The "WTF" that keeps me going.

The new "WTF" trend on IG got me. It invites us to question so many things that we can't comprehend about modern culture, and in many ways exposes how far we have gone from accepting (and embracing) our true nature. 

Diet culture is back. Young kids look at old pictures and believe they are so far off from their reality that these pictures must be AI generated. Heavily edited pictures of "perfect skin" are sold as natural. And social media portrays a perfect escape: become a millionaire in a year, change your body in 2 months, move to the woods and start living your dream life, join a remote job and move to a place you have only ever imagined in your vacation mood board. 

I myself have started Circular Bodies out of a dream I once saw online: to leave my corporate job and build a life in alignment with my values. But beyond that, there was a WTF that led me to make my own skincare -and this WTF is what gets me out of bed every single day and keeps me going. 

And that is... WTF is natural skincare?

I get daily ads from "natural skincare" brands. My farmers market community often tells me of X,Y or Z natural brands they buy products from. And yet, when I look at these products, I struggle to find any that are actually natural, to my standards.

Unfortunately. the word natural is broadly defined, poorly used, and often misleading. If you look at the ingredients on most given "natural" products you will see. Most of them contain ingredients that are far from existent in nature.

Maybe they came from a plant. Then got dried, powdered, isolated, modified, concentrated, and suddenly we call coconut cocoyl isethionate and sell it as a natural shampoo. Suddenly "natural flavors" are an accepted ingredient in natural food labels for a red berry canned drink. If they were actually natural, wouldn't the labels say "coconut" and "blueberry, raspberry and strawberry"? When did we settle for ingredients that do not carry the names of the actual plants and fruits they supposedly came from? When did we accept to have them called natural? When did we stop caring?

When I ask myself "WTF" is natural, my body's first reaction is: natural is what comes from nature, and can go back to nature and still be recognized. If you harvest coffee, dry it, roast it, ground it, brew it, drink the cup of coffee, and put the grounds back on the soil, they will decompose. You processed the coffee grounds enough to use them for your benefit, but not too much that they become unrecognizable by nature. 

If it can go back to nature, without harming it, it speaks nature's language. It still belongs to the cycle of life nature created and that we are a part of. It is part of what some call the "circular economy", in which we can recirculate what we use back into the Earth without causing harm. Our name actually came from this concept, the idea of being Circular Bodies, bodies existing within the Circularity of the Earth. 

If you take coconut, heavily process it and put it back in the soil as cocoyl isethionate, can you call it coconut? Can you even call it soap or shampoo? Does the earth recognize that ingredient and can decompose it gently without harming soil and water biodiversity? I don't think so, and there is not enough research to guarantee that, yet.  

When our ancestors first made soap they mixed the oils of coconut with the ashes or tree barks. By uniting these two ingredients from the Earth, soap was created. A soap so clean it goes back into the Earth without polluting it. That is what I define as natural, and that is the process from which cold process soaps are made (our soaps are a part of this too! Check Coconut Home Bar and our Body Bars). 

When I go to a "natural skincare" website and the ingredient list says "main ingredients" and it takes me an additional 5 minutes to maybe find the "full ingredient list" I ask myself: why did this brand have to go through the effort of creating two separate ingredient lists, if not to mislead us to think we are buying something natural when their ingredients don't look that.. natural?

So... WTF is natural skincare? WFT is a natural product?

When I use my definition I find myself making my own products from scratch..  because they can't be found out there... and I catch myself waking up every morning committed to continue Circular Bodies. Not because it is "better", fancier, louder or more appealing to customers than other skincare brands. But because it is what is right. To call something natural and actually honor that. And to actually create transparent ingredient labels people can understand and can feel come from nature. 

And the magic? The connection one actually feels from using products that come from the Earth. Because guess what? Our bodies, beyond the conceptualization of the word natural, can understand the language of nature, and actually feel good when experiencing it. 

I don't live in an Instagram dream where I swim in rivers and wake up with the sunrise. Maybe I could. But like many of you... I haven't figured that out yet :) So for now, I live in my city house and shower with my (filtered) shower water. But I use my Body Bar soaps made like our ancestors used to. I use real oils with real plants on my face, and wash my clothes with an ancestral soap recipe from where I was born.

And I know that when I travel to a dreamy natural scape, I can bring and use these products knowing they are biodegradable, and therefore, allow me to honor my body and the Earth. There products are natural to me, because they preserve and sustain life on Earth in a cyclical way. 

I can feel it, and I know you can too. 

WTF is natural to you?