Embraced by green beauty products, informed food choices and eco-friendly attire, I glided slowly into a vegan wood. It took just a two-week holiday for body and mind to realise that luxury can too be sought in a secret garden. Diving into green awakens my senses and state of mind for a few days closer to nature. If it is true that nature is good for the soul, it is the net with its blogs and communities that helps discover how to approach this alternative way of life, starting with what you apply to your skin…
BE GREEN(ery)
Vegan beauty has its own rules and its teachings abound but if you think it will suffice to be an environmentalist or a Greenpeace activist in the campaign against whaling you’ll be sorely disappointed!
Vegan education in the field of beauty doesn’t joke around! No cosmetics may contain animal products, by-products or derivatives such as honey, beeswax, propolis, Royal Jelly, cochineal, lanolin, squalene or animal keratin. Not even animal based stearic acid, commonly used as a gelling/emulsifying agent, animal based glycerol, placenta or collagen (unless it’s vegetable based but does that even exist?!) are allowed. The list goes on: no milk, cream, whey, lactose, eggs, or silk and elastin proteins are permitted. In order to be 100% certain that these ingredients are not contained in beauty products wouldn’t it be great to become a cosmetologist (if it were easy) and be able to read the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) that are listed on product labels. There are of course, other indications to look out for such as certified Vegan standards indicated by symbols on product packaging. There’s the Vegan sunflower, the international trademark of the Vegan Society, or the V in VeganOK, an Italian certification for Ethical Vegan products. There are of course, many others, dependent on the country of origin – issued by those authorities responsible for verifying that the product in question is truly vegan.
Seeing the wood for the trees however is possible, as each year, the eco-bio friendly market grows, gaining new converts. Going green(ery) isn’t really that difficult, just go all out … be Vegan aware walking the aisles of a supermarket and be true to yourself knowing when to say no should you be confronted with labels on tempting foodstuffs and INCI on beauty products that don’t meet Vegan requirements.
Talking of cosmetics I called in a favour and Bregaglio’s laboratory certified me Vegan Ok from head to foot!
This full immersion between cruelty-free beauty and green products got me thinking…
WHAT IS THERE TO LEARN?
Vegans when not playing God or convinced that they can ‘convert’ our dog, have something to teach us: their planet-hippie philosophy.
Indulge nature so as to fall in with its rhythms and let earth’s energy flow within us. ‘Ask for and give love to the planet’ is a mantra that goes beyond a philosophy of life, at times punitive and restrictive. You need patience – a lot of it when dealing with nature but everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait: mind and body are rewarded with a new harmony, matured in the interim period.
Vegan life, focusing on wellbeing and non-violence is a commendation to slowness and an invitation to take a break and indulge in deeper personal care. It teaches us how to breathe in the urban jungle and to meditate in an era of hyper-connectivity. The sense of wellbeing for a vegan is global as well as multi-sensorial and opens the door to a simpler vision of beauty. Naturalness isn’t tiresome when it allows technologies that make us feel better.
After this two-week period I admit to being half vegan: I’m fully committed to the beauty products as they are so effective and ethical but as for the food (good, but everyday…), clothing and pharmaceuticals that mustn’t be tested on animals, I’ll just have to try harder – no one is perfect.
But to those dear Vegan Women who we already know as lovers of the earth, animals and the seas, I have to say that a healthy hedonism and a small dose of indulgence towards those less rigid and pure in spirit than yourselves would make you irresistibly seductive. I’d like to be a green dreamer too just like you, even if I don’t get it right all the time.
VEGANISM – a history
The father of ‘veganism’ was an Englishman, Donald Watson who coined the term ‘vegan’ taking the first and last letters of the word vegetarian to indicate the beginning and the end of vegetarianism. In fact, faced with a refusal on the part of members of the Vegetarian Society to eliminate dairy and animal derivatives from their newsletters, in 1944 Watson broke away to give life to a Society that fully reflected the alternative choices of ‘non-dairy vegetarians’. This historic event is celebrated with ‘World Vegan Day’ held on November 1st each year. Trends aside, to be vegan means adhering to strict ethical principles based on respect for the life of animals, anti-speciesism and a non-violent vision of life; in practice this means a refusal to purchase, use and consume as far as possible, products (dietary, cosmetic and clothing) which derive from the exploitation or the killing of animals as well as a refusal to organise, participate in, or support any activity that results in the use of animals or their treatment as objects (circuses, festivals exploiting animals, dolphinariums and zoos). Initially those who subscribed to the “Vegan Society” numbered just 25; today there are approximately 5.000 members. In Great Britain alone there are 300 thousand vegans and in just over 60 years at least 4 million people have decided to follow a 100% veggie diet. To explore this type of existence and to experience it in the best way possible, whilst staying up to date isn’t always easy, especially as regards delicate matters such as pharmaceuticals (vegan drugs do exist but there are still very few). Remaining true to oneself and following one’s own beliefs is almost always possible and when it becomes difficult you can always count on an old Buddhist proverb to find peace with your conscience ‘You must always do what you can wherever you are and with whatever you have’.
