When all is said and done, people are willing to go to great lengths in order to look their best. Everyone wants to be as beautiful as possible, for obvious reasons, and we just so happen to live in a time when a vast number of different beauty products are widely available around the world.

But while these beauty products are often effective, and can make us look and feel good, there are reasons to be cautious, too. Many conventional beauty products may, for example, be harmful to us over time in ways we don’t yet fully understand, or they could be bad for the environment.

For those reasons, among others, natural beauty solutions have become increasingly popular in recent times. Here are a few reasons why natural beauty products and practices should be used wherever possible.

You spare yourself potentially harmful side-effects from synthetic chemicals and elements

Many people experience dry lips, and so the lip-balm industry is very big. But there are at least two primary divides in that industry. On one side are the companies who focus on lip balms that are based overwhelmingly or entirely on natural ingredients, such as avocado oil or beeswax, and on the other hand are the products laced with all kinds of synthetic agents.

One of the best arguments for getting rid of chapped lips without chapstick, or at least for using natural lip balms, is that you know what you’re getting, and the results in the long-term are easier to predict. Synthetic lip balms, on the other hand, may cause irritation and damage down the line due to the many varied agents at play.

The same applies more broadly to beauty products in general. On a pretty regular basis, some scientific study will find evidence that a particular food or cosmetic additive may be seriously unhealthy (parabens, anyone?), and the fewer ingredients a product contains — and the closer to nature they are — the easier it is to have a proper idea of what the effects are likely to be over time.

Natural beauty treatments tend to promote a more holistic approach to life overall

Natural beauty products and practices tend to promote a more holistic approach to life overall, in no small part because these practices are often tied to general improvements in health overall, and also because the effects of these interventions are often more subtle and cumulative than some of the more potent artificial cosmetics and pills on the market.

When striving to improve your looks naturally, for example, you may well want to focus on things such as getting enough sleep, staying properly hydrated, eating foods which contain plentiful antioxidants and vitamins and minerals (keeping in mind that various studies suggest that vitamin supplements don’t work nearly as well as food) and so on.

A natural beauty regimen can be a component of, or an entry point to, a more balanced and holistic approach to life overall.

Many natural beauty solutions will also improve your health and wellbeing

There’s a general rule of thumb that we tend to look and feel our best when we’re at our healthiest. For this reason, many natural beauty solutions — including many that have been around for centuries or more — are simultaneously great for improving overall health and wellbeing.

Sleep is a key example, here. The idea of getting more sleep in order to look better is pretty much timeless. Everyone’s familiar with the idea of “getting some beauty sleep”, right?

According to Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist specialising in sleep, sleep is fundamentally linked with pretty much every dimension of good health imaginable, from blood sugar control, to proper maintenance and hydration of the skin.

Likewise, eating an antioxidant-rich diet, and staying properly hydrated, may both play a very significant role in improving the quality and glow of your skin, your overall appearance and mood, and also, your general health and wellbeing.

Natural beauty products may be better for the environment

It is, of course, possible that natural beauty products can be bad for the environment. They may include products such as palm oil which are linked to various environmental issues, and they may be produced in ways that result in various harmful byproducts.

Generally speaking, though, natural beauty products are likely to be better for the environment than those which are heavily processed and full of synthetic ingredients, both in terms of the more intensive processing that synthetic products require, and also in terms of the secondary pollution that is likely to occur from those products contaminating the water supply, soil, etc.