The Soonsoo Natural Therapy Snow Whitening Cream, All Skin Types - Lightening & Moisturinzing Serum for Facial Care, 50ml

Now that there are more natural beauty products on the market, making the transition is virtually painless. And on top of that, there are plenty of benefits to making the switch. Not only will you worry less about what you're slathering on, but using these formulas can have unseen but very beneficial effects on the world around you.

Mother Nature, am I right? Earthy ingredients used to get a bad rep for not being as effective as their lab-driven counterparts, but that's a misconception. With new, high-tech extraction processes and innovative compounds, potent, plant-based active ingredients are now easy to find in natural beauty products — and they give traditional formulas a run for their money. If you don't believe us, try any fruit-acid peel and tell us if you don't feel a tingle.

The active ingredients in that organic serum have to come from somewhere, right — and more often than not, they're grown on farms. (Surprise!) Increasingly, brands formulate products on their own property, where they plant, nurture, and harvest the ingredients that go into their products — then, eventually, onto your skin. Instead of solely consuming plants via that jojoba seed oil-infused face cream, you're actually supporting plant life (which, as we learned in second grade, is vital for clean air) by driving up the demand for them.

Since most natural ingredients aren't typically whipped up in a test tube, most companies need to get them from somewhere. But unless you want to run out of shea butter forever (#nightmare), sustainability is essential. Sustainability means that the ingredient (or formula, or even the packaging) is produced in a way that doesn't threaten its existence or harm the environment in any way. So sustainable packaging is often recyclable or reusable (think luxe glass bottles), and sustainable ingredients can be grown without having any sort of negative impact on the environment.