Zadie Smith, British writer, author of the bestselling „White Teeth” has been recently caught in the spotlight because of the „15 minute rule” she established at her home. During the Edinburgh Literary Festival, Smith confessed that her 7-year- old daughter can’t spend more than 15 minutes in front of the mirror.

– „You’re wasting your time. Your brother is not going to waste any time doing this. Every day of his life he will put a shirt on, he’s out the door and he doesn’t give a sh** if you waste an hour and a half doing your makeup.” – she explained her idea. Metaphorical or not, the problem is real – the WHO study shows that 52% of Polish 8-year- olds (sic!) are not happy with their body. Can pulling these girls away from mirrors be the way to improve these statistics?

Among numerous comments made by Smith’s statement, the most indignant fact was that a 7-year-old can do makeup at all. It should be noted, however, that easy access to YouTube and makeup tutorials gaining millions of views cause even the youngest of children to start „the adventure with makeup”, as this YouTuber girl puts it. It is difficult to state with certainty whether Smith spoke about the real rule, or maybe it was a metaphorical approach to the author’s way to raise her daughter – you are beautiful, and you will always be, no matter what they try to tell you on TV.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with doing makeup. Except for extreme cases (vide – 7-year-old who spends more than 15 minutes in front of a mirror a day), this „ritual” has been celebrated for millennia. At the court of Egyptian Pharaoh, Totmes III, women used eye pencils and blush, among others. Makeup is a tool for conscious self-creation that can improve self-confidence and help build relations. Before we can blink, our brain performs a facial or hair density analysis of the newly encountered person, and in a millisecond it evaluates whether we like them or not. It is possible to partially influence this process (if we care). However, if we put makeup into the category of taking caring for yourself, it is difficult to blame someone who finds this pleasant.  No one deprives the boys of the need to use the gym, to shape the muscles or get tattoos, grow beards and take care of them or carefully matching the individual pieces of clothing. We consider it culturally normal; So why do we throw the baby out with the bathwater and stigmatize makeup entirely?

The problem starts when the (increasingly younger) girls use makeup to cope with the pressure to be beautiful. According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization, 52% of Polish 8-year- olds is not satisfied with their body. 61% of 15-year- old Polish women consider themselves too fat (HBSC report). Maybe it has some actual grounds? No way – just 7% of the 15-year- olds have a real problem with being overweight. It’s plausible that trying to ban the mirror after 15 minutes will bring the opposite effect. So it would seem sensible to take a step back and reflect, where the need for this time-consuming process of correcting own appearance comes from. Parent’s role is to reinforce positive self-esteem in child, enough to balance the intrusive marketing message.

Obviously, this issue is complex. In the United States alone, the cosmetic industry generates over 60 billion dollars a year. However, only a small percentage of this amount is spent on marketing – magazine covers, entire magazines, editorials, star interviews, suggestive sponsored articles. The famous cover of two magazines for teens – for boys and girls – which circulated the world last year is all too meaningful in this context:

Anyway, this is no news – this type of content is the norm. During her speech at TEDx, Reshma Saujan, originator of the „Girls can code”, drew attention to the way in which we educate girls. In general, they are taught perfection, while the boys are taught courage (which is perfectly visible on the aforementioned covers). This perfection manifests itself in the obsessive care of one’s own appearance as well as in the accomplishment of the entrusted tasks. In risky situations, adult women abandon their goals – fearing failure. As we all know, only those who never take any action can lose – and this may partly explain the scandalously low percentage of women on supervisory boards or in IT companies.

Maybe the ban in place at Zadie Smith’s home is a bit too aggressive in its expression, but it draws attention to a serious problem – if the time that women devote to improving their looks could be invested in following their dreams and courageous plans, how many glass ceilings would they break?

Interview with Szymon Kaźmierczak, a man who proves that we can create fragrant cosmetics that furiously foam and shine like moon dust using only natural ingredients. This is a preface to introduce you to the Purite brand.

I browsed Purite’s website carefully, because natural cosmetics are something I have recently been choosing more and more willingly for myself. I only wonder if it is possible to create truly natural cosmetics when there is so much chemistry on shelves in drugstores.

It’s nothing new, it’s all about the money. Most cosmetics available in drugstores contain petroleum derivatives and water, i.e. the two cheapest raw materials. The combination of water and oil ensures long shelf life of products, because there is no way something will happen to them. The product is stable, i.e. regardless of the time and manner of storage it doesn’t change its consistency or fragrance, and the individual batches don’t differ from each other. The product has to be safe, predictable and durable due to the content of countless chemical additives. Meanwhile, these ubiquitous chemicals in cosmetics, food and clothes kill us.

However, I, for example, don’t think about this durability. The fact that something can stand on the shelf for a long time doesn’t influence my purchase decision. I just wonder if I should choose the one available online, the one that looks like a pharmacy product or a plastic jar from beauty supply store.

But the customer’s opinion isn’t the most important for producers, the distributor’s opinion is also significant. When cosmetics are created with expiration date of several years, no additional costs arise for both the manufacturer or the distributor. The required storage method is also important. The cosmetic which has the longest shelf life in Purite is soap, which retains its best properties for two years. All other cosmetics that are based on oil have an expiration date which is the same as the oil’s expiration date. Most often it’s one year. Cosmetics based on plant water, very sensitive to the influence of external factors, have a validity period of only six months. In addition, we use special packaging to ensure the best possible durability of our products.

For example, I’ve been using hazelnut oil for some time now and I love the immediate effect it gives – the skin is soft and smells nice. And I don’t think about what will happen with my skin in a while, I like what I feel at the moment.

Our clients are already thinking about how to make the effect they want to achieve last longer than one hour. Apart from anointment and this instant “wow” effect, they want to supply the skin with substances that will ensure that in 10 years they can enjoy young and fresh looking skin. Often, the ingredients responsible for a great start effect for prolonged use have a bad effect on the appearance of the skin. A lot of cosmetics are specially composed in order to provide customers with immediate desirable effect, but in fact they hide a real problem that comes doubled back in time. Luckily, our users are gaining more and more knowledge on skincare, as they did in terms of organic food, for instance. Furthermore, a very popular argan oil, having great reputation, can make our skin dry when used daily. Only proper balancing of ingredients, composing them well, will give the right effect.
We focus on conscious people, who not only appreciate well-thought-out formulas of our cosmetics but also appreciate our recyclable packaging (glass, paper), our zero waste aspiration and therapeutic effects that our ingredients have. We want to start a long lasting relationship with such customers.

It seems to me that despite our awareness in making healthy choices, we’re in need of proper education in this area. We all reject chemicals, check the composition of products, focus on natural choices – that kind of restrictions calm our conscience and we do not delve further.

That’s why there are such long descriptions on our website. We try to explain to customers the mechanism behind every cosmetic. Why does combining one substance with another lead to selected result? Some people say that these descriptions are too long, but we believe they are necessary.

What else grabs your customers’ attention?

I have the impression that the fans of our brand are aware and well-educated. The first thing they do is read the composition of the cosmetics. Of course, they also pay attention to the way our cosmetics present themselves and that’s good, because we try to turn away from the typical economic image.

Your packaging is beautiful! We are a generation that pays a lot of attention to the way a product looks like. We buy with our eyes.

This is thanks to Sebastian Kubiak, who is responsible for the image of our products … Our customers appreciate our aesthetics and we are aware of this. Moreover, our packaging is environmentally friendly. This is very important to us.

Tell us about the therapeutic properties of your cosmetics. How to make a home spa and feel this therapeutic power even when you have only 15 minutes a day for yourself?

The therapeutic power of the ingredients we use, i.e. herbs and ethereal oils, accompanies you throughout the day, you wear them on your skin all day long. The fact, that we spend 3 minutes to put on a cosmetic, doesn’t mean that it works only for 3 minutes. If you apply a nettle to your face, its antibacterial effect won’t be perceptible for just a moment, but the entire therapeutic and nursing process will take much longer. Of course, our cosmetics are not medicinal, but we want them to improve the mood through aromatherapy and stimulation of the skin to counteract possible problems. Plants, herbs and oils we use have the effect of improving mood and condition of the skin.

Do your customers ask you questions like – I need something to give me energy boost every morning. Can you give a specific answer?

Now clients most often ask us what to do with dry skin or thread veins, what to do with irritated baby skin. We get a lot of ordinary questions and we try to find relevant answers. Because skin problems are affecting more and more people. Thoughtful treatment gives great results.
The subject of how to add energy in the morning, eliminate the autumn blues, or simply add yourself courage … that subject still needs exploring … it’s still a bit of a mystery. We hope that by the end of the year we will be able to present everything we’ve come up with.

That’s awesome, because people buy not only packaging, but they look for something specific as well and it’s great that they can find it here.

Our clients buy the knowledge, matter-of-factness and ingredients that actually work.