color, but it allows them to list them on the label. But in that small concentration, they won’t do you any good.

Now, let’s talk about shelf life. What gives a product a long shelf life is the preservatives.  Chemical preservatives can give a skin care product 10 years or more of shelf life. But you need to use a combination of them to achieve this.  The problem is that most of these chemicals like parabens, ethylene, butylene and propylene glycols are very toxic to living things, which is how they kill bacteria, viruses and molds.  So, if these chemicals kill living organisms very well, what else do they kill very well…. YOU.   How do we remedy this problem? by only using natural preservatives. We use essential oils, minerals, and fermented fruit extracts that are very effective of keeping bacteria and viruses away.  Our natural preservatives have been tested and retested and give our products a 2-year shelf life. Are products being so popular though…they never need to last that long.

And Finally manufacturing. When we formulate a new product in our lab we use a small 1 gallon mixer.  But when it came to making 100’s of gallons of a certain product, we tried to outsource our manufacturing like the “Big Guys”. Guess what… Most of the biggest skin care companies in the world don’t manufacture their own products.

We have been inside over 50 manufacturing plants all over the united states and watched their processes for making millions of bottles of skin care for all of the popular big companies.  We thought if the Big Guys trust them, we should be able to trust them too… Right?  Wrong.  We tried many different manufacturers for our products and we kept having the same results. Crappy products and lie after lie after lie.

What these manufacturers do is under bid the actual cost of production so they can get the job. Why do they do this? To get you to trust them. See, they will make a few beginning batches of your product at a financial loss, and then on the fourth or fifth batch they start diluting the formula down until they can make back a profit.

Well, we constantly test all of our products, and after this happened to us a third time we said enough is enough. We want our products to be natural, pure, safe and effective, so 10 years ago, we invested over $300,000 on our own manufacturing equipment and we have been making our own products fresh ever since.

Ladies, if you learn one thing from all of this…  it is to do your own research. Read labels. look up ingredients and see their benefits or their dangers. Don’t fall for fake advertising. Supermodels have camera filters and Photoshop.  I hope this information is helpful. Don’t worry… we are looking out for you and your family. Be well.