Jeanne responds to all your frequently asked questions about FIGGI, FIGGI Beauty Skincare and her life!
Jeanne responds to all your frequently asked questions about FIGGI, FIGGI Beauty Skincare and her life!
Key moments in the episode:
00:00 Introduction
01:33 Are the FIGGI skincare products cruelty-free?
04:14 Why is it important that the FIGGI skincare line is essential-oil free?
06:33 Why is it important the FIGGI skincare does not contain fruit or exotic plant extracts?
08:42 Why is there Rooibos in all the FIGGI skincare products and what is it?
11:14 Are FIGGI beauty products vegan?
11:26 Are the FIGGI beauty products free of artificial colourtants?
12:10 Why does the FIGGI Antioxidant Enriched Day Cream not contain SPF?
16:14 Why did Jeanne go from human rights to skincare - how did this happen?
17:08 Are there more FIGGI products in the works?
17:48 Conclusion
Links to episodes mentioned:
Rooibos Skin And Health Superstar with Dr. Mariska Lilly
The Birth of FIGGI - How Jeanne went from human rights to skincare.
Jeanne Retief: Blog | Podcast | Instagram | FIGGI Beauty Shop
[00:00:00.250] - Jeanne
Good morning, Goddess. How are you today? So today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the frequently asked questions I get about the FIGGI Beauty Skincare line and also about FIGGI. If you're interested in all of these frequently asked questions like, are the products cruelty free? Are they free of artificial colorants? Then please stay tuned.
[00:00:22.850] - Intro
Welcome, Goddess, to your sacred space. This is my FIGGI Life podcast, where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI life. And now here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:00:43.870] - Jeanne
So welcome back. And I love it. I love it so much. I've been getting so many beautiful comments from you all asking me things, a lot of things about the FIGGI Beauty Skincare, the Saintsy Soul line that is exactly and specifically for dry and sensitive skin. And I thought that I get some of these questions so much. So it would be so cool if I just did like a little podcast to address all of these so that we're all on the same page and that you can feel comfortable with whatever you want to ask me. If you have more questions like these, then please make sure to send me a comment or an email from the Figgylife.com website and I would be so happy to do another podcast or blog post or Instagram reel on that. So let's jump in, shall we? The first question I probably get the most is, are the FIGGI skincare products cruelty free? The answer is yes, absolutely, they are cruelty free. Not only is the entire product legally shown to be cruelty free, every single ingredient in every product has paperwork to prove that that specific ingredient is also cruelty free.
[00:01:59.500] - Jeanne
So, yeah, you can be rest assured, Goddess, it is cruelty free. So why does it not appear on the packaging? FIGGI Beauty is licensed and registered and also selling in the European Union, and that means that we need to follow the European Union cosmetic regulations. They have recently made a change in their regulations regarding cruelty free, because in the European Union, it's not an option to have your products cruelty free. It's a must. You have to prove your products are cruelty free before you can be legally able to sell them on the European Union market. And with all of this kind of deceptive marketing happening in the beauty industry these days, the EU cosmetic regulator said, okay, hold up, let's just make the playing field fair again, because in the EU, at least, all beauty products and cosmetic products must be cruelty free. So it just doesn't seem fair to create the idea amongst consumers that one product is cruelty free while the other is not. So one product would, for example, have the cruelty free stamp on it and another EU product not. And then it just kind of creates the idea with you, Goddesses, that, oh, this product is cruelty free, while this one isn't.
[00:03:20.440] - Jeanne
And that's not the truth, because legally, before you're able to register this product to sell it, it must be proven to be cruelty free. So just to get rid of that kind of deceptive line of marketing, it's no longer legal or allowed to advertise that your product is cruelty free in the EU, because all products registered to sell and legalize to sell in the EU is cruelty free.
[00:03:48.730] - Intro
The FIGGI Beauty Skincare line is here the best skincare routine for your dry and sensitive skin. FIGGI Sensi-Soul regimen gives you back the power to indulge in skincare luxury without upsetting your skin's delicate balance. Finally, someone created a luxury skincare experience for Goddesses with dry and sensitive skin on sale in the US. Now shop at FIGGI.EU.
[00:04:14.050] - Jeanne
Next question why do I think it's important? And why do I keep saying that FIGGI Beauty Skincare is essential oil free? All the products in the FIGGI skincare line are fragrance free. I'm not fear mongering fragrance at all. Please. If you don't have sensitive skin and you don't have an issue with fragrance, I always say I beg you to smell like a bouquet for the rest of us who are not able to. Unfortunately, as beautiful as fragrance can be for the senses, it is a known irritant for sensitive skin and it does cause a lot of issues for sensitive skin. For my sensitive skin, it's gosh. It's a huge no. I mean, if a product tells me that it's fragrance free and I put it on my face for the first time, I can immediately tell if there is some kind of parfume in there or not because it's instant. For me, my face immediately starts tingling, like uncomfortably tingling or burning. So if it's then fragrance free, why is it so important that it needs to be essential oil free? The Phi Beauty line is specifically for dry and sensitive skin. And unfortunately, a lot of us with sensitive skin have reactions to essential oils.
[00:05:31.750] - Jeanne
And many times when products are fragrance free, essential oils will be used to mask smells or create some kind of sensory element smell sensory element to the product. For me, for example, I know I've had unbelievably bad reactions to lavender tea tree oil and any essential oil with a citrus kind of undertone to it. Now, again, fear mongering no. Are essential oils bad for you? Absolutely not. There are so many studies that prove from various essential oils that have really amazing benefits to you. It's just, again, unfortunately, if you have sensitive skin, you do tend to react to these. And if you really do have sensitive skin and sensitive skin related kind of issues like eczema and roscacea and so on, it's important for you to know what's in your product and it's important for you to know whether it is or is not free of essential oils. Next question. Why do I talk so much about fruit and exotic plant extracts? Are they bad for you? No, they're not. Again, they have absolutely wonderfully, beautiful benefits. Many of them have scientific proof attached to it. But again, if you have sensitive skin, you need to be really careful.
[00:06:53.030] - Jeanne
Why? Fruit extracts many times naturally contain acids, alpha hydroxy acids. AHAs, you probably have read about these or heard about them. Those are the super popular chemical exfoliants that are now on the over-exfoliation nation market. I would say to be careful of acids no matter what skin type you have, just because people just tend to over exfoliate. When you have sensitive skin, though, it's really and dry skin, it's really not that important for you to exfoliate because your skin is flaking off by itself because of the dryness. You exfoliate every single day. When you wash your face, when you rub your face, when you use a washcloth, all of these things are exfoliating actions. So, yeah, you don't need to exfoliate. And then if you're adding things to your products with alpha hydroxy acids in them, that you don't necessarily know which ones they are, is it glycolic acid, is it mandelic acid, is it salicylic acid? All of these which naturally occur in many fruit extracts. It can be something to steer clear of when you have sensitive skin, and that's why I say it. But again, if you don't have sensitive skin and you use products with these fruit extracts in them and you have good results with them, then why fearmonger it's?
[00:08:22.920] - Jeanne
Really just because I am specifically speaking to dry and sensitive skin. The same with exotic plant extracts. They often naturally contain essential oils. And that goes back to the explanation I gave you about the essential oils. Why do I talk so much about Rooibos? Why is it in all of our products and what is it? So I did an entire Deep Dive podcast episode with the absolute expert in scientific research based on Rooibos, Dr. Mariska Lilly, which you can find here on the My FIGGI Life podcast. There's also a plethora of information about what Rooibos is, how it works, what are the scientific benefits on the blog posts on Figgilife.com. And I talk about it a lot on my reels on Instagram at jeanne_figgilife. So I'm not going to kind of for those of you who have listened to those or watch the reels, I'm not going to reiterate and retell the story, please go check those out. But I can say that it is completely unique beauty. It grows in a very small region of South Africa. I am natively South African, so I have great respect for it and the culture and the people that grow it and how it's grown and how it's made and sourced.
[00:09:54.690] - Jeanne
And it's been a big part of my life, like every other South African since the day I was born. Because your first interaction with Rooibos as a South African is when you're a baby and it's in your bottle. So, yeah, you really literally grow up with it. What makes it so unique is that it has a completely unique polyphenol structure that you cannot find in any other plant or species in the world. And what backs that up is the enormity of scientifically based, clinically proven research over years and decades that have been done on the beautiful properties of Rooibos, not only as a brew that you drink that can be cancer preventative or helps prevent cancer proven. That is proven a scientifically proven fact and using it as a topical application in your skincare. So that's the Rooibos thing, and it's in all of our products because our products are based on dry and sensitive skin. And one of the biggest benefits of Rooibos in skincare is its anti-inflammatory properties. So it calms and it soothes, and that's something that you need in buckets and spades if you have sensitive skin.
[00:11:11.010] - Intro
You're listening to the My FIGGI Life podcast.
[00:11:13.890] - Jeanne
Are the FIGGI Beauty products. Vegan. Yep. Yes, they are. All of them are beautifully vegan. That's a short answer. That's like, okay, cool. Are the FIGGI beauty products free of artificial colorants? Yes. A lot of people get confused with this because when they experience a product for the first time, you will see it has, like, a slight apricot kind of u to it, a slight kind of peachy color. And I think that makes people think that there are colorants in the products. But that color you see is the Robos. That's the color of the Robos. And literally in English, it translates to red bush tea. So that's just literally the purity of the royals that you see in the product, and it's not a colorant. Okay, so the biggest question is why does the FIGGI Day cream not contain an SPF? I am an unbelievable big proponent of SPF. Protect. Protect. I am also of the belief that the skincare products we use in our range need to do what they do best and need to be formulated in such a way that they shine in what they need to shine in. That means sunscreen needs to be formulated in a way that not only scientifically is proven to protect you from UVA and UVB, but also in such a type of formulation or consistency that you not only want to wear it, but you want to reapply it.
[00:12:52.440] - Jeanne
Moisturizers, on the other hand, I believe, should be formulated to hydrate, to moisturize, and to boost elements of other products like your sunscreen. So that's the first part. Secondly is most day creams that you find will not have an SPF protection of 50 or more. And honestly, if you're not putting 50 SPF or plus on your face and your body during the day, you're not doing it right. It's not enough. You have to have 50 SPF. And the reason for that is because we don't reapply and many, most of us don't apply it correctly the first time we apply. So there are always these spots and areas on our skin that is not protected from the UVA, UVB rays, even though we do wear a sunscreen. And that's why we need to go towards the higher spectrum of the sunscreens and why we need to use other products like our moisturizers to help our sunscreens along. That's why the FIGGI Day Cream is antioxidant enriched, because antioxidants are very powerful at helping and boosting the efficacy of your sunscreen. Those little spots where you miss the sunscreen, those antioxidants can be the heroes. You need to trap those free radicals in the form of UVA and UVB, disintegrate them so that they are not harmful for your skin.
[00:14:18.710] - Jeanne
Please do not think in any way that an antioxidant is a replacement to a sunscreen or an SPF, because it absolutely is not. But that's why we don't have SPF in the FIGGI Day cream. First of all, your SPF needs to do what your SPF does best and needs to formulate it, be formulated like that. Your moisturizer needs to what your moisturizer does best. And it doesn't help to put an SPF in your moisturizer that's below 50 because it just simply is not enough. Now the next thing comes to more like the nitty gritty, technical chemical part of it, and that's the formulation. It's really important for us to use products, no matter what the product is that we like using, because if we don't like using it, we're not going to use it and it's not going to feel comfortable on our skin. Most of the filters that we use in sunscreens causes the product to be unbelievably sticky and oily. That's why a lot of sunscreens are so oily and sticky. It's the filters that you have to use that create the protection against the UVA and UVB rays. So trying to formulate this beautiful day cream that boosts a sunscreen that feels comfortable on your face, that isn't overly oily, but is hydrating and moisturizing to dry skin.
[00:15:37.270] - Jeanne
And combine that with the chemical filters at a degree of 50 plus and still be what you want it to be in this beautiful formulation is just an entirely different ballgame. And that brings me back to reason number one. A moisturizer needs to shine as a moisturizer, including the formulation, and a sunscreen needs to shine as a sunscreen, including the formulation. And we make this very, very clear on the FIGGI Day Cream, on the instructions we very clearly say, apply in the mornings, follow it up with your sunscreen. Why did I go from human rights to skincare? Like, how did I equate those two with each other? And I've spoken about this so many times, and I think that you can find the answer you seek in the first episode of this podcast, like an introduction to my FIGGI life and how I got here and where I came from. But what I can say is the skincare really is connected in every way to my mental health journey and my panic disorder diagnosis, because it's just such a really big symptom of your anxiety disorder to have sensitive skin and to really, really struggle with that.
[00:16:52.180] - Jeanne
So this was part and parcel of my journey towards better understanding and accepting my diagnosis and having the tools that I need in my daily toolkit to manage the symptoms that come with it. Are there more FIGGI Beauty products in the works? Oh, gosh, this is such a difficult one because I don't want to give away any surprise. But, yes, there are very exciting, beautiful products in the works, but there are also very exciting, beautiful registrations and licensing in the works that I think my sensitive skincare community will absolutely love. And yeah, I'm going to kind of leave you hanging on that one, but, yeah, rest assured, there are some really beautiful babies already in the works. So thank you for listening to this episode of the My FIGGI Life podcast and the frequently asked questions about the FIGGI Beauty skincare line and some questions about me. But if you have any more questions, like I said, be sure to post them on Instagram. You can DM me on Instagram or you can post them in the comments section on figgylife.com. Or you can email me from figgilife.com. So remember, everyone deserves to celebrate the goddess within.
[00:18:16.810] - Intro
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